Triptychs of Terror, pt.1 - Enwildened Gods of Gaia

 

Eshkorezh 

Reaper of the Crimson Harvest, Herald of the New Spring

When Malkuth forged Elysium and implemented the Sentinels in order to contain the imprisoned humans, she also made them wards against the likes of Eshkorezh. Trapped in the borderlands of Gaia ever since, he has sought entrance into our reality for millennia.

Only recently, no longer staid by the waning powers of the Glass Ziggurat, he has found the first hidden rifts. Winding pathways, narrow canyons, and parched mining pits grant him access. He is drawn to approach human settlements, and always reveals himself to their dwellers as soon as possible. At first he appears as a distant silhouette against the evening sky, then he thunderously whispers to them in their dreams, and finally he makes the beasts of the field bleat and bray his name. Only then does he ultimately emerge in person from the oddly purplish fog that has risen to envelop the entire village.

The sacrifices he demands are horrifying to even contemplate, but those who give them willingly are permitted to form cults and start worshipping the primal deity. Those who do not, he promises to reap in crimson and screams. His faithful then water the ground with the tears of orphans left in the wake of his harvest, as he tells them it is to make winter depart and allow a new spring to arise.

Few of them realize, however, that on Eshkorezh's original homeworld, "spring" entailed such terrifying sights as gigantic barbed tentacles bursting from the ground and ravaging the landscape to make compost for the growth of their future pollen. Swarms of savage ferocci awakening from hibernation, famished and ravenous for fresh prey after the stale darkness of their caves. The purple sky crying fiery rain unto the hills wreathed in sulphurous acidic fog.

Eshkorezh seeks to restitute the glory of these events. They are some of the precious few memories he has managed to retain from his previous existence as one of that world's inner circle of elite hierophants. His world, as well as his entire race, is now forever lost of course. But he can yet indulge in nostalgic reenactment - and he is determined to do it to his fullest ability.

What the god wants:

Spread the word of the Crimson Harvest and the New Spring (the crops will not believe it, but they must be told). Trap a group of adults outside in bad weather. Save a child from catastrophe (but only the child). Plant the alien seeds he gives you in an acre that hasn't borne fruit in three years. Steal something valuable and leave traces that lead into the wilderness. Sabotage a dam or clog a major drain pipe or inundation canal. Set a church, a barn, or a gas station on fire. Bring an orphan to the woods and abandon it there. Kill a cave bear at new moon and live in its den, eating only its carcass and the vermin it attracts, until the moon is new again. Collapse a highway bridge (or tunnel), killing at least seven people in the process. Give Eshkorezh your most recently born child.

What the god offers:

Your crops shall be plentiful. Your cattle shall breed strong and numerous. Curse someone with infertility. Slay or beset with plague all the animals of a farmstead. Cause a fog to rise that makes a traveller become lost and never return. Send a ferocco after someone you hate. Make a river or well dry up or become poisonous. Summon a thunderstorm that sends everyone in a village or small town running to hide in their dwellings. Summon rainfalls to cause high water destroying the fields and gardens. Tear up the earth in large jagged cracks, to topple their towers and rend apart their roads.

Yllu'chandra

Creeper of the Mawed Peaks, The Shrieks That Echo from the Caves

Originally an azghoul who managed to escape Metropolis some time after the Fall of Humankind, Yllu'chandra has been distorted and changed by her extended exile in Gaia. Already a mangled and tortured creature under the Reign of Humanity, the corrupting influence of the Hungering Wilderness has further transformed her body and mind - in ways that have made her both more powerful and more ruined.

[You can use the stats for an azghoul as a basis to represent her, adding the modifications described below.]

Her armor-parasite, already irreversibly wedded to her flesh by the unholy ritual sciences of Awakened Mankind, has fully melded with her body in the most grotesque and disgusting ways. Pustules and running sores disfigure both her exposed skin and the metal and ceramic plates covering it. 

Some of her limbs have become fully biomechanical, the artificial parts of her having attained an unnatural sort of life of their own even as her organic parts fell to rot and mutation. Her helmet's face mask has become her face, repulsively animated and twisted into viciously feral features. 

