MATRIZ DE CORRELACIÓN

dialog, but it’s not from any of his plays. And yet, when you recite it to yourself, you can see people applauding in the Globe Theater, almost as if you were there…

Computer

• Graphics Expert (Story Advancement): It’s pos-

sible to make a photo look markedly, but realistically, different through the use of imaging software. This has led to some paranoia about photographs on the Internet; anything that looks remarkable is automatically labeled as “shopped.” The character knows the difference, though. She can immediately recognize a photo as being digitally altered, no matter how subtle the work is. Plot

Hook: The photo is real. The photo is real. The photo is

real. But it can’t be. People don’t look like that.

• No Internet Footprint (Penalty): The character

is extremely difficult to hack or trace online. Subtract the character’s Computer rating from any attempt to research her on the Internet, hack into her systems, or otherwise find her using a computer. Obviously, this Trick is only an advantage for characters who would otherwise have an Internet presence. Plot Hook: No matter what you do, he keeps getting in. He just wants you to know he’s there — he makes purchases with your accounts worth only pennies, leaves messages for you (with your own accounts!) on message boards. Do they form some kind of pattern? And more importantly, how is he doing it? He’d have to be literally looking over your shoulder.

• Scammer (Extra Talent): The Net-savvy folks

might joke about Nigerian conmen who can’t spell “Ni- geria,” but this character can make a tidy sum fooling folks with a computer. It’s not just good for money, either — she can coax sensitive information out of people, including passwords, access codes, and schedules. Add the character’s Computer rating to any Social roll involving online com- munication. Plot Hook: Your scam seems to have worked too well. Whoever this “johnstevenson” person really is, he’s ready to meet with you and hand over some money in exchange for information and objets d’arte that you just don’t have. And he’s getting persistent. And why does he keep claiming that he knows where you live?

• Super Surfer (Story Advancement): The charac-

ter spends a few moments online, and learns a relevant fact about whatever the characters are presently looking into. This “fact” might not be true in the strictest sense, but it definitely takes the characters in a direction that will pay off. Plot Hook: The web page the character finds shuts down. When it reloads a few minutes later, only the relevant information is missing, and it doesn’t seem to be cached anywhere.

• Web Presence (Time Saver or Story Advance- ment): The character can create a composite of a person

based on data found online, whether or not that person

has a web presence per se. The character needs a little bit of data going in (a name and a birth date or birthplace work), and from there can extrapolate other facts — high school, graduation year, college, and career — based on what other people have said about the person in their blogs or other places online. This can take some time, but if the character is willing to put the effort in, he can come up with a few probable assertions about the target. Plot Hook: The character finds three separate obituaries for the target. They all read exactly the same, but they appear in different publications and are each three years apart.

Crafts

• Car Facts (Story Advancement): The character

is a walking automotive encyclopedia. He knows the stats about any given vehicle, how to repair it (whether or not he is physically capable of doing so), and how much it should cost. He also knows how to modify cars and identify where they have smuggling space, meaning he can search a car and immediately know if anything is hidden in it or if it has been modified in any way. Plot

Hook: No way could this gas guzzler have that number

of miles on it, with the original parts, with the condition that it’s in. It’s not possible. The undercarriage, at least, should show more wear and tear, and yet it’s both off- the-line mint and has over 100,000 miles on it.

• Improvised Tools (Story Advancement): While

the character can’t exactly make a computer out of a ce- real box and a car battery, it’s close. She can make tools out of whatever is handy, allowing a one-time equipment bonus equal to her Crafts rating. This assumes that she has something to work with, but even the buttons on her shirt and a spare piece of wire can make the difference. Plot

Hook: Every time you try to assemble something, it just

falls apart in your hands. Your vision blurs when you search for better components, and you see blood under your nails when you go to work. What’s happening here?

• Junk Picker (Extra Talent): The character takes

a trip to a pawn shop or a quick flip through online auction sites and finds junk that someone would pay big money for. The character can make a purchase equal in cost (see Equipment on p. 139 of the World of Darkness

Rulebook) to his Crafts rating once per week, regardless

of whether or not he possesses the Resources Merit. Plot

Hook: You find an object that you estimate is worth a

small fortune, but the owner lets it go for nearly nothing. Try as you might, you can’t find a buyer. And then things start going wrong in your life — is the item cursed?

• Stress Points (Combat): Provided the character

has an appropriate tool (a sledgehammer, for instance), he can break any object in short order. The character ignores an object’s Durability when attempting to break it (see p. 135 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). The charac- ter does not gain this benefit against magical items. Plot

Hook: You tear a book in half at the spine, only to watch

the tears knit back together in seconds. The old couple paid you a hundred bucks to rip a book up. Now you’re starting to understand why they looked so freaked out.

