Gifted
Those Who Live Beyond the Veil
The Gifted are not supernaturals in the traditional sense — they're humans with abilities that blur the line between the mundane and the magical. In a city where the Veil separates human and supernatural life, the Gifted navigate both sides at significant personal risk.
There are two types of Gifted in Basilica Purgatory: Sorcerers, who bond themselves to a greater supernatural Source through pact and practice, and Psychics, individuals born with abilities that grow only through self-understanding, never through outside teaching.
Sorcerers
The Mages are gone. The Traditions are dead. Awakened magic — drawn from within the self — is extinct as a practice, and those who possess it are conscripted as batteries for the God-Machine. Sorcerers survived precisely because their magic was never their own: it comes from pacts, components, and structured schools of practice. They're accepted inside the walls because their magic is fixed, visible, and controllable.
| School | Areas of Practice | Flavor |
|---|---|---|
| Artificers | Alchemy, Enchantment, Mana Manipulation | Crafters of magical objects and energy shapers |
| Augurs | Divination, Fortune, Precognition | Readers of fate, time, and probability |
| Druids | Healing, Weather Control, Conjuration | Shapers of the natural and elemental world |
| Ossians | Mediumship, Necromancy, Necronics | Masters of death, the dead, and death-tech |
| Wayfarers | Conveyance, Spirit Awakening, Fascination | Travelers and spirit-walkers |
| Fury Shapers | Hellfire, Shadow Casting, Fascination | Wielders of destructive dark energy |
Psychics
An individual naturally born with a line of abilities that grows only with self-understanding — never learned or gained from outside sources. In Basilica Purgatory this creates an immediate, dangerous problem: the general population mistakes psychic ability for Awakened magic, the one thing that gets a person conscripted as a living battery for the God Machine Guild's Aether Reactors.
| Type | Combines |
|---|---|
| Seer | Precognition and psychometry |
| Empath | Telepathy and mediumship |
| Kinetic | Psychokinesis and element manipulation |
| Phantom | Invisibility and psychic vampirism — the most dangerous type to expose |
| Vitalist | Bio control and psychic healing |
| Beastcaller | Animal communion and command |
The Masking Practice — Required for All Psychics
Every Psychic character must have a masking practice: a Sorcerer-style cover involving props, rituals, or visible components that make their power look like controlled hedge magic rather than Awakened ability. This isn't optional flavor — it's a survival requirement, established at character creation and approved by your Mentor. It must be specific and consistent; a Psychic who improvises differently each scene is a Psychic who gets caught.
Universal Gifted Traits
| Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|
| All Gifted perceive the supernatural world with unusual clarity — never surprised by magic, supernatural beings, or Consensus violations. +1 die on all rolls to detect or identify supernatural activity, always active. | The Gifted register differently to beings with developed supernatural perception. This doesn't reveal specifics — but it marks them as other. In a city where being other has consequences, that's never trivial. |
House Rules
- No Traditions, no Technocracy membership, no Awakening. Sorcerers are hedge magic practitioners only.
- Psychics who are exposed to the general population become hunted — an active in-character consequence, not just background detail.
- Sorcerers are socially accepted inside the Basilica; Psychics are not. Don't blur that distinction publicly.
See also: Character Creation Guide