Ragged shreds of what may have once been flowing robes worn over her armor are now impossible to tell whether they are half-decayed wings, tattered remnants of cloth, or frayed organic tentacles. They behave like a mixture of all of those. 

[Her horrid sight makes anyone Keep it Together, unless prepared or extremely desensitized. On a fail you are overcome with fear and disgust and must get away from the miserable and horrifying creature as fast as possible.]

The rust-encrusted sword she carries has been changed by Gaia as well. It constantly snaps and gnashes its teeth, beset by a hungry will of its own. She originally took it from one of her former human masters, though even she herself has long forgotten about this. Underneath the corrosion and filth and gore that cover it, the weapon is still adorned with ancient engravings. These can reveal secrets of Metropolis and the Reign of Humankind, to those who know to read them.

[Upon seeing the sword, you are able to briefly See Through the Illusion. Depending on your roll, you may sense more or less clearly that this object is intrinsically linked to power... in fact it even feels linked to your own Innate Divine Power. Taking possession of it promises great insights and mystic abilities!]

[Owning the sword conveys a +1 raise to the wielder's Soul Attribute. Every time you slay an opponent with it, you gain an insight into that creature's True Self, and may mark 1 experience to reflect this. You also become aware of the runes engraved underneath its crust, and that uncovering and deciphering them will be a prolonged quest unto enlightenment all of its own.]

Yllu'chandra can only be encountered in the rugged mountainous ranges of Gaia. She makes her dwelling in a region dominated by stony spikes that grow from the bedrock like large jagged barbs. Every cave entrance looks like a fanged maw, every rocky ridge like the spiked back of a petrified dinosaur or fossilized dragon. Odd, vaguely geometrical formations dot this bizarre landscape of barren peaks and cracked canyons, reminiscent of towers and castles, but almost unrecognizably encrusted with soot and stone - as if gigantic stalagmites had dripped liquefied dust onto them for millennia. But of course, there is nothing to be seen above them except the angry, surreal Gaian skies.

The deterioration of her mind has made her both more and less divine. She has become instinct-driven, almost feral. Depraved and insane from her long solitude in the Eternal Wilderness.

From high atop the rocks and from deep within the caves, she shrieks. When she doesn't hunt, feed, or sleep, she spends her time muttering to herself, softly rocking back and forth, or agitatedly prowls her territory, paranoid against invisible enemies.

Closing in on her den, rotten corpses can be seen impaled on jagged barbs of stone. She puts her captured prey there, to wait until they are decayed enough for her to feed upon their delicious rot.

But in the depths of her insanity, she has also rediscovered fragments of her own lost divinity. For one thing, Yllu'chandra has reclaimed a measure of unfettered freedom normally impossible for her species.

[Her Former Servant weakness has decayed over the millennia. Compelling her by using her True Name (which to find out about in the first place is another quest all of its own) only works if you also succeed at a roll +Charisma to Influence her.]

Additionally, she remembers certain glimpses of her former human god-masters' glories and wisdoms - and has learned to use them to her own advantage. She can use (and teach, if she feels inclined to) a screeching, atonal song that magically drives off many of the (comparatively) minor beasts of prey that prowl the mountains and caves of Gaia at night.

[When you scream the feral song of magnificent terror at the top of your lungs to intimidate a savage beast, roll +Soul. Treat the result as if the PC had used the Divine Advantage, but the only orders you can give the beast are to go away and/or leave you alone.]

Finally, like all azghouls, Yllu'chandra has the ability to see into someone's soul, and recognize the true nature of any being in heer presence. She can even see all the way back into a person's past lives. Building further upon this ability - in a way known only to herself - she has developed the unique metaphysical power to establish a sensory feedback loop with any victim she can hold in her grasp undisturbed for a short while.

[When she has you fixated and stares into your soul all the way back to before you were even born, roll to Keep it Together. On a fail, you gain the Haunted Disadvantage, and what haunts you are disturbing and tormenting visions from one or more previous lives. Holds from this Disadvantage can be used by the GM to distract you from something important, make you act out as you mistake the visions for reality, inflict Stability loss, or reveal cryptic hints at ancient secrets you used to know.]

