Miracles

The Miracles

Let’s get to the soul of this chapter. Besides their descriptions, all miracles have four entries:

TN is the Target Number the blessed needs on a faith roll to accomplish the miracle.

Speed is the number of actions it takes to complete the invocation.

Duration is the length of time the invocation stays in effect. If the miracle’s duration is 1 round (each round is about 5 seconds), it lasts until the beginning of the next round or the end of the combat, whichever comes first. “Concentration” means the blessed can only perform simple actions while using the miracle.

Range is the maximum distance at which the miracle can take effect.

Anoint

TN: 5

Speed: 2

Duration: 1 minute/faith level

Range: Touch

Kings, presidents, and most other important leaders throughout history have looked to religion to sanction and support their rule. After all, they figure, with Heaven for them, who’s got a chance of standing against them?

This miracle lets a blessed pass on a little bit of that divine authority folks in the spotlight seem fired-up to lay their hands on. Granted, it doesn’t last but a few minutes, but, honestly, some of those kings and lords didn’t last much longer!

A blessed can only anoint a character with the same faith as he has—for example, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. Once cast, the miracle provides the chosen character with a bonus to all her Mien-based rolls, either Trait or Aptitude, equal to her faith Aptitude level.

If she doesn’t have the same faith as the blessed this miracle has absolutely no effect.

The blessed cannot cast this miracle on himself. Another blessed of the same faith could, however.

Anxious Seat

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/faith level

Range: 5 yards

The “anxious seat” is the front row pew in a church or revival tent. It’s called that because that’s where the folks who are itching to become new converts are usually asked to sit.

This miracle lets a blessed lend a little spiritual help to a cowpoke, provided he’s willing to show a little patience. Like anoint, a blessed cannot cast this miracle on herself, only another character.

Once invoked, her target can spend Action Cards preparing to attempt a single Trait or Aptitude roll. As each of the target’s Action Cards comes up in a round, he simply discards them, letting the Marshal know he’s using them for anxious seat.

He can discard a number of Action Cards up to the blessed’s faith Aptitude level. Then, on his next action, he gains a bonus to the Trait or Aptitude roll equal to the number of cards he discarded for the miracle. So, if the blessed invoking anxious seat had a faith 4, the target could get a maximum of +4 to his next roll.

This bonus lasts until his next action or for 1 round for every level of the blessed’s faith, whichever comes first.

Armor o’ Righteousness

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round 

Range: Self

Lately, good folks have been in short supply.

Part of the problem is the good are always getting picked on by the bad—and the ugly as well. Recognizing it’s hard to fight the good fight from six feet under, the divine patrons of blessed heroes have given them a bit of holy reinforcement.

This miracle provides the hero with protection from wounds. The result of his roll to invoke armor o’ righteousness is subtracted from any damage done to him during the round. Then, wound levels are calculated normally from the remaining damage.

Armor o’ righteousness provides this protection against all damage suffered during the round. Additional effects from the attack that rely on damage being dealt (such as a rattlesnake’s poison) are lost if armor negates enough damage to prevent all wound levels.

Once the damage has been reduced by the armor, any wound levels caused by the remaining damage incur Wind loss as normal. However, against brawling attacks, which normally cause only Wind loss, the armor does reduce the amount of Wind lost.

Reverend Harding has invoked armor o’ righteousness with a total of 9 on his faith roll. He’s being attacked by 2 thugs. The first breaks a chair over his head, doing 14 damage. The armor subtracts 9 points, leaving a measly 5 damage—not enough to inflict even 1 wound level. The second villain draws a pistol and puts a slug into the good Reverend’s gut. The thug rolls a total of 18 points of damage—minus 9 from the armor leaves our hero with 1 wound level in the guts.

Ashes to Ashes

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1 

Duration: Instant 

Range: Touch

There are few things as distasteful as a cowpoke that doesn’t have the common decency to stay dead. The miracle last rites can help keep the dead quiet, but there’s always a corpse somewhere just waiting to get up and tear into some innocent person.

