Infusion (Art)

Codified and pioneered by the nocker kith, and fundamental to much of their unique craftwork and chimerical science, Infusion is the Art of manipulating and altering Glamour beginning at the most basic level and advancing into the sublime. It allows for the strengthening of chimerical materials, the deliberate generation of otherwise spontaneous and unpredictably occurring craftable substances, and the fabrication of advanced chimerical beings that, in many ways, straddle the line between “useful construct” and “sapient independent being.”

A jealously guarded Art for centuries, the demands of survival during the long years of the Interregnum finally led the nockers to share at least a few of their secrets with other crafters, particularly boggans and Autumn sidhe of House Dougal whose probity was beyond question. Nockers hold any who suggest that an Art might be inherently Seelie or Unseelie in baleful contempt, and so this Art is freely used by members of either Court.

## Unleashing Infusion

The magic of Infusion fully expresses both the wildly frenetic and intensely deliberate creative energy of physical imagination, the explosive process of making something that works. When Unleashed, the air becomes charged, smelling of ozone and tasting of lightning. Glamour arcs from surface to surface, hair-raisingly electric. Chimera spring spontaneously to life, common household appliances gain occasionally high degrees of sentience, and already smart technology gets significantly smarter, with a distinct personality of its own. Even the most fumble-fingered and mechanically inept become capable of unsuspected acts of engineering prowess when in the grip of an Infusion Unleashing. Those who already know what they’re doing with a set of screwdrivers, a circuit board, or a fully equipped chimerical science lab have created unique masterworks permeated with their makers’ genius.

## Infusion Bunks

Infusion bunks are all about the fine art of drafting the world’s most perfect Rube Goldberg machine on a dubiously unused cocktail napkin, scrawling an equation belonging to esoteric branches of mathematics practiced only by theoretical Dreaming physicists across at least three blackboards in a combination of chalk and Sharpie, and screaming at your lab assistant to get you your galvanized induction samophlange — NO NOT THAT GALVANIZED INDUCTION SAMOPHLANGE, THE OTHER ONE.

## Infusion Cantrips

### Harden

Incidental chimera are the slightest of all Dream-things, the products of bored office drones doodling on their legal pads in meetings, of children and their mayfly attention spans on bright summer days at the pool screaming about sharks in the water, or of pre-teens under the covers with a flashlight during a sleepover whispering tales of terror. Delicate as soap bubbles, they drift, mindless scraps of brilliance too flimsy and unformed to amount to anything on their own, but once they’re scooped up by a properly trained specialist, run through a condensation alembic, charged by galvanic aetherium coils, and/or brought up to pressure in a glamourgenic tempering cannister — or all three! — and then decanted, they’re definitely strong enough to be used for better things.

**System:** The realm always used for casting this cantrip is Fae 5 (Dweomer of Glamour).

An Incidental chimera successfully effected by this cantrip can be crafted or forged as if it were a Dreamed chimera. The number of successes rolled determines the duration of the cantrip.

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**Type:** Chimerical

### Toughen

The Kithain are the masters of many strange and wonderful substances: dust harvested from the wings of faerie dragons in the Deep Dreaming, shed skins of the serpents that gather in thousands upon glittering black diamond sands in the Desert of Endless Night, or the ruby-red, unfallen leaves collected from the perpetually autumnal forests that cradle certain mountains in the Kingdom of Northern Ice, just to name a few. Many substances, however, are as delicate as they are wonderful and, in their natural form, are prone to dissolving into uselessness under rough handling or regular wear — unless properly strengthened by the Glamour-tempering processes known to practitioners of this Art. Any chimerical material thus tempered becomes physically durable, resistant to the ravages of both damage and Banality. True masters of Infusion can even extend this tempering to another changeling’s fae mien and their birthright voile, though such masters are few and far between.

**System:** The nature of the chimerical object to be affected determines level of the Fae Realm needed to cast the cantrip.

Any chimerical substance affected by this cantrip gains an additional Health Level per two successes rolled. In addition, all rolls for resisting Banality are reduced in difficulty by one per two successes rolled.

However, a substance can only be so tempered once, including the fae mien. Multiple castings of this cantrip have no additional effect.

**Type:** Chimerical

### Generate

Practitioners of this Art are exquisitely cognizant of the changing nature of technology and the affect this has had over the centuries on the processes of creation. When first codified, this cantrip required access to a forge in order to summon forth a chimerical fire in which to shape, temper, anneal, and harden the materials with which the craftsperson worked. In fact, it may still be used to do so. But as the years wore on, boilers were used to summon forth vaporous steam chimera to power pistons and pulleys and the earliest versions of the self-propelling automated servitors became commonplace in nocker workshops.

More often than not, however, this Art is now used to produce far more exotic substances of an electrical and magnetic nature (commonly called FUBARs, a designation now extended to all such non-sentient chimerical elements), which are most frequently used as the power cells of modern chimerical machinery or in experiments related to the development of said machines. Some whisper that they grant automatons a far greater innate capacity for intelligence than steam ever did, but no empirical evidence exists to support this assertion.