There are precious few in Elysium today who know about Yllu'chandra's existence. A careful researcher might uncover some obscure nordic legends that reference her 'Curse of Mad Sights', and have her penned as a vengeful, cave-dwelling, trollish mountain hag. From the right versions of this legend, a scholar of the occult may puzzle together the pieces of a warding ritual that will protect one from this curse.

There is also an ancient Chinese ballad that tells the story of a formerly servile spirit who fled its masters to take refuge in the mountains. It describes her struggle to become autonomous of the commands of her former master (a powerful wizard), and how she learned to exert dominance over the primitive predators native to her new home. Notably, the song lists a number of favorite foods that she used to love, but cannot get in her new environment (such as fish, plums, and goose eggs), and implies that she will be friendly to travellers who bring those along and offer them up to her.

What truth there is to any of these findings? Nobody knows with any certainty.

You'd have to go there and try it out, yourselves. 

But why would you ever want to do that?

Saarkyn

Forlorn Father of Vultures, Ravager of Temples

Formerly the Supreme Warmaster General of a sentient avian race who had conquered several worlds with their cybernetically enhanced airborne shock troops and powerful invocation magic, Saarkyn finally faced defeat for the first time when a handful of humans noticed his exploits - and decided that they wanted that corner of spacetime to themselves instead. The avian empire's cruel demise at the hand of the humans' divine might was inevitable right from the very first 'battle'... although slaughter would be a better term for it.

Unlike most of his species, he was not recklessly murdered during the final devastating assault on his homeworld. Instead the human conquerors decided to capture him alive, to be paraded before their peers back home in Metropolis. They thought him amusing and deigned to humiliate and torment him for a long time to come. He was mutilated and mocked, his cybernetic implants ripped out of his body and his magic torn from his soul, in an extended public orgy of sadistic abuse.

The secrets and powers we stole from him were unusual enough to intrigue us, however - so before we ultimately dispatched of him, we forced him to create something for us. In a spiritual rape of Saarkyn's very soul essence, he was made to breed for us a new race of biomechanical servant creatures: The erinye, designed to act as scouts, messengers, guards, hunting companions, and playthings in our manifold divine pursuits, and genetically enchanted to obey our every whim.

After this was complete we tossed him, wretched and broken, somewhere into the Wilderness of Gaia. However, even we could not ultimately break his divine soul. Perhaps due to his indomitable warrior spirit, he refused to perish even as his mind became twisted and shattered by hatred and pain. He survived in the Wilderness. His body has healed, albeit in grotesque mockery of his former mganificence, and his vengeful thoughts have turned against humankind once more.

His broken mind remembers what we made him do, and parts of how to do it. So he bred new species of scavenger birds, and managed to sneak at least one of them into Elyisum under the watchful eyes of the Sentinels. Watching from the borderlands, but normally unable to enter the Illusion himself, he controls his vultures from afar as they terrify us while alive and devour us when deceased. He takes a perverse pleasure in watching weakened former godlings crawl their final agonizing yards over barren ground before succumbing to thirst, starvation, exposure, or mortal wounds.

He hates us with a burning passion, but in his agonized insanity mistakes the fake gods the Archons have created to keep us blinded and distracted, for the True Gods we used to be. He cannot understand how we can at the same time be so weak as we are these days, and yet be the same creatures who have defeated and ruined him at the peak of his own power. 

One thing is clear to him, however, and he is utterly fixated on that one thought: It was the gods of mankind who did this to him! So he takes out his hatred on symbols, locations, and people associated with faith and organized religion. Regardless whether it is a synagogue, shrine, church, mosque, or temple - whenever a place of worship burns, collapses, or is flooded, and when everyone inside of it dies and the vultures circle above the corpses of the faithful... that is when Saarkyn can enter our world, to rejoice in the death and destruction.

