087 - The Lights of the City

Artifact: The Lights of the City

Power: Significant.

Description: A wall-spanning, high-resolution panorama photograph of a city skyline, taken in the early evening or dead of night and artfully framed. The streets and buildings twinkle and glow under artificial illumination washing out the constellations above. Light pollution means that celestial bodies are invisible to people to people in urban environments. The auguries and astrology of our forebears hidden not just by time and the march of material empiricism but the construction of our own constellations, closer to home.

At least that’s how the typical wankerish spiel given by people who own it goes. Either they’re so deeply entrenched in its effect that they mistake their servitude for power or they’d like you to be so they can get a free lunch.

Effect: The Lights of the City give clues as to what the future holds by pirating the free will of those who submit to it for the advantage of others. Using the artifact takes at least an hour of careful observation for someone who’s well practised at it, if you’re new you could be there all night. Scour the cityscape for little details, let your mind wander and patterns emerge, they’ll guide you towards a system of interpretation. Generally it takes a successful Secrecy roll to get the hang of it but people with supernatural identities or a pile of Unnatural notches tend to get waved through.

The net result of your divination is something resembling a set of instructions (it could be elaborate and precise or as simple as a place and a time to be there) and a floating hunch roll. The hunch roll gets saved until you choose what to do about the information you’ve received. If you go along with it, the roll gets used to your advantage. Even a fumble, that just means it gets applied to someone opposing you. On the other hand if you ignore or oppose it the result of the roll gets used against you.

These instructions are always relevant to an objective. Not yours. If you follow through and reap the reward of the hunch roll then that cabal gets +1d10% towards it due to your actions. Usually you won’t know who or what until you do it, if ever, absent some other magick power. That’s what happens when you follow the light of someone else’s star.

Usually you can get one hunch a week out of the photo. Repeatedly going back to the well just spoils your ability to see new details. Give it a rest and come back with fresh eyes. Or give someone else a turn.