**System:** The Realm Fae 5 (Dweomer of Glamour) must always be used when casting this cantrip.

The caster must first create a containment unit for the FUBAR they seek to summon and capture, rolling Intelligence + Craft, Gremayre, and Science, difficulty 7, and accumulate seven total successes among those rolls to produce a container sufficient for the cantrip’s needs. This container will hold a FUBAR for up to seven months before the caster needs to begin “feeding” it Glamour points to retain “charge,” one point per month thereafter. Failing to do so will cause the FUBAR to lapse into a state of dormancy until infused with a fresh Glamour charge.

The cantrip is then rolled as normal, the number of successes determining the FUBAR’s Glamour rating.

**Type:** Chimerical

### Animate

“Automaton” is the blanket term used to describe the chimero-mechanical servitors frequently found in the workshops and laboratories belonging to the masters of this Art. Nockers, in particular, are prone to creating them, since automatons rarely drive their creators to fits of screaming frustration with their refusal to make anything resembling sense, which gives them a significant leg up on real people.

Like all chimera, automatons vary greatly in size, appearance, and capabilities. Pragmatically, the only constraints on an automaton’s design features are the talents of its maker or makers, the materials to which they have access, and their personal aesthetics. Given the intensely laborious process of creating an automaton, very few chimerical engineers charge into it half-prepared, poorly supplied, or without a clear and definite outcome prepared well in advance. While many, if not most, automatons are obviously utilitarian constructs and mechanical in nature, no small number are deliberately designed to mimic humanity by their lonely but misanthropic makers.

**System:** The Realm Fae 5 (Dweomer of Glamour) must always be used when casting this cantrip.

Automaton creation is a time-consuming and perilous process, requiring the fabrication and assembly of the construct’s chassis, the insertion of a FUBAR containment cell to act as a power source, and the application of the outer shell. This requires two extended rolls, one Intelligence + Gremayre, one Intelligence + Crafts, difficulty 9, 10 successes required in each. A botched cantrip roll means the animation process causes physical damage to the automaton which must be repaired before the roll can be repeated. Three botches mean the crafter must start over again from scratch with brand-new materials.

The resulting automaton is essentially mindless, capable of following simple commands and executing basic tasks but possessed of no true sentience, capacity for mental or emotional development, or personal initiative. Automatons possess a base pool of 50 chimera points to spend on Attributes, Abilities, Glamour, Willpower, Health Levels, and Redes, making them among the most powerful of chimera outside the dream realms and the Deep Dreaming. Most automatons possess ratings in all three Physical attributes and some Mental attributes. No automaton may possess Intelligence at this stage. Many, but not all, automatons entirely lack Social attributes. They tend to possess utilitarian Abilities, robust Glamour and Health Levels, and relatively low Willpower. Automatons may not possess the Dreamform Rede.

**Type:** Chimerical

### IT’S ALLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Not lightly is this cantrip invoked, despite its modern, rather lighthearted name. In many ways, it is the ultimate act of creation, the process by which sentience is infused into a chimerical construct to produce a thinking, intelligent being. Analogous to birthing and raising a child, it is both a heady height of magic that few dare to reach and a heavy responsibility for those who choose to take that risk.

**System:** When granting sentience to an automaton or any other sort of otherwise unintelligent chimera, the Realm Fae 5 (Dweomer of Glamour) must always be used.

If the cantrip roll succeeds, the chimerical engineer must roll Intelligence + Gremayre, difficulty 9, in order to impress the developing being with the pattern of their own sentience, to act as the basis from which greater self-awareness will grow. The number of successes rolled determines the baseline Intelligence of the chimera.

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At the beginning, sentient automatons are typically childlike, friendly, and loyal to their creators, and capable of learning important skills quickly. If a chimerical engineer wishes thereafter to increase their creation’s Mental attributes, they may do so at the cost of chimera points.

If the cantrip roll succeeds but the Intelligence + Gremayre roll fails, no points are allocated to the automaton’s Mental attributes. The automaton is technically sentient but also fundamentally mindless, incapable of learning or developing further, and may actually be less useful than it was before, as its capacity for following its initial “programming” degrades and it becomes increasingly incapable of obeying simple commands or retaining the steps required to execute basic tasks. It will, however, absolutely adore its creator like a large, potentially dangerous, conceivably immortal, and extraordinarily dimwitted dog. Nothing will alter this state, and thereafter, the chimerical engineer must decide if they will care for their creation or extinguish its ill-executed existence

If either the cantrip roll or the Intelligence + Gremayre roll is botched, the automaton is successfully infused with sentience, but in a horrible and twisted form. Mentally unstable and at best antisocial, the automaton manifests the deepest and most damaging personality flaws of its creator taken to a perfectly horrifying extreme, mounted to an artificial body capable of inflicting enormous amounts of harm to everyone and everything around it. The automaton neither cares for nor respects its creator, is frequently actively rebellious against its creator’s wishes or commands, and is hostile to its creator’s closest friends and loved ones. The Storyteller will make a secret Intelligence + Gremayre roll, difficulty 7, and allocate automaton’s Mental attributes accordingly. If the Storyteller rolls no successes, the automaton is a mindless, ravening mechanical monstrosity. The creator of an antisocially rebellious or mindlessly monstrous automaton may have to destroy it for the safety of themselves and their loved ones – if not for the good of the world at large.

**Type:** Chimerical