He has formed numerous cults over the centuries. Most of them are very small, but his followers - recruited from atheists, nihilists, progressive liberals, victims of abuse at the hands of religion, and other adherents and sympathizers of anti-theistic ideologies - are often fanatically loyal to his cause. Usually taking the form of mystery cults underneath a thin veneer of rationalist philosophic thoughts, these groups have had numerous confrontations with the servants of Chokmah all over the world. Many of Saarkyn's followers have been destroyed in these conflicts, but many more remain. 

Some scholars even theorize that these cults may have played a not inconsiderable part in the near-destruction of Chokmah during the 20th Century. Others claim this idea laughable, but oddly do not dare to laugh too loud.

What the god wants:

Make someone renounce their faith. Deface a religious symbol or monument. Prevent a whole congregation from gathering for worship. Access codes to a cutting-edge cybernetic research facility. A sacred building set on fire. Crates of automatic weapons and explosives delivered to one of its cults. Open a gateway to Metropolis.

What the god offers:

To fortify your mind against deception and guile. The ability to look through the eyes of the birds above. Behold a creature's True Nature. Teach a ritual that commands swarms of scavengers and vermin. The ability to intimidate your enemy with cries of wrath and retribution. A vial of mutagenic serum that swiftly heals even the gravest injuries (but repeated/prolonged use of it will make you grow ragged wings and vicious claws). Summon a small flock of erinye to tear apart your enemy.

Image credits:

The Hellhound, by Abe Taraky

Crouched Knight, by Marcelo Orsi Blanco

Ipos, by Kurt Wandelmaier

GM cheat sheet: Disadvantages

 

Greetings, fellow GMs. 

Today I bring you a gaming aid I have developed in response to an often-seen question:

How on earth do we keep track of all the Disadvantages, their triggers, effects, and - perhaps most importantly - the Holds they garner?

It's not only new and inexperienced GMs who can sometimes struggle with this. It can be a bit overwhelming even to those of us who have been running games for years or even decades.

Disadvantages are a very important, even essential, part of the Kult: Divinity Lost game engine. Therefore, it stands to reason that they employ a somewhat more involved system to represent them. 

But, I decided, that there must be some way to handle them more sleekly during our games!

So I dug out my various back-of-an-envelope, improvised notes for that sort of stuff that I had made during various of my K:DL games, studied them for patterns, and crystallized my findings into this:

 

As you can see, there is actually just a rather small number of "categories", for want of a better term, that we really need to list and keep track of. 

The trick is all in how to visually organize that info so you can quickly find and use it during a game.

Here's an example of how I fill them in:

 

(click to enlarge)

Not sure if it isn't self-explanatory, or mostly so anyways. But just in case, here's a little rundown.

We can see that:

• Jim has the Disadvantages Depression and Stalkers.
• Ivy's Nightmares trigger whenever she is asleep during a scene. 
• Scar has got to have a pretty shitty life. The GM has already used 1 Hold from his being Haunted, and no less than 3 Holds from his being a Liar. 3 more Holds are still retained by the GM, so more bad times seem to lay ahead for the poor guy. 
• When the time comes to address Bea's Guilt, the GM can quickly see that she might be sought out by her previous victims, or their vengeful relations, or even a demon of punishment perhaps. Alternatively, she might be beset by nightmares or visions, or might suffer bouts of anxiety and self-doubt. 
• SIT. means "situational", and marks those Disads that don't give holds for later but instead resolve directly in the situation in which they were triggered.
  

Simple and easy, eh? 

Everything you'll ever need to reference, on one quick glance.

 

Finally, while I was already at it, I also made another variant. This one is for the especially style-conscious GMs out there. Here is the Prestige Version of it:

This is without a doubt the coolest looking of the bunch! Might be a bit harsh on some printers, admittedly... but if you can get around that somehow (print at work, shell out some small bucks at a shop...) you get a real nifty GMing aid that maintains the look and feel of the official K:DL materials. 

And if you should happen to be playing online, these are extremely low-effort to use. Good looks is cheap and easy in the digital realms of the Deep Dark Net, after all!

Okay cool, how do I get them?!