• Weaponsmith (Combat): The character is adept

at turning everyday objects into weapons, or at upgrading existing weapons. If he spends one full day working on a weapon, he can increase the weapon’s damage by his Crafts rating. This includes any penalty for being an improvised weapon. For example, if the character wishes to strengthen and sharpen a broomstick into a formidable implement of death, and he has Crafts 3, the death-broom’s dam- age modifier is +2 after a day of work. This kind of work isn’t free, of course. The character must have access to a workshop with a Resources level at least equal to (Crafts – 1), minimum one. This acts as a cap on how high he can put the damage. In the example of the death-broom, a character with access to a Resources 1 workshop could only increase the damage modifier by two (for a total of +1). Plot Hook: It’s a simple cudgel, an ugly thing, made of wood and decked with metal. It shouldn’t be hard to make it lighter, add a better handle, that sort of thing. But every change you make is undone as soon as you take a break, and the cudgel goes back to looking like it did when you found it out by that rosebush.

Investigation

• Always Investigating (Extra Talent): The char-

acter never turns his instincts off. He is always analyzing everything around him for patterns, evidence, even just simple data. Add the character’s Investigation rating to all Perception rolls (see p. 45 of the World of Darkness

Rulebook). Plot Hook: There is just too much to see in

this room. The wallpaper, the grain of the hardwood floors, the orientation of books on the shelves. Everything has meaning. And now you can’t get it out of your head.

• Incisive Mind (Time Saver or Story Advance- ment): The character glances around a scene and imme-

diately knows everything that it has to offer. At a crime scene, the character can flawlessly recreate the crime based on the evidence at hand. Plot Hook: According to your read of the crime scene, the killer vanished into thin air just after committing the crime. There’s odd condensation on the windowsill, as though the room got suddenly colder or a fog arose… indoors. You can’t figure it out.

• Just a Red Herring (Time Saver): The character

can recognize a false lead when she sees one. It might be an enticing fact about a subject, or it might look as though a broken window is going to lead to some interesting data, but the character knows that it’s the upside-down painting on the wall that’s going to break the case. The Storyteller must provide the player with a lead to follow that will bear fruit (though he is under no obligation to explain how to follow it). Plot Hook: All of your instincts tell you that

the footprints are of no consequence. But how could they not be? Still, they feel like a red herring. Everything in the case feels like a red herring, even the corpse.

• Pattern Expert (Story Advancement): If there’s a

pattern, the character can see it. Provided he has enough data (dates and locations of murders, names of victims, etc.), he’ll figure out what ties a series of events together. Note, of course, that just because all of the victims had 16 letters in their names doesn’t mean that the killer was choosing them based on that fact, but recognizing absurd patterns at least allows the character to weed them out. Plot Hook: These people don’t have any common ground, other than the way they were killed — heads bashed in with a wooden club. Most (but not all) of them also went missing for a short time at some point during their lives, but not at a consistent age or for a consistent length of time. What does it mean?

• Riddle Master (Story Advancement): The

character is adept at lateral thinking and symbolic un- derstanding, making her able to recognize the meaning of riddles and word puzzles almost immediately. The Storyteller is required to provide a number of hints to the player equal to the character’s Investigation rating when the character is faced with such a problem. Plot

Hook: This riddle is about death, you’re sure of it. But

there’s something you’re missing — it almost seems like to understand the riddle, you’ll need a frame of reference. That would mean that whoever wrote the riddle has died, but obviously that’s impossible.

Medicine

• Anatomical Intimidation (Extra Talent): The

character knows exactly where to shoot or stab someone so that he spends the rest of his life eating through a tube. Now, whether he could actually do that is another matter, but he can describe it with blood-curdling detail. Add the character’s Medicine roll to any Social roll in which a medi- cal description or analysis would be helpful. Plot Hook: You hold up the knife and explain how a nick to the carotid artery can make a person bleed out in eight seconds… and she just laughs and stretches out her throat.

• Diagnostic Eye (Time Saver or Story Advance- ment): The character can diagnose non-supernatural ill-

nesses and injuries with a glance and a cursory examination. She draws on years of experience in medicine, as well as her extensive work in staying current in her field, to become a master diagnostician. Plot Hook: The patient suffers from an illness that you’ve never seen. It looks like a parasitic infection, but all your tests come back negative. It gets worse every month on the new moon. And he’s having weird auditory hallucinations — something about howls.

• Lifesaver (Time Saver): “Instant death” is rare.

Certainly, it happens, but ordinarily one has a window of at least a moment before the Reaper’s scythe falls. And

57