geistnet | Homebrew Class: Touched.

WHAT ARE TOUCHED?

The Fifth World may not be ending anytime soon, but the events that nearly had it spinning towards the Apocalypse has left its "damage". Everything’s out of whack: realms that aren’t supposed to be realms are appearing, realms that are supposed to be realms are disappearing, and perfectly average folks are awakening to mutant-like superpowers.

That’s right. Mutant-like superpowers.

The “Touched” (or “Gifted”, as some insist on calling them) are the folks who fall between the cracks of “natural” and “supernatural” because something in them isn’t quite right. Maybe it’s evolution; maybe it’s a traumatic event; maybe it’s in their blood. Whatever it is, they’re not Mage, Changeling, Card, Vampire, Sin-Eater, Created, Werewolf or whatever else: they’re human, but they can do things, for better or for worse.

POWERS & ABILITIES

Touched are individuals who have a set of supernatural abilities based around a particular theme or power, similar, in many ways, to mutants in X-Men or super powered entities in DC Comics.

The implications of this are simple: there is, quite possibly, an individual for any one ability or set of abilities ever imagined somewhere in the Fifth World. That does mean that some Touched are naturally more dangerous than others.

TOUCHED IN TODAY'S VIGIL

It is safe to say that among all of the supernatural classes and in stark contrast to Riskbreakers, Touched suffered the most before and during the Darkest Vigil. For one, most of the people who awakened between 2013 and the present were Touched; for another, the nature of the gift that any one Touched has at his disposal are severely limited together with being naturally hobbled by a Touched’s completely human nature. No one wants to have a friend or relative who can read your mind, or spontaneously summon a ball of flame. No one actually likes it when people with superhero-like abilities leave the pages of comic books and exist in the real world. And many of these dissenters only find it more insulting that these “monsters” have a human face.

Touched individuals have no real community to turn to beyond the very human beings who can grow to hate them. Other supernaturals view them as flawed, or too human to be “one of them” – some supernaturals, in fact, believe that the Touched out to be torched just like the rest of humanity. There have been movements in the human communities to include Touched among their number, thus giving them “human rights”, but those have their flaws just as much as they have their merits. As such, Touched kids who have no guardians or who have parents who don’t have the resources to protect them continue to be abused by their peers, and Touched adults without a support group often find themselves increasingly isolated from society. Isolation and abuse, as anyone would know, has never been a good combination.

GOT QUESTIONS?

The class template for Touched characters is under revision, but the basics are ready for download up here. For the moment, though, anyone who wants to build a Touched character just has to read the mechanics in the document, then ping Pam once they have a concept in mind.

For the full document on general character creation, download our guide here.