You can grab them from this finely crafted gdrive folder over here.

Or click on the images above to enlarge, then right-click on that and either select to open in a new tab (and DL it from there), or save it directly to your device from the enlarged preview.

For printing, these are designed to look good in A5 landscape format. That gives them the right size to scribble your handwrite notes onto. 

A4 landscape works as well if you prefer that, though that might make it a bit bigger than strictly needed perhaps. But perhaps you just have a bit larger handwriting, or maybe you like to pin it to a wall nearby from where you GM - and so prefer a bit bigger format to be able to reference the info even at some distance.

So, in conclusion: 

I hope these can be useful for people out there. Please feel free to let me know if you use them, and whether they worked for you!

Could they be further improved? Or do you perhaps happen to already have some other, completely different way of tracking Triggers and Holds for your PCs' Disads?

Let me know in the comments or on the usual socials!

If you enjoy the stuff I make here, please consider supporting me over here on my patreon.

My workings here on the blog are and always will be completely free. I'm doing this out of passion for the game and its lovely community. But if you join the Cult of Malkuth in earnest, you can get extra benefits - such as the opportunity to buy me coffee, make wishes for future content, and perhaps additional perks as well. Check it out!

Homebrew Move: "Refuse Death"

 

Death can be a pesky problem for a GM, especially if it happens right in the middle of a session and would leave the player without something to do for the rest of it - and doubly so if their character's involvement in the story just got interesting, and you are loathe to just let that doomed soul go.

Fortunately, in KULT, Death is Only the Beginning, and so you never have to let it force your hand.

Some of the official and unoffical scenarios for the game already have built-in countermeasures against untimely character annihilation. Island of the Dead, The Summit, and Wind on the Leaves for example, all have their various workarounds to prevent players becoming deprived of a way to keep participating in all the  fun  ahem, horror!  we're having...

Often, such workarounds are based on the pervasive presence of the Death Angels in the fiction. But the ability to cheat the Reaper is not exclusive to the forces of Inferno. In fact, souls fall through the cracks in the Demiurge's crumbling machinery all the time - and through Limbo, Gaia, Metropolis, or the extremes of their own Madness or Passion, may well find their way back to Elysium.

Here's a custom Move to represent this:

(Disclaimer: Yes, as the GM you should only use this move if you're comfortable with it happening in your scenario or campaign.
If you don't feel that the Illusion is sufficiently unstable, or powerful otherwordly entities may be paying attention in the general vicinity this happens, by all means don't use it!)

 

Refuse Death

When you die but refuse to give in the afterlife's pull on your soul, roll +Soul.

(15+)

You may return into your body (if it's not too destroyed) in short order and inhabit it again, at relatively small cost. 

Alternatively, you find another corpse nearby that is well suited to contain you.

In either of these cases, you become a living soul animating a dead body.
Talk to your GM about the exact ramifications of that.

Also choose 1:

• Reduce your Stability by -2, or to Anxious (whichever is lower).
• Mark a permanent Serious Wound that cannot be stabilized or healed except by restorative Death Magic.

(10-14)

You manage to struggle back into the world, but it may take some time (though merely a couple of scenes may pass in Elysium), and it will cost you. Reduce Stability by -4, or to Unhinged (whichever is lower).

Also, choose 1:

• You had to escape purgatory: Mark 2 permanent Serious Wounds and get the Limitation Inhuman Appearance, all of which is only curable by Magic or the interference of Higher Powers.
• You were forced to make a Pact with a powerful entity in order to come back.
  Perhaps an Angel of Netzach, a Death Magician in service to Malkuth, or a Nepharite of Thaumiel...?
  Your body is fully restored, but the entity will demand services from you in the future.
• You became an incorporeal ghost: Free of spiritual debts or physical wounds, but you'll need to find (and possess) a new body on your own, if you want to become anything else than an aetherial phantom again.

(-9)

That went really badly. You cannot return during the ongoing session.
(But maybe ask your GM if there's some nice NPC nearby that you could play for the remainder of it?)

During downtime before the next session, discuss with the GM what your options are.

