{
"name": "Embitterment",
"type": "ability",
"img": "systems/arm5e/assets/icons/abilities/angry-eyes.svg",
"system": {
"description": "Embitterment is a Major Supernatural Ability that allows the speaker to make a listener hostile to a target of the speaker's choice. This hostility can range from simple antagonism to murder. Through simple conversation, the speaker makes the listener dislike, resent, or hate a person formerly considered a friend. The conversation does not have to be long; a round is time enough for this effect to take place.
To embitter a target, the player states the exact specifications of how the target will act against the intended victim. He then rolls the character's Communication + Embitterment + a stress die and compares it to a variable Ease Factor, which depends on the level of aggression he wishes to instill, and the level of loyalty possessed between the target and the former ally. Since this is a Supernatural Ability, the roll always uses a stress die. The Embitterment power of the Nemthengacha is a Magic power for purposes of determining its interaction with the other realms of power; it seems likely that an Infernal version also exists.
Embitterment Roll: Communication + Embitterment + stress die
Consult the following chart to determine the Ease Factor.
| Ease Factor | Desired Effect |
|---|
| 6 | Turn a man against his neighbor, business partner, or co-worker |
| 9 | Turn a man against his wife, friend, or cousin (distant kin) |
| 12 | Turn a man against his kin (father, brother, and nuclear family) |
| 15 | Turn a man against his lord |
| 18 | Turn a man against his king |
The base effect makes the victim dislike the target, leading to slander, resentment, and a refusal to cooperate with him. Increasing this animosity to hatred adds +3 to the Ease Factor. Victims made to hate the indicated target desire to do some kind of harm to him, but stop short of killing the person. Such a person would destroy someone's fields, ruin a business opportunity, wreck their marriage, or perhaps wound them in a duel. Increasing hatred to loathing adds another +3 to the Ease Factor (+6 in total), and makes the victim try to slay the intended target. For example, the Ease Factor is 18 to embitter a man to commit patricide (base 12 + 6), and 24 to commit regicide (base 18 + 6).
The Range of embitterment is Voice and the Target is always Individual. The Duration is Sun, although this can be increased to Moon by increasing Ease Factor by +3. Because embitterment acts through conversation, the caster must speak a language that the target comprehends.
A character so embittered cannot disobey the command. He is not allowed a Loyalty roll to see if he can ignore the emotional summons, or other quibbling based on the character's Personality Traits. Hermetic magic can cancel the embitterment with a Perdo Vim spell. Rego Mentem magic can replace the feelings of animosity with feelings of loyalty or compassion, Creo Mentem can create feelings of loyalty that supersede the effect, and Perdo Mentem could erase the feelings of animosity. To determine how powerful a Hermetic spell needs to be, consider the effective level of the embitterment to be equal to the Nemthenga's score in Embitterment times five.