Contracts of Artifice

Artifice Contracts are the blessings to magically create, repair or destroy physical objects, especially objects made by humans. Wizened who use these Contracts are the source of many legends about helpful Fae craftsmen. Due to these Contracts’ give-and-take nature, they work best when performed for others.

## Brief Glamour of Repair (•)

With neither tools nor spare parts available, the character can still repair any device. More than half of the device must be intact for the character to use this Contract. The repair is almost always temporary. The changeling must perform or help perform the repairs to use this Contract.

* **Cost**: 1 Glamour
* **Dice Pool**: Wyrd + Craft
* **Action**: Instant or Extended
* **Catch**: The Contract must fix an item owned and used by another, which the character has never used. For example, the changeling using this Contract could repair a friend’s car the changeling had ridden in but never driven.

Roll Results

* Dramatic Failure: The Contract damages the device or vehicle further, providing a –3 dice penalty to future repair attempts.
* Failure: The Contract fails to function but does no harm.
* Success: Even lacking tools and parts, the character repairs the device easily, which he can replace with leaves, sticks, bits of wire, tape or objects found in her pockets. In addition, if the repair requires an extended action, the Contract halves the number of total successes required. However, these repairs only last for the next full day. At the end of this time, the device reverts to the same state it was in before the Contract was used.
* Exceptional Success: The repair occurs as an ordinary success, except that the repair is as durable and functional as if performed using the correct parts and tools.

## Touch of the Workman’s Wrath (••)

The character can disable or even seriously damage a device or vehicle with a single touch.

* **Cost**: 2 Glamour
* **Dice Pool**: Larceny + Wyrd
* **Action**: Instant
* **Catch**: The owner of the device either stole or attempted to steal something of value from the changeling or attempted (maybe successfully) to cheat the changeling in a business deal.

Roll Results

* Dramatic Failure: The device is unharmed, but to anyone watching, the character was obviously attempting sabotage.
* Failure: The Contract fails, and the device is unharmed.
* Success: By casually touching the device, the changeling damages it such that it requires minor repairs or adjustments to be used. These repairs require an extended action, with one roll made every minute. The number of successes needed to complete repairs is equal to the number of successes rolled + half of the changeling’s Wyrd score (rounded up).
* Exceptional Success: By casually touching the device for a turn, the changeling damages it such that it requires major repairs to be used. These repairs require an extended action, with one roll made every 10 minutes. The number of successes needed to complete the repairs is equal to the number of successes rolled + the changeling’s Wyrd.

## Blessing of Perfection (•••)

By briefly handling and adjusting a weapon, vehicle or other device, the changeling can bless an object, making it easier to use and more efficient. To use this clause, the changeling must tinker with the item for a few turns. The changeling can use the same Contract to bless any action (including all rolls of an extended action intended to repair, modify or build a device or computer program, treat an illness or injury or create a work of art. This clause can be combined with Brief Glamour of Repair. Using this Contract to help repair a device and blessing the same object requires two separate uses of this clause.

* **Cost**: 3 Glamour, or 3 Glamour + 1 Willpower
* **Dice Pool**: Wits + Wyrd
* **Action**: Extended (one roll per turn, eight successes needed)
* **Catch**: The changeling is blessing or repairing an object used and owned by someone the changeling does not know well, in return for some favour.

Roll Results

* Dramatic Failure: The changeling accidentally curses the device, causing a –1 die penalty to all uses of it for the next full day.
* Failure: The clause fails, leaving the device unaffected.
* Success: The object gains a bonus equal to the changeling’s Wyrd to all die rolls made using it for the next full scene. If the changeling expends one point of Willpower and uses the power of Promise Leaves from the Hedge to further bless the item, this blessing lasts until the sun next rises or sets (whichever comes first). The Willpower and the Promise Leaves must both be used before the roll is made. The changeling can also use this clause to improve how he performs his various crafts. If the changeling uses this clause on an appropriate Crafts, Medicine or Computer action,he can add his Wyrd to all the roll or rolls involved.
* Exceptional Success: If this Contract is used to bless an object, the object gains the listed bonus for all die rolls made using it until the sun next rises or sets (whichever comes first). If the changeling expended one point of Willpower and used Promise Leaves when performing this Contract, the item gains a permanent bonus equal to half of the changeling’s Wyrd (round up). Alternately, if the changeling uses this Contract to bless a Crafts, Medicine or Computer roll action, she automatically adds an additional +2 dice bonus to the roll or rolls involved.

