Torture
Secondary Ability
Call it “enhanced interrogation” if you like. We all know what you really do: You hurt people. Maybe you’re “just following orders,” or you realize that ticking bombs sometimes require blunt instruments. Perhaps you just plain enjoy it, even if you can’t even admit that to yourself. Whatever means you use to justify this skill, you excel at causing mental, physical, and perhaps spiritual distress. This might be part of a religious duty, military service, mystic practice, or god-given prerogative. Then again, you could simply be a sick fuck. Whether said distress involves brutal trauma, exquisite agony, or “simple” emotional manipulation, your skills bring people – perhaps even yourself – to, and perhaps over, the edge of what was once considered endurance.
Even when it’s done for “the right reasons,” torture presents an extremely dicey proposition, especially for an interactive entertainment. Still, it would be dishonest to pretend that certain magicians and operatives don’t practice excruciation as part of their calling. Many mystic practices include ordeals, self-torment, and even mutilation. Meanwhile, the dreaded techniques of object lessons and secured intelligence feature torture as just another part of the gig. In game terms, this Skill might involve a blackout; if not, the scene should not be treated lightly, or with disrespect toward the feelings of other players. Whatever the context, torture scenes certainly count as mature content. For more on the subject, see Triggers, Limits, and Boundaries in Chapter Seven (p.345), Dramatic Feats in Chapter Nine (p.404), and Ordeals and Exertion in Chapter Ten (p.597).
• Novice: Playground bully.
•• Practiced: Bad cop.
••• Skillful: Covert ops interrogator.
•••• Expert: Elite pro dom.
••••• Master: Nazi doctor, Spanish Inquisitor, or serial killer.
Possessed By
Enforcers, Gangsters, Spies, Counter-Terrorism Agents, Left-Hand Path Ecstatic Mages and Euthanatos, NWO Operatives, Scary Doctors, Sadists (Safe, Sane, and Otherwise)
Suggested Specialties
Mind Games, Exquisite Techniques, Prolonged Agony, Classical Devices, Sexplay, Self-Torment, Information Retrieval, “Works of Art,” Pain – Not Harm