Ashes to ashes lets your blessed put a walkin’ dead or other reanimated corpse like a zombie or skeleton back down where it belongs. Unfortunately, it has no effect on more dedicated undead like vampires or ghosts, but fortunately, those aren’t nearly as common.

The blessed must touch the abomination on the head with his bare hand to invoke this miracle. Not surprisingly, those things aren’t too receptive to a pat on the forehead, though, so this requires a successful fightin’: brawlin’ attack to the head. The blessed can either call the shot (taking the -6 modifier) or swing wild and hope for a lucky hit location roll.

Once he’s smacked the zombie upside the head, he may choose to do no damage, but instead invoke ashes to ashes immediately. This doesn’t take an additional action; he can strike the walkin’ dead and invoke the miracle all on one action.

He must make an opposed roll of his faith versus the undead’s Spirit. If he wins, the thing drops (un-) lifeless to the ground. If he loses, he’s fair game for it.

This miracle has no effect on Harrowed; they’re too stubborn to drop that easy.

Babble On

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 5 rounds/faith level 

Range: 10 yards/faith level

Loose talk has been responsible for a lot of evil. If a fellow could stop all the idle tongue wagging, he’d sure do the world a big favor. And silencing folks already bent on ill will is an even better idea. Plotting mischief is a whole lot harder when the malcontents can’t talk.

This miracle makes spoken communication impossible within its confines. Babble on affects an area 5 yards across for every level of the blessed’s faith. The miracle distorts all spoken conversation within its effect, making it sound like so much gibberish to anyone hearing it.

This distortion isn’t limited to conversation inside the area. Anything spoken outside the effect is unintelligible to all within the area of babble on. Also, words spoken within the area sound like nonsense, even to folks standing outside the area.

This miracle only affects attempts to convey information. The exact game effects are up to the Marshal. Spells or other abilities requiring a vocal component aren’t foiled unless they require communication with other characters.

Battle Hymn

TN: 5

Speed: 1 

Duration: Special 

Range: Earshot

There’s nothing like rousing music to get a posse of heroes all riled up. With this miracle (and a belted-out song), the invoker gives her listeners more than just good background music.

When successfully invoked, the battle hymn builds courage in its listeners. For each success the blessed gets on the roll to invoke this miracle, she can choose one of the three effects below. So, for example, if the blessed gets a three successes, the entire posse receives the benefit of all three effects.

First, the battle hymn grants a +2 to all guts checks made by characters allied with the invoker. Second, the miracle inspires ferocity in battle, granting the heroes a +2 to all fightin’ rolls. Third, the song lifts the spirits of the heroes above simple physical pain. All characters affected by the miracle can ignore 1 level of wound modifiers, just as if they had the thick- skinned Edge. This is not cumulative with other such abilities or effects.

The invoker can’t select the same effect more than once, so extra successes are wasted.

The miracle affects the invoker, plus one other hero of the invoker’s choice per level of the invoker’s faith. Subjects must be able to hear the battle hymn. Folks who are hard of hearing must make an Easy (3) Cognition roll to gain the benefits of the miracle, and characters who are stone deaf are just plain out of luck. Although the subjects must hear the hymn, they don’t have to understand the song.

The effects of battle hymn last as long as the invoker continues to sing the hymn. If the blessed is silenced, the miracle ends.

The blessed can maintain the miracle for 5 minutes without any difficulty. For every 5 minutes thereafter the blessed must make a Vigor roll to continue the hymn. The difficulty of this roll begins at Easy (3) and increases by +1 level every 5 minutes. If the character fails the roll, her voice falters, and the miracle ends.

While singing, the invoker can herself fight or perform any task which doesn’t require her to stop singing the hymn. The invoker can’t invoke other miracles while maintaining a battle hymn.

Note that folks can only be affected by one battle hymn at a time. A good song is only so rousing after all.

Bear the Cross

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/faith level

Range: 5 yards/faith level

Heaven knows the heroes of the Weird West have enough trials and troubles to bear. Anytime a good soul can help carry those burdens, it’s almost as good as a victory for Light.

