Twilight Gleaners
The Twilight Gleaners are an entitlement of Fate-readers.
Background
| “ | Forever I will look into the mists, to pull aside the veil and chart the course that Fate plans for us. When pathways are hidden, I will be the guide to light the way. When confusion pools around us, I will be the rock to which others may hold. My life is given over to Fate, and my destiny lies before me. | ” |
Having forged a connection with Fate, members of this order provide guidance to the freehold in which they live, ensuring that their clients always act with Fate’s aid, rather than striving against it. Sadly, Gleaners are often attacked for their blind devotion to Fate’s strictures by changelings preferring to think themselves masters of their own destinies. This antipathy is most evident among the College of Worms, the members of whom believe that the Gleaners are blind fools clinging to a force they do not understand.
Organization
The Gleaners tend to lack a formal organization, as it is not particularly useful to have more than one in a freehold; any more, and intense, unproductive rivalries form. Instead, Twilight Gleaners keep in loose contact between freeholds, passing valuable information to one another, acting as a network. As such, in a given freehold, there will be one senior Gleaner and one to three pupils. Once this Soothsayer dies or leaves the freehold, one of his pupils remains to take on students, while the others leave for a new home.
Joining and Membership
Prerequisites: Empathy 2, Occult 2, Wyrd 3
Title: Sir or Madam, Soothsayer, Fateblind (insulting)
Typically, Gleaners keep an eye out for signs of attunement to Fate’s wishes in those they meet, offering recruitment to such individuals. Recruits spend months learning to accept visions rather than attempt to shape them, with all but the most dedicated being weeded out. Initiation, a pledging of oneself to Fate, is a private affair, with only the teacher and student present.
Those within this entitlement tend to be those who seek to give their lives to the dictates of Fate. These may be individuals who feel a greater purpose to their lives, or religious people who equate Fate with their deity’s guidance. Its members are mostly courtiers of Spring, seeking approval for their plans, or Winter, whose beliefs in avoiding wasted efforts resonate with the Gleaners’. Members of this order focus on Social Traits, so as to convince others of Fates’ dictates, with Mental Traits as a close second.
Mien
The primary sign of a Gleaner’s devotion is the milky silver tint that grows in his eyes: at first seeming only faint, but gradually expanding as his Wyrd increases until the whole of his eyes appear covered with tarnished silver cataracts. This does not affect his actual vision, but it can be unnerving to see, especially if it begins to bleed into the Mask. The second sign is that the strands of Fate that the Gleaners watch leave traces across their skin and clothes; Gleaners often appear to have silver threads running through their clothing, and faint silver can be seen across their veins.
Privileges
- Sensing Fate’s Strands: A Soothsayer may spend one Glamour to determine whether a planned course of action is fated to succeed or fail. If it is fated to succeed, rolls made that directly further the plan gain a +1 die bonus; those that directly oppose the plan face a -1 die penalty. The reverse is true if the plan is fated to fail. Fate does not change its mind once the privilege is used. Gleaners who act against the wishes of Fate are considered to have broken their oath to Fate, facing a -2 die penalty to Persuasion rolls for one month and needing to roll for degeneration as though a pledge were broken.
Gallery
Soothsayer
References
- CTL: Dancers in the Dusk, p. 156-158