If meaning is the vessel through which power flows, then it’s worth keeping out of the hands of the undeserving and the Contagious. Just killing someone is a crude act bearing its own risks; far better to cut the offending source free from the tapestry of communication entirely. Transmission-isolation helps keep those who just want to splash ink over the pages of history, those who want to play arsonist to the modern equivalents of the Library of Alexandria, back from the precipice. It clears the path to discovery of the social and mental debris who would hold the Society back.
Picking at the right threads that run through conversation can reduce it to a tangled stream of nonsense. Poisoning symbols that are the foundation to understand- ing leaves the malefactor’s cries utterly incomprehensible. The oracles point to the Tower of Babel, wielding the meaning of that story as a threat against others. Cross the Society, and be scattered to the winds.
A mummy breaks a tablet of hieroglyphs, shattering their meaning physically and symbolically. A werewolf swallows the tongue of a liar who was Claimed by a spirit of deceit. A changeling skillfully copies everything the victim says the briefest second after they say it, leaving them stumbling over their words at the mimicking echo.
System: The oracle chooses a single target and takes an action that the target can perceive. This may be verbal, visual, or any other form that the target is capable of understanding — uttering a primeval syllable, blotting out a word, brushing a pattern on the skin. If the activation roll is successful, the target is then subjected to the collapse of meaning. For the duration of Babble, they are unable to read. Furthermore, whenever they attempt to speak or communicate, their words are misunderstood by those who hear, see, or read them, either mistaking their intent or simply being reduced to gibberish. Supernatural powers that rely on speech, communication, or symbols have their dice pools capped at the target’s Composure, with failure on their activation rolls automatically be- coming a dramatic failure. Only mages gain leeway in this penalty, with their dice pools capped at two times the target’s Composure. Finally, if the target is infected with a Contagion Condition, they are unable to pass that Condition on or infect others with it via social or verbal contact for the duration of Babble.
By spending an additional Willpower point when activating Babble, the Society member can limit or focus the effects of Babble to a single topic or subject. Rather than affecting the victim all the time, it merely kicks in when they attempt to communicate about that topic, reducing their efforts to nonsense or incomprehensibility for as long as they try to pursue the subject in question.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Requirement: The target must perceive the triggering action
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge vs. Composure + Resolve
Action: Instant Duration: 24 hours
Edges
Changelings, Sin-Eaters: The collapse of understanding can be pushed further by those with the right instincts; the mind peels apart, rendered incapable of communicating fully even within itself. This edge causes the vector to also inflict the Madness Condition (see Chronicles of Darkness p. 289) on the targets. This is a Clarity attack with four dice for changelings; and as a result, they are able to choose not to use this edge when they use this power.
Mummies, Vampires: Through majestic revelation or slithering manipulation, these Receivers can tie a victim in knots of their own making. Upon triggering the vector, a character with this edge can force the victim to speak a specific phrase or statement when they try to communicate, rather than nonsensical gibberish, or can cause the victim’s own guilty subconscious to spew their admissions and fears whenever they open their mouth to speak.
Deviants, Hunters, Beasts, Mages: Muting a messenger isn’t always enough; that messenger’s absence, or the clear evidence of their affliction, can do just as much to tip off the enemy. When the Babble vector is used by a character with this edge, other characters must succeed on a Resolve + Composure roll penalized by the Sworn’s dots in Semiotics to treat the victim’s state as suspicious or a cause to raise alarm.
Prometheans: Even as the Babble vector infects the mind, these Sworn know how to draw the symbolism of the curse into their target’s flesh and blood as well. The victim gains the moderate Sick Tilt (see Chronicles of Darkness p. 286), and their genetic material also becomes unreadable for the vector’s duration.
Demons, Werewolves: The victim won’t be making good use of their voice while afflicted with Babble, so someone else might as well exploit it. For the duration of the vector, a character with this edge can perfectly mimic the voice of the victim.
Specializations
Fairest: Some creatures assume the Lost are as alien of ambition and humor as their former Gentry captors, and in the case of these changelings, they may be correct. When the Fairest use this vector, they make all words emerge from their targets in the form of rhyme or song. Unlike other uses of this vector, the words can still make sense, but they become lyrical. Loyalists of Thule: The Loyalists of Thule have an institutional loathing of knowledge turned to dark purposes, of dark rites fueled by nightmarish sacrifices, and of blasphemous words that should never have been spoken. A Loyalist using the Babble vector can do so as a reflexive action if the target is in the process of using a supernatural power that utilizes words, chanting, or other forms of invocation that require communication.