WAKE UP.

You are about to step through the magic mirror. You’ll leave your previous life behind; take one last look at it and roll 1d20.

Write down your result and put the number 35 next to it. When you try to solve a problem using the skills of your former life, roll 1d100. If you roll lower than the number, you succeed.Your world is bigger now. It’s multiplicative. The secret masters of the world slice it up and divide it, eating it up or folding and hiding those pieces that would bring joy to others. You must discover and unfold the sacred geometries. Pull them from the guts of the secret masters. Use what you find to free your fellow humans from their shackles. Return power to those it has been taken from.Hold a mirror up to the world. Let it recoil. Let it step through. And smash the glass to cut the throats of those who refuse to look.

ABILITIES.

Your character will have a number of skills and abilities gained by rolling on the lifepaths below. They also have a trait called Detachment, which starts at 1. Detachment measures your distance from the people you left behind, and might manifest as cynicism, obsession, anger, stoicism, or any number of other toxic traits. When your Detachment reaches 10, you quit the world and disappear forever.To gain abilities, roll 1d6 and find the resulting school below. Then roll 1d4 to gain an ability from that school. After that, pick a second school and an ability, preferably one that no other player got.If you gain a skill in this process, it starts at 50. If you get a skill you already have, increase it by 5.

1. ESP
1. Hear Thoughts
Gain the Empathy skill. You can choose to hear the surface thoughts of those around you. Normal people have no resistance against this; to hear the thoughts of stranger folk, you might need to succeed on an Empathy roll.Once per mission, you can hear a deep or hidden thought from a being of your choice.2. Remote Viewing
Gain the Perception skill. You can project your five senses across space. You can perceive things within a mile by leaving your body empty and vulnerable. Once per mission, you can go further, but you risk encountering hungry astral beings or weakening your body.3. Plant Thought
Gain the Intimidation skill. Once per mission, you can plant a thought in the mind of someone whose face you can see. They will believe it’s their own and act on it.4. Psychometry
Gain either the History or the Mechanics skill. When you touch an object, you can choose to learn who last touched it along with one of the following:
- how they used it
- how they were feeling and what they were thinking
- their sensory perceptions (sight, sound, etc) at the moment they touched it
- their distance from you now and the direction they’re inOnce per mission, you can touch an object and learn all of the above.2. MAGICK
1. Consume Filth
You can live off of human waste. You never get sick. Once a mission, you can take on a willing person’s bad thoughts. They are healed of them (though future events may cause them to return), and you gain +10 to a skill check of your choice in the remainder of the mission.2. Speak to Animals
You gain the Animal Handling skill. You can speak with animals, but as autonomous beings, they may not always tell you what you want to hear.3. Divination
Gain the Cartomancy skill. At the start of a mission, roll 1d100. Once during a mission, you can replace a roll result with the roll you made. Alternately, use the roll to deal damage and explain how your predictions put your enemy in the wrong place at the right time.4. Wards & Circles
Gain the Symbolism skill. Once per mission, you can choose to reduce a single instance of damage to 0 or keep an enemy from entering and affecting an area roughly 10 feet by 10 feet.3. VIOLENCE
1. Hand-to-Hand
You gain the Martial Arts skill. After landing a blow against an enemy, you can choose one from the following: knock them unconscious, disarm them, throw them, knock them prone, hold them in place. You can use each once per mission2. Guns
You gain the Guns skill. Increase your Detachment by 1. Once per mission, you can automatically hit a person or object you can see with a gunshot. An object is destroyed. A person is killed.3. Explosions
Gain the Demolitions skill. Once per mission, something of your choosing explodes. Explain how you planted the explosives.4. Infiltration
Gain the Stealth skill. You only make noise when you want to. Once per mission, you can place yourself and your allies past or inside a guarded place. Explain how you bypassed security.4. PLEASURE
1. Know Desire
Gain the Empathy skill. Once per mission, learn someone’s deepest desires: one that they believe is attainable and one that they believe is impossible.2. Sex Ritual
Gain the Sex skill. Once per mission, when you have time to get yourself and/or others off, choose one of the following effects:
- change the weather
- attract poltergeist activity
- become a dangerous monster
- agitate local wildlife
- save the faltering career of an unknown artistEveryone involved in the ritual must understand the stakes and give full consent. The more people who enjoy themselves, the more powerful the effect.3. Carouse
Gain the Gourmand skill. After a mission, describe how you prepare a meal or plan an outing that helps you and allies recover. Those who want to participate can reduce their Detachment by one (to a minimum of 1) or heal an extra d10 Health (see the Health section later for more details).4. Pharmacist
Gain the Medicine skill. Once per mission, you can produce four potent doses of a single drug.5. PHILOSOPHICS
1. Signify
Gain the Semantics & Rhetoric skill. Once per mission, you can define what something means to all enemies who can hear you. It will always affect at least one person, but the more your messaging aligns with the symbol, the more it can affect.For instance, an apple can be made to appear dangerous to a room full of Christians as it already represents sin.2. Sideways Approach
Gain the Semantics & Rhetoric skill. Once per mission, name a realistic, commonly understood thing that hasn’t been described by the GM. It exists. For instance, a sewage line might be in place to allow for a new entrance, or a plane and airstrip might exist to allow for an exit.3. Refusal
Gain the Semantics & Rhetoric skill. Once per mission, gain 1 Detachment in order to explain why something the GM has described doesn’t actually exist. It thusly does not exist.4. I Am All Are We
Gain the Empathy skill. Once per mission, gain 1 Detachment to make peace with someone, no matter how diametrically opposed to you they are. Explain how you come to them where they are. They won’t necessarily become allies or friends with you, but they won’t stand in your way. They’ll likely reappear in future missions.6. MACHINES
1. Brain Modem
Gain the Computers skill. You can connect to computers and other digital devices within 100 feet using only your brain. Passwords and other defenses must still be dealt with, but you can do so using your gray matter.2. Smartblood
Gain the Medicine skill. You can download files into your blood. If you take 2 Health damage (see Health, Damage, and Dying later on), you can smear your blood across a machine and run it until the blood dries.3. God in the Machine
Gain the Religion skill. Once a mission, ask a question of a machine. It must answer truthfully and in your best interests.4. Jury Rig
Gain the Mechanics skill. Once per mission, you can completely break a machine or build one from scratch. Both take time, and building a machine requires a backpack full of resources, even if they don’t necessarily match the machine you’re trying to build.

