Carries the Old Names

You know the names. Not the ordinary names, which come and go with the mouths that speak them, but the older ones: the names things were given before they were called what they are now, the names creatures answer to when they cannot choose not to, the names that held a shape before the shape had a face. You carry them the way a scholar carries a library, the way a priest carries an office, the way a creditor carries a ledger. Speaking one is never a neutral act. It reminds the named thing of what it is.

Connection: Choose one of the following.

1. Pick one other PC. You know their old name. You have never spoken it aloud. You do not intend to. They do not know that you know it.
2. Pick one other PC. They have taught you a name from their own tradition. You have not yet understood everything it implies, and you may not for a while.
3. Pick one other PC. When you speak a working name within immediate range of them, they hear the whole name, not just the surface of it, and it affects them the way it affects the named thing at a distance of one step less.
4. Pick one other PC. A name you once spoke saved them, or damned someone close to them, or both. They have not told you which they think it was.

Additional Equipment: A notebook, codex, or keeper’s journal holding the names you have learned so far, in multiple scripts, with annotations. The book is a working implement: while you carry it, tasks involving recalling, pronouncing, or researching names are eased. Without it, you can still use the names you have memorised, but further study is hindered until it is retrieved or rebuilt.

GM Intrusion: A name you spoke reaches someone who should not have heard it. A creature you bound through naming has learned who spoke the name and what you sound like when you do. A name you thought was stable has shifted under you; the creature has been given, or has taken, a new one.

Geas: The names keep a record of their use. You cannot knowingly lie about a name: not your own, not another’s, not the name of a place or working or thing. You may decline to answer, evade, speak in ambiguities, or refuse the question; you cannot look at someone and say a false name and have the working hold its shape. Every time you speak a true name to compel something, the named thing becomes a fraction more aware of you, and old things remember for a long time. You have an inability on tasks involving active deception about identity, and on tasks involving denying that you know a name when a being with authority asks you plainly.

Minor Effect Suggestion: The named thing hesitates for a half-step longer than it meant to, giving you or an ally an asset on your next task against it in the current encounter.

Major Effect Suggestion: Bystanders within earshot do not hear the name at all; only the named thing and its intended witnesses perceive that a naming has taken place, granting you a measure of social cover.

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Tier 1

Tongues of the Old World: You are fluent in several ancient, ritual, or supernatural languages chosen with the GM (examples: liturgical Greek, Enochian, a sorcerous tongue of the Sanctuary’s paradigm, the grammar of binding-inscriptions, the cant of one supernatural faction). You are trained in tasks involving translating, transcribing, or recognising writings in any ritual or supernatural language, and in tasks involving pronunciation of names that must be spoken exactly. Enabler.

Study the Name (1 Intellect point): You may attempt to learn the old name of a specific creature, object, place, or working. The GM sets a difficulty based on how hidden, layered, or protected the name is, typically from 3 for minor creatures to 8 or higher for ancient powers; the task may require appropriate research, contact with the named thing, or access to records. Once learned, you retain the name; most names remain useful, but some names shift if the named thing renegotiates itself. Action (typically extended over time).

Tier 2

Word of Compulsion (3 Intellect points): You speak the old name of a creature within short range whose name you know, together with a single simple command (stop, sit, drop that, leave this place, speak truly for one question). The target must succeed on an Intellect defence task at a difficulty of 3 plus one step per tier above you (or 4 against creatures of your own level). On a failure, it obeys for one round; on a success, it knows what you tried and that you know the name. Against creatures of the Marked that have a geas, ease the task by one step. Action.

Tier 3

Ability Choice. Choose either Glossolalia or Binding Speech as your tier 3 ability.

Glossolalia (2 Intellect points): For ten minutes, you understand and can speak or write any language, ritual tongue, or supernatural cant well enough to converse, read, and be understood. Nuances, poetry, and deeply context-dependent meaning remain beyond the ability. You can also understand the speech of any creature within short range that has language at all. Action to initiate.

Binding Speech: Your supernatural abilities that involve speaking (including Word of Compulsion and equivalent workings) are specialised: the defence task against them is hindered by one additional step, and you may perform them without being heard clearly by non-participants, so long as they do not specifically require volume. Enabler.

Tier 4

Ability Choice. Choose either Name Withheld or Spoken Working as your tier 4 ability.

Name Withheld (4 Intellect points): You speak a creature’s old name and remove it from the memory of one other specific creature you designate, or from a place. For one hour, the target creature cannot be identified, compelled, tracked, or targeted by that name through supernatural means by the affected observer or within the affected place. The target retains all other means of recognition (sight, voice, relationship); only name-based workings and recognitions are suppressed. Action to initiate.

Spoken Working (4 Intellect points): You perform a supernatural working you already know (from type, focus, or Modern Magic genre abilities) as a pure vocal act: no gestures, no implements, no components other than your voice. The ability functions as normal, but the cost in Pool points is reduced by 1 (minimum 1), and the working cannot be countered by effects that disrupt hands, limbs, or foci, only by effects that silence or block the voice. You may do this with any one ability per scene. Enabler, applied to another ability.

Tier 5

Hear the Name: You learn the old name of a creature, object, or place you can see clearly, by listening for it. The process takes one minute of concentration during which you can take no other actions, and it succeeds automatically against targets of your tier or lower. Against higher-tier targets, it requires an Intellect task at a difficulty equal to the target’s tier. Once learned this way, the name is yours and enters your notebook. Powerful named things may notice the listening, at the GM’s discretion. Enabler (extended action).

Tier 6

Ability Choice. Choose either The Unbinding Name or Unnaming Chorus as your tier 6 ability.

The Unbinding Name (5+ Intellect points): You speak the old name of a supernatural effect, binding, ward, or creature within short range. A working of level 1 or lower ends immediately; for each level of Effort applied, you may unmake an effect one level higher. Against a bound, summoned, or magically sustained creature of level 5 or lower whose name you know, the creature is instead dismissed, unsummoned, or ended according to the nature of the binding that held it. Against a creature or effect of higher level, the ability instead inflicts 5 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armour) and ends any lesser effects it was sustaining. Action.

Unnaming Chorus (7 Intellect points): You name a specific named thing, person, creature, or place, and for one hour it forgets its own name in a meaningful and functional sense. It cannot invoke workings that require it to speak or recognise its name, cannot answer to it in a way that binds, and loses access to any ability that depends on its identity being what it is (including any ability whose description hinges on category, lineage, or title; the GM adjudicates specifics). The target is aware that something has been taken from it. Powerful named things may retaliate. Action.