Examples:

• You return in the body of a young child or frail elderly person,
• You're wholly enslaved by a Higher Power,
• You have permanently turned into a Child of the Night as you succumbed to your Shadow while on the other side,
• You only have very little time to spend in Elysium before you're reclaimed by whatever terrifying afterlife awaits you,
• ...
  

Alternatively, perhaps your soul was dragged into the abyss after all. Maybe it's time to put together a new character and talk to the GM about how to introduce it into the story. Perhaps some fates are to be averted neither by men, nor gods...

GM-Advice on getting Broken

in the course of Refusing Death:

For characters of low Stability, the trauma of death - not to mention the harrowing experience of fighting one's way back from it - may prove fatal to what remains of their frayed emotional composure and mental resilience. If that happens, roll with it for all it's worth!

When a PC gets Broken by the Stability loss prescribed by the above move, let this happen as normal in the game: The GM makes a Move... or hell, Make Two! Simply because, shit, that was a fucked up thing to go through, right? Right!

Often when coming back from the other side, and all the terrifying sights and sensations it inflicts, we feel drawn to reunite with those we love and trust the most. You can Shift a PC Through Time and/or Space, and let them appear at the doorstep of their family's home, or in another player character's immediate vicinity. Very little time may have subjectively passed in Elysium, while the returned person may have weeks, or even years, worth of memories of the suffering they endured to get back here.

Having Fragments of the PC's Dark Secret Manifest around them can be used to convey the sense that something has come back with them, and is haunting them now. You can blur the lines about whether these manifestations are just figments of the character's imagination, demonic emanations from the netherrealms that followed them here, or independent entities all on their own. But either way, they will bodily exist, living and breathing (or at least solid and tangible, in the case of it being objects or locations) in Elysium, now.

Getting a New Disadvantage is also entirely not unreasonable. Perhaps a Sexual Neurosis for someone who escaped the hells of Gamaliel, Greed for someone who had to bargain with Yesod for their return, or a Drug Addiction for someone who has felt the sweet embrace of Achlys while on the other side.
Nightmares, Phobias, Mental Compulsions, and Repressed Memories make for viable choices across a wide range of otherworldly experiences, as well.
Becoming a Fanatic is another highly viable option for someone who has faced extradimensional entities, and the organisations and monsters serving them - and may express as either a determined support of their means and ends, or as an equally relentless opposition against them.

The options of Undergoing Change, where two Attribute values are switched, is especially fitting for PCs who have just overtaken a new body. Or, you know, those who had their personality sufficiently torn apart and remade differently than before.

Similarly, Switching to a New Archetype can also be highly believable in a situation like that, depending on the character and details of the surrounding fiction.

Perhaps he used to be a Drifter, or a Ronin, or a Scientist...
Whatever it was, he may be something different now.

Finally, attaining a Glimpse of the Truth can in fact almost be taken for granted, considering the entire circumstances of the very roll that led to all this.

As a note on personal GMing style, I tend to play this particular option way stronger than the corebook suggests, since I consider +1 experience a bit mild, all things considered. I usually give them +5 xp, so in effect a free advancement. This option is clearly meant to alleviate any other consequences you may choose to inflict on the PC, and I find it works very well to 'reconcile' players a little bit with the horrible costs of their mental breakdown.

That said, it also makes for a very good takeaway from a trip beyond Death itself. It's a fairly common pattern in folklore and myth, after all: The traveller to the spirit realms brings something back with them upon their return. Deep insights, newly acquired powers, or another reward for their harrowing tribulations on the other side...

Homebrewed "Observe the Situation" Variant Move

 

Hot take:
The Observe a Situation move is the single weakest and most awkward of all PbtA basic moves. 

Always has been, ever since the hallowed and sanctified forefather-game Apocalypse World itself.

There, I said it. 

It just never really worked smoothly for me. I feel it breaks the immersion in a totally odd way, and distributes narrative rights (and player input / reactions / consequences) somehow clumsily and counterintuitively. It just tends to break the flow of the conversation, while at the same time weirdly boxing in the fiction as well.

