Normal (Ethereal Discord) (4pt/level)
This Discord crops up mostly in Outcasts and
Renegades, although there is a worrisome correlation between this Discord and
use of the Balseraphic resonance (either subject or target). Essentially, the poor unfortunate acquires
the delusion that supernatural activities, entities and items are rare. Now, this would not be a delusion for a
human - after all, millions of people go through their lives without ever once
encountering an angel, demon or ethereal - but when you happen to be a
supernatural creature, well, that's a different story. The celestial must make a successful
Intelligence roll (at a minus equal to twice the level of the Discord) to
realize that any given activity is supernatural; if failed, the activity is
given a 'plausible' explanation. This
includes such things as noticing disturbance and recognizing artifacts on
sight, incidentally. Attempting to use
one's own powers requires the same roll and penalty: if failed, the celestial
may not try again for CD minutes.
Should the penalty ever be sufficiently high to
lower the TN of the Intelligence roll to below 2 (in other words, make the roll
impossible), then the delusion shifts to Stage II: "the supernatural does
not exist." The celestial will
actively hallucinate away anything that would contradict this delusion. A flaming sword becomes just a regular sword
with Sterno painted on, or maybe a gun.
The Corporeal Song of Shields becomes a dust devil. The Archangel Dominic appearing out of
nowhere with an invisible full symphony orchestra as background music becomes
this weird freak with a robe and a boom-box telling you to pay no attention to
the guy behind the curtain.
This does mean that the Stage II sufferer will
believe him or herself to be nothing more than a regular human, subject to all
human frailties and limitations. They
are often worried sick about their 'delusions' about being angels or demons;
some hide their 'illness' for as long as possible, while others voluntarily
have themselves committed to mental institutions, in the hope of finding a
cure. This is rarely forthcoming:
remember, humans do not usually have a resonance, Attunements or dissonance
conditions, so the celestial will certainly not remember that he or she has
inherent abilities and restrictions - besides, the treatment they'd get in a
mental hospital is precisely the wrong kind.
Reaction penalty: -2 per level, across the board. Nobody's quite sure that the condition isn't contagious.