Torture: New Skill

Earthbound Page 74

Torture

Torture is a dark and hideous Skill, made all the more insidious because the Earthbound learned it from their mortal followers. It took a mortal to invent murder, and it took a mortal to invent the notion of hurting someone until that someone cooperates. Torture allows the character to wrest information from an unwilling victim, usually through physical means- beatings, red-hot pokers, drops of water falling constantly on the victim's skull. Psychological torture can also be effective, using methods such as sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and constant questioning that leaves the victim on the edge of madness.

Torturing a victim requires an extended, resisted roll. Roll Manipulation + Torture versus the victim's Willpower- the difficulty for both rolls is 7. If the Torture roll wins, the victim suffers one health level of lethal damage (for physical torture) or loses a point of temporary Willpower (for psychological torture). Once the torture accumulates successes equal to the victim's permanent Willpower, the victim breaks and tells the torturer what she wants. If the victim's resistance roll botches, the character loses a point of permanent Willpower; if the torture roll botches, the victim resists all further attempts at interrogation. Note that the victim can cease resistance at any time to spare further damage or loss of Willpower and confess what she knows.

• Novice: You're prepared to beat an answer out of someone.
•• Practiced: With the right tools and a few weeks, you can coax answers out of most people.
••• Competent: You mix a strong grasp of psychology with an inhuman gift for causing pain, and you can apply these skills to the strongest spy.
•••• Expert: You can break saints and martyrs into screaming pieces, given enough time.
••••• Master: Nothing lives that can withstand your clinical, brutal interrogation.

Possessed by:
Black Ops Agents, Earthbound, 'Military Advisors', Serial Killers
Psychologists Specialties:
Improvised, Physical, Psychological, Rapid, Resisting Torture.


ST Note:
This isn't an easy skill to have, learn or gain further levels of this. It's not a supernatural effect at all and even mundane humans (or Thralls) can have it.

All uses of this ability are violations to Torment 8 "Premeditated violation of Others".

Also, the conditions are left somewhat ambiguous in the write up, along with time that it takes. So clarifying here: All uses of Torture require that the subject be completely within the users control for the entire duration. Each check is a 12 hour period.