On top of that, it doesn't explain its trigger - not just not very well, but not at all... "When you observe the situation" is just a repetition of the move's name, for Demiroth's sake! We don't get that with other moves. Most of them generally describe what the fictional action of the character should roughly look like in order to trigger them.

And finally, the questions the move allows: These shouldn't be the literal questions the players get to ask. They are good categories, by and large, but they shouldn't be categories the players are made to think in. Instead, they should be seen as "General Areas of Situational Observance", and should be for the GM to keep in mind, when looking out for things in the conversation that might trigger the move.

Apocalypse World (and all the games that followed it, and kept the move's structure by and large the same) wasn't totally off, you see. 

Just like, I get the impression that the intended design wasn't completely thought through, just yet.

Aw crap, now we got a bunch of mafia thugs powerwalking right at us! Not good! At a quick
glance, if shit was to hit the fan, I wonder which one of them would be the most dangerous?

Here's my take on it:

- Make the players' questions be what triggers the move!

- Make the answers give the players what they're asking for, if they rolled well enough (arguing that highly perceptive characters would know what they want to look for, and wouldn't ask if there wasn't a reasonable chance for it to be discoverable here), instead of dictating their next actions so they can get that little bonus to them.

- Sure, sometime your prep may prevent [this specific thing they wanted], but then the move (if you trigger it, see the Disclaimer below) has to make you offer suitable replacement observations.

 

With these guiding principles in mind, I have written a new move, radically revamped and intended to replace the OaS from the corebook:

(Disclaimer: Activating this move is subject to the usual rule-of-thumb to "say yes, or no, or roll the dice". In other words, only let the player roll if neither your prepwork, nor the established fiction, or anything else in the game pre-empts it by already providing a clear answer to the triggering question. You could quickly rack up a real high number of rolls otherwise, and that might end up more disruptive than helpful to the game.)

Assess or Exploit the Environment

When you are looking to spot details about your surroundings in order to find advantages or gain insights you can exploit, ask the GM what you wanna know about and roll +Perception. 

The GM will reveal potential exploits and discoveries according to how well you roll, while also honoring the limits decreed by the game's already-established fiction and the GM's own secret prep work.

General Uses of Perception in Charged Situations:

(directions to think in / aspects of a situation to ask about)

• Threat assessment
• Searching for hidden things or subtle details
  
• Checking for dangers or threats
• Looking for advantages or beneficent ways to proceed
• ...
  

 

Example Questions: 

(if you ask something like these, the GM can trigger the move)

• Which one of them is the greatest threat?
• Which one of them is weakest against [this thing we got]?
• Can I see a terminal or something, where this could be switched off?
• Where did her dropped gun go? Can I perhaps locate and pick it up?
• Are there any more [soldiers / gang members / cultists] hidden somewhere nearby?
• Wait, is this corridor trapped, perhaps? Do I see any wires or odd sections of floor or the like?
• Is there a chandelier I could use to swing on, to escape these thugs?
• I look out the window - is there a fire escape we could flee down?
• Is there any way to block that door? Just to buy us a couple minutes maybe?
• Could I distract those goons, perhaps by toppling over a big bookshelf or something? I wanna get straight to the chanting man by the altar without them getting in the way.
• Is there something I could use as an improvised weapon? Like a fire poker, metal statuette, or dunno, a big flower vase maybe... or a chair I could break or something?
  
• ...
  

A burglar wondering what may be the smoothest way
for him to get into (and out of) this fancy crib...

GM-Reminder: Only trigger the move if you're not prepared to answer the question anyways.
If you decide to let your player make the roll even though your prep or the established fiction alredy prescribes (or prevents) certain answers, proceed as described below.

If and when the GM asks you to roll +Perception after you asked a question similar to the above,

On (15+), if the GM's prep doesn't explicitly state something contrary, the GM will give you what you're looking for, plus something extra (such as letting you ask an additional question, or answering another question or two for free), and you take +1 to act upon (either of) these reveals.

