WORSHIP FIELD

Prerequisite: Alien

The alien, when they have no worshippers, to ensure they don’t go hungry, forces that faith on unsuspecting and unwilling targets. The alien uses a form of Possession to replace a target’s existing faith with their own. The alien is surrounded by a ‘Worship Field’, an effect that extends to an area roughly the size of a few city blocks. This is passive and instinctual for the alien, but through an effort of will the field can be extended further for a time.

The alien has to spend Story Points to extend a field – 1 point to engulf an entire neighbourhood, 2 points for the whole inner city, and 3 points to engulf an entire city and suburbs. The alien can also spend a Story Point to concentrate the field on one person in particular, as long as they can locate the person either in person or through a video or audio link. Everyone in a Worship Field is vulnerable to Possession, but the effect does not work on just anyone.

To be vulnerable to the alien, a target must have a strong faith of their own that can be converted into worship for the alien. This can be a religious faith, or some other kind of trust in a guiding force, like luck, or belief in globespanning conspiracies, or even absolute confidence in the Doctor. This should be a character trait, perhaps Code of Conduct, Obligation, Obsession or By the Book, or it could be a feature of their backstory instead. Anyone without faith is immune to the field. Just having inner faith isn’t enough, either.

The alien cannot convert faith that is hidden or unused, so the target must first be made to draw on their faith in some way. Any time a faith-type trait comes into play (for example, if it is tapped for Story Points), the character’s faith is exposed. At the Gamemaster’s option other provocations might work as well. One way of provoking people into revealing their faith is by scaring them. Any time a character becomes afraid they will be vulnerable, because a scared character instinctively turns to their faith for support. Anyone within the alien’s Worship Field who exposes their faith immediately becomes a target for Possession. Resisting Possession is a Difficult task (Difficulty 21), using Resolve + Ingenuity. If the possession is resisted this time, the character is immune to the Possession for one day. If the roll fails, the target becomes possessed. Over the next day their faith will be stripped out and replaced by the urge to worship the alien. With increasing frequency, they will start to utter phrases like “Praise him!” and “I submit to you my master!”

Finally, they will feel the rapture coming like a wave, and give themselves over to the faith, eagerly accepting their fate. It is possible to break a possession. Unfortunately, this requires the target to lose their original faith, the one the alien has replaced. The target must spend a Story Point and also lose the trait that represents their faith. This does not require any check, but such a major change should be carefully roleplayed out by players.