EXPERIENCE.

You might not be new to this life. You can choose one result and roll for up to two additional results on the following tables, each one representing 6-12 months passing since you “awakened.” For each result past the first chosen one, increase your Detachment by 1.When you gain a skill from these tables, it starts at 40. If it’s a skill you already have, instead increase that skill by 5.1. Travel
1. Gain a skill of your choice: Survival, Psychogeography, Driving, Barter, Empathy, Athletics.2. You’ve planted caches everywhere. When you arrive in a new place, tell everyone why you passed through before and what you left here: food and water, identity papers, weapons, fungible goods.3. You can passably speak all major languages.4. You met someone. Roll on the Contacts table below.2. Field Training
1. Gain a skill of your choice: Guns, Hand-to-Hand, Demolitions, Driving, Stealth, Athletics.2. Increase one of your skills by 10.3. Your training never ends. Once per mission, when you can explain how your training prepared you for something and, if you can offer a parable or lesson, you or an ally can reroll.4. You’re still in contact with one of your teachers. Roll on the Contacts table below to figure out who.3. Research
1. Gain a skill of your choice: Psychogeography, Media, History, Medicine, Symbolism, Technology.2. You have a big book that you’re still unlocking the meaning of. Once per mission, if you have time to consult the book and can explain how it’s useful, grant yourself or an ally a +5 skill bonus on their next roll.3. Forbidden knowledge allows you to increase your Detachment by 1 once per mission to treat a roll you or an ally made as a success.4. You know a fellow researcher who can give you an effective skill of 50 in an esoteric area as long as you can speak with them. Roll on the Contacts table below to figure out who they are.4. Double Agent
1. Gain a skill of your choice: Deception, Entomology, Interrogation, Intimidation, Guns, Punishment, Media.2. Your four-dimensional fiction suit allows you to assume and shed identities at will. Once per mission, you can convince someone of who you are, even someone extant and real.3. You can vomit forth a swarm of ghost-tech insects once per mission. They can attack everyone in the area once; eat through something, consuming it completely; or provide cover.4. You’re still in contact with someone on the other side. Roll on the Contacts table below to find out who.