This miracle lets a blessed accept another character’s wound penalties for a short time. Once invoked, the blessed receives any modifiers the target cowpoke might have suffered due to wounds. It doesn’t actually transfer the wounds themselves, Wind loss, or any other effects, just the suffering.

The target character gets no penalties to his Trait or Aptitude rolls for wounds for the duration of bear the cross.

The blessed receives the penalty for the wound modifier in addition to any she might have herself. Combined in this fashion, it’s possible the modifiers might take her over the normal -5 maximum!

Should the target be thick-skinned or otherwise suffer less than the full penalty for his wounds, this immunity does not carry over to the blessed. She gets the full amount. If she has an ability that allows her to reduce wound penalties herself, she applies only to the combined total, not to each set of modifiers.

Benediction

TN: 7

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: Until the next sunset Range: 10 yards

Nothing gives a posse of gun-toting heroes confidence like a good old-fashioned blessing from above. This miracle sends the group on its way with an extra bit of divine assistance.

The blessed can affect one character for each level of faith he possesses. All characters to be affected must be within range while he invokes the miracle. The invoker can affect himself with this miracle.

The invoker can only provide a benediction for members of his own religion. The miracle simply fails to affect characters of a different faith, although it still affects any other valid recipients.

When successfully invoked, benediction gives each character a +1 to all guts checks until the next sunset.

In addition, the first wound level which is done to the character during the duration of the benediction is automatically negated. Treat this exactly as if a white Fate Chip had canceled the wound level.

If more than one wound level is done by the first attack to injure the character, the protection still only negates one wound level. If multiple wounds are inflicted simultaneously—for example, from an explosion—the player may choose which wound they wish to be negated by the miracle.

A character can only receive the benefit of a single benediction at a time. Any others invoked during the duration of the first miracle automatically fail.

This protection only lasts until the next sunset. If the miracle’s effect has not already been used by that time, the protection simply ends.

Bless Crops

TN: 5

Speed: 1 minute 

Duration: Special 

Range: Sight

A wise man once said that man can’t live by bread alone, but he can’t live too well without it either. This miracle helps provide for the more mundane concerns of a blessed’s flock.

When successfully invoked, the miracle bless crops increases the normal production of a single field of crops. The field can be as large as 10 acres square per level of the blessed’s faith.

The crop yield is increased by 10% for each success the blessed gets on her roll to invoke the miracle. The miracle lasts through the next harvest, regardless of the season when it is invoked.

A blessed can only invoke this on the same area once per harvest. Also, if another blessed invokes this miracle on the same area, only the more powerful of the miracles takes effect.

Burnt Offerin’

TN: 7

Speed: 2 

Duration: Instant 

Range: Touch

Throughout history, folks have been setting things on fire for their deities. With this miracle, the blessed’s patron returns the favor for the faithful.

Using this miracle, the hero can cause an object to burst into flame. The object can be no larger than 1 square foot for every level of the hero’s faith.

The object must also be readily flammable. By this we mean it would ignite if a lit torch were held to it. Wood, cloth, paper, ghost rock, and so on are examples of the types of material affected.

If the blessed gets a raise on her invocation roll, burnt offerin’ ignites normally flammable materials that are water-soaked or otherwise treated (even chemically) to prevent them from burning.

Once ignited, the object burns normally. The exact effects of the created fire are determined by the Marshal. The blaze is not magical and can be extinguished by any number of typical methods.

Calm

TN: 5

Speed: 1 minute 

Duration: Permanent 

Range: 1 mile/faith level

Not a drop of rain falls that goes unnoticed above, nor does a storm rage without divine approval. Heaven has complete domain over the natural realm. This miracle allows a blessed to petition higher powers for meteorological assistance.

With this miracle, the invoker can influence the weather patterns around her. Calm allows the invoker to lessen the severity of conditions within range by one step on the table below for each success she receives on the roll to invoke the miracle.

The invoker can also increase the severity on the table, though this is more difficult. If the invoker wants to worsen the current conditions, she can move the weather 1 step on the chart for every 2 successes.

