Anchored Illusions as a Power

Perhaps no ability says "Magic" more than that of illusion. Part of this is because its the type of effect a clever slight of hand artist can pull off. Illusions require clever thinking to use for greatest effect.  They're also one of the broadest pieces of magic. An illusion can do ... well, pretty much anything. Or at least seem to do anything. Make people who aren't there, change faces, build rooms -- the limit is how much you can do at once.

Anchored illusions take time to make and time to dissipate. The illusionist can't make a person that will hold a conversation, but he can disguise a door and it will stay disguised for a long time. The illusions are anchored to objects, and either don't respond to the environment, or their behavior must be painstakingly created.

All abilities use multiplicative modifiers, which I recommend when using powers extensively.

Using the Power:

Most of the magic as powers I've presented so far do not need to maintain consistence modifiers between advantages. Anchored Illusions is different. For best results, abilities should have the same modifiers -- the same durations, senses, and ranges.

Its suggested that when pulling power stunts GM's be willing to substitute time for FP -- perhaps five minutes for a stunt. If interrupted the illusion is left incomplete. This is because the great limitation on anchored illusion is detail -- and time is an adequate substitution for detail.

Using anchored Illusions is somewhere between painting and sculpting. An Illusionist pulls a swath of color out of nothing and then shapes it to be what he needs. Its worth noting that unlike other powers I've covered, Illusion can be used to improve quality of life -- illusionists are quite likely to work as artists.

One of the biggest things that can be done to weaken an illusionist is to make detect magic commonplace. He looses an edge, but still retains a good chunk of his power: Wizards can't be everywhere, and its a long ways from one man detecting an invisible intruder to actually catching him.

The Power:

Anchored Illusions are a standard magical power, which follows the rules of other magic systems in a given campaign. Its power modifier is given here as -10%. 

The Abilities:

Core Abilities

Always purchased together by every anchored illusionist, these three core abilities make an anchored illusionist what he is -- other effects are just useful tricks.

Quick Illusion (Shape Illusion): Illusion (Static -30%, persistent +40%, extended duration x30 +60%, 5 minutes, Anchored Illusion Power-10%) [26]
 The ability to create an illusion out of essentially nothing , Quick Illusion can only create rough images. Things that move are particularly difficult. Spending more time allows the illusionist to make better images and sounds, but even then an illusionist cannot copy a picture that isn't present. Fine precision requires an aim illusion roll.

Detailed Illusion (Shape Illusion): Illusion (persistent +40%, extended duration x30 +30%, 5 minutes, Anchored Illusion Power-10%, Immediate Preparation required 1 minute -30%) [26/5=6]
Always purchased as an alternative ability to quick illusion and with the same modifiers

Illusion Shaping (Shape Illusion): Control (Illusion) [5]
This is the ability to shape Illusions --  illusions that are both your own and those of others. You can use this do destroy, alter, or enhance illusions. This ability is not taken as an alternate ability to Quick Illusion.

Upgrades

Additional Senses: ([+4.6/sense])
Extra Duration:15 minutes [+4.6], 1 hour [+9.2], 2.5 hours [+13.8], 7.5 hours [+17.4], 1 day [23]
Ranged: 10 yards [+7.2], 50 yards [+11.8] 
Upgrading core abilities is done all at once -- If you can work at range with a quick illusion you can work at range with a detailed one. Rolling vs Thaumatology (Anchored Illusion) at -3 per two upgrades (round up) and spending 2 FP or ER for the attempt gives the illusion longer life or extra senses.

Creative Uses

Illusion has many uses, and a lot of them are useful in adventuring. All of these abilities can be used from default. Many possibilities are not listed because they fairly minor and arguably doable with just illusion -- for example,

Invisibility (Shape Illusion): Affliction (Invisibility (Switchable +10%)+440%, Melee C no parry -40%,Anchored Illusion Power-10%) [27]
Silence (Shape Illusion): Affliction (Obscure 10 (sound, stealthy)+ 400%, Melee C no parry-40%, Anchored Illusion Power -10%) [25]
Disguise (Shape Illusion):  Affliction (Elastic Skin +200%, Melee C no parry -40%, anchored illusion power-10%) [15] 
Invisibility, Silence, and Disguise are all effects that can be achieved through clever manipulation of illusion. In all cases the illusionist has to shape the exact illusion. Elastic skin takes 10 seconds as always to shape.
Hinder (Aim Illusion): Affliction (Blindness+50%,Deafness+20%, Overhead +30%, No signature +20%, Anchored Illusion Power -10%, resisted by DX +20%) [22]
Anchors an illusion to the face of the subject. The target gets no dodge roll unless they are watching you closely and know magic, but do get a DX roll when they sense the magic trying to anchor to their head. Combat reflexes gives its bonus. On a success the illusion is unable to anchor to their face.The illusion prevents the target from seeing or hearing the outside word. This can be done with classic blacking of vision and silencing incoming noise, or with flashing rainbow lights and a high pitched beep or white noise. The exact form is a special effect, and can be changed, but cannot send extensive information.
Illusory Cover (Aim Illusion): Obscure 10 (Ranged +40%, extended duration x30 +30%, 5 minutes, anchored Illusion Power -10%) [16]
 This ability must specialize by sense -- only a single sense can be effected at once. Once again, this cover can be thick blackness, absolute silence, flashing colors, or any other simple pattern. This ability is usually upgraded by making the area it covers larger.

Skills

Aim Illusion DX/E: Based on Innate Attack, Aim Illusion is about creating illusions in the precise spot that you want to. Its all about location. Many Illusions find they don't need it -- but those fond of offensive use love it.
Shape Illusion, IQ/A: Based on Artist (illusions), Shape Illusion is the art of making an illusion look real and convincing. It is what people roll against to determine if an illusion is fake. Its also used to pull off power stunts that rely on arranging colors and anchors (such as Illusory Cover or Disguise) rather than effects more tangentially related to illusion (such as invisibility)
Thaumatology (Anchored Illusion) IQ/H: A specialty of Thaumatology, Its can be used to pull off some power stunts -- though shape illusion is also appropriate in many cases. Its also used as a general 'theory' skill about anchored Illusions.
Psychology (Illusions) IQ/A: This is the skill of predicting how people react to illusions, what parts of an illusion they will find most necessary, and what they will disbelieve. It can be used as a complementary skill to shape illusion, or to determine if a given illusion will be effective.

Wrapping Up

This is part of the "as a power" series -- the final of my basic set. Anchored Illusions were designed to work in a setting that features many types of fairly specialized mages who focus on the 'brute force' nature of magic. With Illusions this is something of an irony: illusions are in some ways the opposite of brute force. But they still fit in a 'brute force system'. This is done by focusing on the color and sound of the illusion rather focusing on size or on reproducing creatures. Playing an effective illusionist can be tricky, but it can also be great fun!



It should be noticed that the affliction abilities are cheaper than the base ability they are based on. This is due to multiplicative multipliers. While this concerns me in some ways, its a problem for another time. Have fun fooling others!