CONTACTS.

In the everyday world, strangers become something more in surprising ways: neighbors, accidents, chance encounters at basement concerts. On the other side of the looking glass, things are exponentially stranger.Contacts exist to put the players directly into the most exciting parts of missions. They exist to circumvent the boring bureaucracies that we normal humans have to endure: looking up addresses, waiting on hold on the phone, digging through dry tomes.They also add some dramatic social interaction to a game otherwise focused on missions. Consider lingering on interactions with contacts and bringing them back repeatedly, allowing players to build on their relationships until you find a way to turn a contact into a mission.To generate a contact, roll once or twice on the tables below, combine the results, choose some descriptors, and answer at least two of the questions provided.The tables are provided to help all the players generate contacts as needed. If someone gets a contact from their experience roll, they can choose options or roll for them. When it comes to contacts, a roll result that feels a little off might signal to the players that it’s time to choose a result that makes more sense.1. Mentor
Someone who taught or led you, whether in an official capacity or in a less structured way. Teacher, rescuer, initiator into mysteries, leader, boss.- Where do they teach? What did they teach you?
- What did they help you recover from? Where did you stay with them?
- What strange wonders did they show you? What was the cost?
- What did they direct you to do? Were you compensated? How?2. Mentee
Someone you’re responsible for and who wants something you have. Student, gopher, homunculus, rough-edged punk with potential.- What do they bring you? What tactics do they use?
- What are they learning from you? How far along is their education?
- What raw skill drew your attention? What attitude stands in the way of their self-actualization?
- How did you find them? Where are they on their path toward the truth?3. Family
For some people, a family is a genetically related group. For others, it’s a crew of dangerous criminal car drivers. Use this flexible definition as you will. Ancestor, descendent, sibling, distant mafia-style relations.- What do they think you do with your life? How do they feel about you being away?
- What childhood dynamics do they preserve? How are things different?
- What are the methods of communication across the web of family? What is expected of you?
- What are the family values? How do they help and hamper you?4. Romance
Love, sex, dating, flirtation, and all its variations and kinks. Ex, paramour, date, spouse, it’s complicated.- How did you meet? How much of your life are they privy to?
- What brought things to an end? What kind of contact do you maintain?
- What do they like about you? What do you like about them?
- How do you talk about them to others? How do they talk about you?5. Correspondent
You communicate regularly across great distances, usually via indirect methods such as writing. Letterhack, message board warrior, recluse, intergalactic or interdimensional alien.- How do their letters reach you? What’s their writing style?
- Are your digital communications in a public forum? Or locked behind a password?
- What made them respond to your first letter? Where are they hiding?
- How do their messages reach you across the dimensional barrier? What do they look like to the uninitiated?6. Coworker
You did the same thing together for a while. When you moved on, they stayed there. Specialist, blue-collar, saboteur, supplier.- What useful industry do they work in? How do they get you the info?
- What is their connection to other everyday workers? How do they rile them into action?
- What enemy workplace are they undercover in? How do they sabotage them?
- What useful supplies can they filch for you? What do you offer in return?7. Competition
They might not necessarily be your enemy, but they certainly aren’t your friend. While your goals align, something keeps you apart. Foil, friends-to-haters arc, too similar, mistake you’re still paying for.- What are the philosophical disagreements that keep up the friction? What’s the fundamental truth you agree on?
- What annoys you about them? What annoys them about you?
- What skills do you share? How do you try to show that you’re better at them?
- How did you wrong them? How have you tried to apologize or show you’ve gotten better?8. Haunting
An immaterial presence with a strong connection to you. Ghost, vibration through time, someone else’s property, curse.- Why did the haunting choose you? How can it affect the world?
- Is it from the past or the future? What are the side effects of its travel through time?
- How did you inherit the haunting? What physical form does it take?
- What did you do to create this feeling of guilt? How do you twist it to your own gain?Names for contacts if you need them: Guthrie, Claremont, Roach, Alan, Rachel, Tiptree, Coagula, Jackie Kennedy, Rudolph, Knife Kid, [email protected], Dhalgren, Anthrax, The Grunch, Cash Daddy, Mother Dearest, Neo, Grant Wishes, Hermes Trismeguesses, Cyberska, Balikbayan, Sir Walter, Banksy