## Unmaker’s Destructive Gaze (••••)

The character stares hard for a moment at a vehicle, weapon or device, causing the object to cease working until the user unjams or restarts it.

* **Cost**: 2 Glamour
* **Dice Pool**: Presence + Wyrd
* **Action**: Instant
* **Catch**: The changeling has an opportunity to touch and examine the object for at least a minute.

Roll Results

* Dramatic Failure: The fickle Contract temporarily improves the device. For a number of turns equal to the changeling’s Wyrd, all attempts to use the device gain a +1 die bonus.
* Failure: The Contract fails, and the device is unharmed.
* Success: When the changeling stares directly at a vehicle, weapon or other device within 20 yards, she causes it to briefly cease working. A car might stall, a gun jam or a computer crash. The user must spend a full turn making a normal repair roll (typically Intelligence + Crafts) with the object to restart, unjam or otherwise get it working again. The number of successes on the changeling’s roll acts as a penalty to the user’s roll. On a failure, he has not succeeded in unjamming the device but may attempt again on the next turn at the same penalty. No specialized skills, tools or spare parts are needed to restart the device. This Contract works equally well on items that have no moving parts, such as knives, which experience minor, easily repairable damage, for example, having their blade to slip from their handle that renders the item useless until repaired.
* Exceptional Success: The changeling’s glance causes the vehicle, weapon or other device to need minor repairs or adjustments before it can be used again. These repairs require 10 successes on an extended action, with one roll being attempted once every minute. Repair rolls suffer the changeling’s successes as a penalty.

## Tatterdemalion’s Workshop (•••••)

Although the powers of the fae do not create anything truly new, they excel at combining existing elements. This clause allows the character to create a complex and useful device out of unlikely parts, for instance, building a hovercraft from a motorcycle engine, an inflatable air mattress and some tubing and heavy gauge wire. The character can create the item swiftly and with unlikely tools and equipment, but in all cases the item must be possible and the parts must physically be able to be used in this manner. Wands that throw bolts of lightning or belts that lift the wearer by means of anti-gravity are impossible, as is building a car without anything that could be used as tires or an engine. Similarly, if the character wants to build a bomb, he must possess something explosive, and if he wants to build a suitcase nuke, he requires a large supply of plutonium.

* **Cost**: 4 Glamour or 4 Glamour + 2 Willpower
* **Dice Pool**: Wyrd + Crafts
* **Action**: Extended (the target number and frequency of rolls are variable)
* **Catch**: The changeling creates the vehicle or device in her own workshop with her own tools. A changeling must use a workshop regularly for it to count as hers.

Roll Results

* Dramatic Failure: ??? but in the attempt he breaks one or more parts so that they cannot be used again.
* Failure: The Contract fails, and the various parts are unaffected.
* Success: The character can create a new device out of vaguely appropriate parts, such as a working ultra-light plane out of a lawn mower or motorcycle engine and some copper pipe and canvas, or a machine pistol out of a nail gun and some other mechanical parts. Creating this item is always an extended action. The character can make one roll every minute when building any small handheld item such as a pistol or a power drill, and every 10 minutes when creating a device as large as a small car, hang glider or ultra-light plane. Devices larger than Size 10 cannot be created using this Contract. The Storyteller sets the number of successes required to create this item, which varies from five to 10, depending upon the complexity of the device and the quality of available materials. This device functions for one scene as well as a normal device of the type being duplicated. If the changeling expends one point of Willpower and uses the power of an item from the Hedge to further bless the item, this blessing works until the next sunrise. At the end of this time, the item falls to pieces, and these pieces are sufficiently worn and tattered to be unusable.
* Exceptional Success: The device functions until the next sunrise. If the changeling also expends one point of Willpower and uses the power of an item from the Hedge to further bless the item, then the item is built sturdily enough to last indefinitely.

1. ↑ Changeling: The Lost Rulebook (p. 134-137)