(Example of prep-induced negation: There cannot be a terminal in this room to switch off the poison gas with, because it is established in prep that the machinery that pumps it in is controlled from a hidden panic room in the basement.) 

If the GM's prep does prevent you from getting what you asked for, the GM will offer you two alternate observations - ideally adjacent, if not fully equivalent, to what you originally went for. You may additionally also get something extra, such as another question answered for free, as per above.

(Example of alternate offerings: Though you cannot locate a mechanism to switch off the poison gas, you see a way to plug the vents it streams in through (if you act fast enough, or in concert with a helper), and you spot a cupboard across the room with its door ajar so so you can see that there are a handful of gas masks inside (but to get there you have to go through the crossfire from the cultists shooting in through the door).

 

On (10-14), you spot something useful, but the GM will make it something less effective, hard to attain, or that comes with consequences or a cost attached. You still take +1 to exploit this insight, discovery, or observation.

(Example of "something less": Yes, you see gas vents that you could plug up, but it will not be perfect, just prolonging the time until the room fills up with it... Or alternatively, the GM may decide that it can be done, but the one that does the plugging (getting closest to the vents) must still suffer the effects of the gas - though then your comrades will be safe from it...)

 

On (-9), you do not find what you're looking for, and no close substitute either. In fact, you may have distracted yourself looking in all the wrong spots, and overlooked something dangerous. The GM makes a move.

Terrain ahead is contested. Death can lurk anywhere. Better make damn sure.

Special Case: Avoidance Questions

Sometimes when asking about threats or dangers, what the player really wants to hear is "No. There's nothing like that here."  That's an entirely legit and valid thing to ask about, too.

Examples:

• Are there any more soldiers lying in hiding, ready to flank us once we advance?
• Does this corridor look like it might be trapped?
• I look behind me every now and again, to make sure I'm not being followed...?
  

 

In such cases: On a successful roll, give the player that certainty, and let them take the +1 as well. Now that they know there are no hidden reinforcements over there, they can advance with improved confidence and bravado.

On a partial, you can give them something like: "Yeah, there might be a few guys hiding there... but it couldn't possibly be many, and you can see they'd have a shoddy angle for shooting at you guys anyways, from that particular spot". And still give the player that +1, that's cool, they earned it.

On a fail, feel free to go: "You can't be sure about that... in fact you can hear a rustling sound from those very bushes, and did you just spot a dark silhouette moving over there, too?"
And you can make a move, because of course you can.

Oh shit, wait - I'm not being followed by anyone... or am I?!

Note on Avoidance Questions vs. Pre-Existing GM Prep:

If your prep and the result of this roll come into conflict - say, if you had totally planned to have some soldiers hidden in the bushes off to the side... or to have the PC shadowed by an insane stalker... then you face an immediate choice: 

• Abandon your plans and let the player have the certainty of having made damn sure there can't be any nasty surprises coming that way.
• Reveal the threat's presence to the player, regardless of the roll's result. In this case, also double the bonus the PC gets to act upon (or against) the newly discovered revelation, making it a +2.

NB: If the player rolled a fail and you go for the second option, you can make a move for the hidden threats, even immediately (if you want to). But if you do, give the PC that fat bonus against [those soldiers / that stalker / ...] anyways.

Yes, also to dodging their [gunfire / knife stabs / ...] during this "surprise round", or similar stuff.

That player just totally guessed your devious trap! That deserves rewarding.

Or well, you know... at least a fair shot at surviving said trap. 

Yeah, we can give 'em that much.

Bottom Line: 

Play it reactively, take your cues from the players and what they're interested in / looking for. 

Don't make them jump through weird conversational hoops. Do your best to keep the game flowing smoothly - while also giving fair dues to your own prep and the fiction as established. 

Ask the dice only as a last resort. If you do, and they roll well, grant them what they wanted.

But if they roll badly, don't hesitate to dish out some fierce consequences.

You can hear the killer's steps slowly descending the stairs as you find yourselves in
this room. You said you look around for anything useful, yes? What are you trying to
find most urgently? A weapon? A place to hide? An escape route? Something else?
Ask, and you shall be given. Maybe.