For example, if the weather was clear, she could make it partly cloudy with two successes. To call up a drizzle, she’d be moving the weather 2 steps, so she’d need 4 successes.

Also, the most severe weather the invoker can achieve by use of this miracle is a downpour.

More powerful storms require a higher level of divine intervention.

Calm

This miracle is very taxing on the hero. After the first try (in a single day), every attempt to calm the weather is made at a cumulative –2 modifier.

Weather Condition Clear

Partly cloudy Drizzle Rain

Downpour Rainstorm Thunderstorm Tempest

Censure

TN: Special

Speed: 1 (Vamoose) 

Duration: Instant

Range: 5 yards/faith level

Some folks insist on consorting with the servants of the Enemy no matter how many times a person might try to show them the error of their ways. The worst among these faithless are the modern day sorcerers—the so-called “hucksters.” These stubborn malcontents need guidance from above to halt their descent down the crooked path—whether they happen to want it or not.

With censure, the blessed calls upon holy intervention to make it much harder for a huckster to draw upon the power of the Hunting Grounds and successfully cast a hex.

Of course to do so, the blessed must be aware the hexslinger is casting a hex in the first place. Unless the huckster is being fairly blatant in his hex casting, this usually requires an opposed roll of the blessed’s Scrutinize versus the huckster’s sleight of hand.

To invoke censure, the blessed must make a “vamoose.” That is, he has to use his highest Action Card—any card up the sleeve is always the highest—while the huckster is casting the hex. If the blessed has no actions remaining in the round, he can’t use this miracle.

The TN to invoke the miracle depends on the level of the Huckster’s skill with the hex. See the table on the next page for all the details.

If the miracle is successfully invoked, it lowers the effect level of the hand the huckster draws by –1 step for each success the blessed gets on the roll. One success with censure against a soul blast, for instance, makes a Three of a Kind into Two Pairs. If this lowers the hand below the minimum necessary to successfully cast the hex, the hex fails.

Since each hex has its own list of the hands that affect it, the huckster’s player needs to consult this to determine the exact effects of the miracle. If no table is listed under the hex’s description, use the standard Poker Hands Table instead.

One word of warning—if the blessed goes bust on a roll to invoke censure, the miracle has the opposite effect. The huckster’s hand is increased by +1 level on the hex’s table instead.

Our intrepid preacher, Reverend Harding, finds himself faced with a malevolent hexslinger. The huckster prepares to craft a soul blast to send the good Reverend on to his eternal reward ahead of schedule.

Reverend Harding, wisely holding a card up his sleeve, uses the action to invoke censure. The huckster has a skill of 4 with soul blast. This means Reverend Harding’s faith roll has a TN of 11. Luckily, he gets a 12 and successfully invokes the miracle.

The best hand the huckster can make from his cards is Two Pair. Because Reverend Harding got one success, his censure lowers the effective level of his hand to a measly pair of Jacks (because the soul blast table lists this as the next hand level down), and the huckster does only 3d6 damage.

Censure Difficulty

Reverend Harding, a hardy soul, manges to shrug off the damage, and he commences to show the hexslinger the error of his ways.

Huckster’s Hex Level T N 2 or lower 7

3 9

4 11

5 13

6 or higher 15

Chastise

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1

Duration: Instant 

Range: Self

No one wants to go toe-to-toe with a real Hellfire and brimstone preacher when he’s berating a sinner. Even the toughest gunslingers are likely to back down under such abuse. And, just to be sure, chastise gives the blessed an extra boost in a shouting match.

Chastise allows the blessed to use her faith Aptitude in place of the overawe Aptitude in a test of wills as described in the Deadlands rulebook.

When this miracle is invoked, the blessed makes an opposed roll of her faith Aptitude versus her opponent’s guts. Any modifiers she would normally receive to overawe apply to this faith roll as well. If the blessed wins the roll, the subject suffers the effects of the test of wills, becoming unnerved, distracted, or even broken, depending on the level of the blessed’s success.

Cloak

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: Concentration 

Range: 1 yard/faith level

No matter how brave (or foolish) a hero may be, there comes a time when he decides discretion is the better part of valor. If the blessed successfully invokes this miracle, his deity helps to shield him and his flock from the sight of his enemies.

