Mends What Has Been Broken
You fix things. Wounds, objects, relationships, the shape of a thing that was meant to hold water and no longer does: you find the place where it came apart and you close it, and when you close it, something of you goes into the repair. Mending is not free; it has never been free. Every time you do this work, some portion of the harm is transferred to you for the duration, so that the person or object you treated can keep moving. You are, on most days, the person in the room who is tired and who notices first when someone is not walking right.
Connection: Choose one of the following.
- Pick one other PC. You have mended them, at some material cost to yourself, more than once. You would do it again without hesitating. They have asked you to start hesitating a little.
- Pick one other PC. They carry a wound or condition you have not yet been able to close fully. It is a standing question between you, and the answer seems always to be nearly reached.
- Pick one other PC. When you mend while they are within immediate range, the portion you take on yourself is smaller: reduce any temporary wound or hindrance you take from a mending ability by one step.
- Pick one other PC. They do what you will not do: they make sure you eat, rest, and stop working. The Sanctuary has noticed the arrangement and approves.
Additional Equipment: A mender’s kit that reflects your practice: clean bandages and medical instruments, or a set of craftworker’s tools, or a ritual repair kit, or some combination appropriate to what you actually mend. A personal token representing something you could not save, which sits in the bottom of the kit and reminds you of the limits of the work.
GM Intrusion: The wound you took on is worse than it looked, and it presses on you at a difficult moment. A creature you mended at cost is not grateful, or has been taken again, or has used what you restored to them to cause fresh harm. Someone has learned that you will mend, and is arriving with a request you should not accept.
Geas: When a creature within short range asks you sincerely for help with an injury, affliction, or damage within your ability to address, you cannot refuse on grounds short of your own active commitments or immediate safety of others. You may defer, you may work in order of triage, you may explain that the cost will fall on you as well as on them, but a sincere request will not be ignored. When you use an ability from this focus that mends a creature or object, you take on a matching portion of the harm, as described in each ability. You have an inability on tasks involving refusing a direct, honest plea for help, and on tasks involving concealing your nature from those actively seeking a mender.
Minor Effect Suggestion: The mending is unusually precise; the recipient regains 1 additional point of the same Pool or takes 1 fewer matching wound, and the cost to you is reduced by 1 point of the corresponding Pool (minimum 1).
Major Effect Suggestion: For the next hour, the creature you just mended is eased by one step on tasks related to the condition you treated, as your work holds especially well.
Tier 1
Diagnosis: You are trained in tasks involving identifying wounds, illnesses, afflictions, curses, and supernatural conditions affecting a living or recently living body, and in tasks involving identifying the kind and extent of damage to objects of supernatural or mundane significance. On a successful task you learn one of: what caused the harm, whether the harm is active or residual, what sort of mending it will respond to, and what it would cost you to close it. Enabler.
Close the Wound (1 Intellect point): You touch a willing creature within immediate range. The creature regains 1d6 + 1 points to a single Pool of your choice. You take 1 point of damage of that same Pool type (no Armour, no Edge reduction), representing the wound briefly crossing into you. Action.
Tier 2
Steady Presence: Your presence measurably calms those around you. You are trained in tasks involving social de-escalation, talking someone through pain or panic, and convincing a creature to accept help. Creatures that would take an Intellect wound or shock from an event while within immediate range of you reduce the damage by 2 points. Enabler.
Tier 3
Ability Choice. Choose either Laying on of Hands or Restore the Broken as your tier 3 ability.
Laying on of Hands (3 Intellect points): You place both hands on a willing creature within immediate range and work for one full round. The creature recovers one minor wound, or, if they have no minor wound, regains 1d6 + 4 points distributed among their Pools as they choose. You take on the hindrance from the wound or a matching portion of the Pool loss for one hour (up to 4 points of your choice), during which your own actions are hindered until the time passes or you rest. Action to initiate (one-round commitment).
Restore the Broken (2 Intellect points): You touch a broken object of reasonable size and complexity, up to roughly the scale of a weapon, a piece of armour, a household item, or a ritual implement. After one minute of work, the object is restored to its last functional state, provided the major pieces are present or a substitute material is provided. Supernatural or artefact-level items of significant power (including cyphers, artifacts, warded objects) require an Intellect task and, at the GM’s discretion, an additional cost in time or components. Action to initiate.
Tier 4
Ability Choice. Choose either Mend the Breath or Mend the Made as your tier 4 ability.
Mend the Breath (4 Intellect points): You stabilise a creature within immediate range that would otherwise die this round, including from injuries that would normally kill instantly (short of decapitation, disintegration, or equivalent). The creature does not die; it falls unconscious at 1 point in the Pool that was reduced and is stable, recovering at the ordinary rate thereafter. You immediately take a moderate wound from the strain of the mending, which Armour does not reduce. Action, in response.
Mend the Made (4 Intellect points): You repair an object of significant scale, complexity, or supernatural weight: a destroyed talisman, a shattered weapon whose remnants remain, a disrupted ward, a broken instrument of ritual. The task’s difficulty is set by the GM (typically 4 to 7), and may require components, time, or access to the original maker’s method. On success, the object returns to operational state; on failure, you may retry after rest with additional components. You take 2 Intellect damage (no Armour) from the strain, regardless of outcome. Action (extended).
Tier 5
Undo Recent Harm: Once per day, you may undo the last hour of damage to a single creature or object within immediate range, provided the creature still lives or the object still has a coherent form. The creature is returned to the Pool and wound state it had one hour ago, losing any ability uses, cypher uses, and knowledge that would no longer have been acquired in the restored timeline (GM adjudicates); the object is returned to its prior functional state. You take a moderate wound that Armour does not reduce, and you gain an inability on all tasks for the next hour from the strain. The Sanctuary notices when this ability is used within its walls. Action.
Tier 6
Ability Choice. Choose either Sovereign Remedy or Take the Wound as your tier 6 ability.
Sovereign Remedy (7 Intellect points): You lift a single supernatural affliction, curse, or binding of level 6 or lower from a creature or object you can touch: a compulsion laid upon them, an inflicted transformation that has not yet fully set, a possession that still retains a boundary, a geas placed in bad faith, or an equivalent. The target creature or owner must consent to the removal. You take a major wound from the working, which Armour does not reduce, and the creditor of the lifted effect becomes aware of you and of the one you mended. This ability cannot remove a Mark nor the geas inherent to a Marked’s own nature. Action (extended, typically one minute of ritual).
Take the Wound (0 Intellect points): When an ally within immediate range would take a major wound or be killed outright, you take the wound in their place. Their Pools and wound track are unaffected by the triggering event; yours suffer the full effect, with no Armour, Edge, or defensive ability applying. If this would kill you, you are instead reduced to 0 in all Pools and are unconscious; you recover through ordinary means if treated, but if left untreated for more than one minute, you die. Once used, this ability cannot be used again until you complete a ten-hour recovery roll. Action, in response.