Items

Arete 4, Quintessence 20, Background Cost 6 pts.

1885 marks the production of the Benz Patent-Motor­ wagen, the world’s first practical automobile for Sleepers. Of course, it wasn’t the first motor vehicle — simply the first that was reliable enough to be manufactured and sold. Some luminaries have taken advantage of the public’s familiarity with steam engines (and that familiarity’s effect on the Consensus) to create their own personal transport, including the notorious witch hunter Don Horace.

The Don’s carriage is outfitted with a device for communicating with Lightkeeper houses, a mechanical pilot, and a light cannon. This combination of up-to-date information, tireless pursuit, and ridiculous firepower means that some Night-Folk and Tradition magi tense when they hear the stuttering cough of small steam engines. Although most horses can outrun Don Horace Venator’s carriage, its mechanical pilot and seemingly inexhaustible supply of coal means that it can pursue all day and all night.

System

A Correspondence 2 Effect allows the driver to speak with any of the Lightkeeper houses. The mechanical pilot makes use of a Forces 2, Matter 1, Mind 1 Effect, which reads the mind of the driver and relatively safely guides the carriage towards the desired destination. The carriage does not know the fastest route to the destination and always takes the shortest one. Using the mechanical pilot requires an activation roll and is uncanny. The light cannon is a 6-pounder field gun, which is usually loaded with six pounds of silver-coated grapeshot (range 1,000, damage 8, lethal or aggravated for targets vulnerable to silver). It takes 2 turns to reload but can hit any number of targets in the same general direction. Each day of trav­ el or three shots consumes 1 Quintessence via a Matter 3, Essentia 2 Effect and requires an activation roll. The cannon is unEnlightened technology, although the Forces 2 Effect that prevents its recoil from flipping the carriage is uncanny. The carriage itself has 10 Safe Speed, 15 Max. Speed, 7 Maneuver, 1 Crew (2 pass.), 4 Durability, and 3 Structure.