Desires? You have desires of your own? Perhaps for the moment. I can crush your wants, should I wish, or set you on fire with others you'd scarcely credit now. After all, the secret of dealing with people is knowing what they want. Creating their wants makes the whole process so much easier.... The art of Intimation is a subtle one, relating as it does to desires and obsessions. It allows a wraith to discover the wants and desires of another, either Quick or dead, and to squelch, modify or replace those wants. Eventually, the Solicitor can so completely overwhelm the will of their target that only the implanted desire remains, grown to a monstrous obsession.
Intimation -- Solicitors
Even in shadowed Stygia, the Solicitors enjoyed a reputation that was dark. Always more of a cabal than a guild, the Solicitors were sought out by the great for the ways in which their special talents might tip the balance of intrigues. At the same time, common citizens avoided them, unwilling to become pawns in the games of manipulation that the wielders of Intimation played. By the turn of the seventeenth century, the Lord and Ladies of the capital of the dead became unwilling to tolerate the risk of the Solicitors' presence any longer and declared them banned from Stygia. Though all guilds had been officially disbanded by this time, any who practiced or even held knowledge of this now forbidden Arcanos were made unwelcome in Stygia. This did little to alter the status quo, other than to raise the Solictors' rates for services rendered. Even today, if the art of manpulating desire is needed, a Solictor can be found in almost any locale...assuming, of course, that one is willing to risk dealing with them. The payment Solictors take is twofold. They will generally ask for some exorbitant price in oboli, relics, Artifacts, or services, with this being their official fee. In addition, the Solicitor always takes care to demonstrate explicitly for the potential client precisely what she is purchasing. Usually this treatment has the desire effects: namely, to impress upon the client the power of Intimation and its wielders, and to make her pliable to the Solictor's will for future occasions. In this way the Solictors have enlisted many, many wraiths as their tools and agents all over the globe. The symbol of the Solictors is a stylized catherine wheel, denoting their power to bend others to their will. Solicitors will often conduct psychological warfare on targets by causing toy weheels to be rolled past them at appropriate moments. The effect is generally similar to that of the legendary fish wrapped in newspaper. In peroson, Solicitors can sometimes be indentified by their gaze: unless pains are taken to disguise it, a Solicitor's left eye is always a blazing, poisonous green.
Basic Abilities
Twinge: By gazing at another wraith, a Solicitor may discover what desire is topmost in that wraith's mind at the moment. Often this yields inconclusive results ("Gee, I could really go for a pizza..."), but in situations of tense negotiation or imminent combat, it can occasionally be a useful guide to what the viewed wraith may do. Twinge is useful only ofor garnering surface wants. It cannot be used to detect deep-seated longings, nor is it a shortcut to psychoanalysis of the targeted character. Self-Intimation: Exercise of Self-Intimation enables a Solicitor to rests another's attempt to control her using this Arcanos. A successful contest tenders the target immune to whatever effects were intended. Failure has no effect, and a botch doubles the potency of the initial Intimation.
1 - The Gleaming Worked on a solid object, the Gleaming makes the item more desirable than it would otherwise be. It can make a pile of rock seem to contain precious gems, or a rustpitted sword seem to glisten as bright as Excalibur. This is an unsubtle use of the Arcanos, and as such is the first taught to aspiring Solicitors. This art costs 1 Pathos.
2 - Quash Quash removes a want from the target. It can be something as simple as a desire for a certain Marillion bootleg or complex as the lust for power. This deceptively simple aspect of Intimation has the potential to be both extraordinarily therapeutic and incredibly destructive. Quashing is unsubtle; it excises the targeted need completely and does not bother to heal the gap in the victim's psyche this act creates. Quash can also be used to reduce Passions. This art requires 2 Pathos.
3 - Deep Desiring By using Deep Desiring, a wraith is able to map the wants and needs of the target wraith in detail. No dissembling is possible a Solicitor with Deep Desiring can read you more accurately than your mother could when you were three years old. There is no resisting this power, save with Self-Intimation. Deep Desiring requires 2 Pathos.
4 - The Craving The Craving implants a complex desire for anything ranging from really good Chinese food to seeing the Great Wall in person. All of the victim's other actions and wants are warped around this, which becomes the central thread of the target's existence. A successfully done Craving can cause the victim to actually obssess on the created desire to the exclusion of all other wants and needs. Like Quash, The Craving is unsubtle. The new desire is plastered onto the target's psychological landscape, with no effort made to smooth the rough edges of want. As such, the effects of this use of Intimation can be easily detected, and a victim can often be identified quickly. A Craving is not a natural Passion, and the subject cannot gain Pathos by following the Craving's call. Using the Craving costs either 4 Pathos or 2 Pathos and 2 Willpower. In addition, one Angst point is gained.
5 - Cupitatis Cupitatis is the culmination of all the other aspects of Intimation. It enables the user to duplicate the effects of the Craving or Quash, but to do so subtly, so that the effects of the Arcanos are not obvious. While Quash may remove a desire for power and leave nothing it its place, Cupitatis excises the desire but heals the psychic wound, so that to observers the victim of the Solictor would appear to merely have found other interests. In the same way, a desire implanted with Cupitatis appears to be a natural outgrowth of other interests or an eminently sensible, if new, enthusiasm. Detecting the effects of Cupitatis is extraordinarly difficult, and is rarely done. It is for this reason, and because of this power, that the Solicitors are truly feared. Cupitatis requires 4 Pathos and 2 Willpower points to exercise, and gives the wielder 3 Angst points.
Note: The power of Intimation extends beyond the world of the Restless. It can be used on the Quick and other denizens of the World of Darkness, though it is generally most effective on wraiths.