To use this miracle, the hero (and anyone else he plans to conceal with it) must actually try to hide. The hiding place doesn’t have to be a good one, but a reasonable attempt has to be made.

For each success the blessed gets, he can cloak himself or another person in range.

Any character or creature with hostile intent must make an opposed test of its Cognition versus the blessed’s faith to sense anyone under the cloak. Any Cognition modifiers apply to this roll. If the blessed had any extra successes on his invocation roll, he can use these to add +2 to these faith rolls. Other benevolent characters or creatures can see the cloaked normally.

The Cognition roll can only be attempted by each foe once during a single casting of the miracle. If the foe fails in this roll, it can’t sense the cloaked people for as long as they stay hidden. If the protected leave their hiding spot, make noise, or attack, the cloak is lifted.

Confession

TN: 5

Speed: 1 round

Duration: 1 minute/faith level 

Range: 10 feet

Lying to a preacher is kind of like lying to your mother. Most folks don’t do it too well, and it usually isn’t a whole lot of fun even when they do. With this miracle, it’s even tougher to pull the wool over a blessed’s eyes.

The blessed chooses a character when she invokes the miracle. If she’s successful, the target finds it incredibly difficult to lie to her.

Any time the target attempts to tell a direct lie to the blessed, he must beat her in an opposed Spirit test against the blessed’s faith. The blessed gets a +2 bonus to her faith roll for every raise she gets on her roll to invoke the miracle.

If the target loses, he can’t lie directly. Lies of omission, evasion, or crafty wording are still possible. If he botches his roll, however, he blurts out the truth.

Consecrate Armament

TN: 7

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: Until the next sunset 

Range: Touch

In their struggles against the forces of the unholy, the blessed sometimes encounter critters and people whose dark masters have granted them resistance to mundane damage. While certain relics may be able to harm these beings, not every preacher, monk, or nun is in the habit of carrying around the sacred sword of Joan of Arc.

Fortunately, some of the blessed can invoke their patron deity’s power to sanctify slightly more handy weapons when they need them. To sanctify a weapon, the blessed character must spend a minute in quiet prayer, perhaps anointing the weapon to be blessed with holy water, oil, or the like. She must spend a chip and then make an Onerous (7) faith check. The chip spent determines the power of the consecration. It does not affect the faith check itself, but other chips can be spent to do so.

White Chip: The weapon is consecrated to work versus one specific individual, either a person or a creature. For example, “the hangin’ judge haunting the trail between Houston and Amarillo” or “the Revenant.” It has no supernormal effect on anyone but this particular person or creature.

Red Chip: The weapon is consecrated against one specific class of creature or individual in a specific location. For example, “the vampires inside the crypt under the graveyard just down the road from the Santa Maria Cathedral.”

Blue Chip: An entire class of creatures are affected if a blue chip is spent. For example “werewolves” or “night haunts.”

If the blessed fails the faith check, the chip is still spent, so it is unwise to go about trying to cavalierly bless every weapon in sight. Prudent holy folks are not in the habit of invoking their patron’s power lightly, just in case they might run into something a consecrated weapon would help against.

The consecration affects a single personal weapon, and the effects last until the next sunset after the weapon is blessed. Keep in mind this means if you hero is consecrating bullets all day long, they’re not going to work that same night.

Natural body weaponry, such as hands, feet, and teeth, can’t be affected by this miracle. The cowcatcher on the steam wagon that your hero uses to run over that passel of walkin’ dead works just fine though.

In the case of firearms, each individual bullet must be consecrated for the miracle to work. A blessed could consecrate a rifle, but it would only work against evil creatures if used like a club.

If the blessed likes, she can try to consecrate more than one weapon at a time, as long as every piece in the group is of a similar type (all knives, all bullets, all shells, and so on). In this case, simply add +2 to the Target Number for each piece after the first. Consecrating three weapons, for instance, requires a faith roll of 11 or more. If the roll is failed, none of the weapons are consecrated.

For the duration of this miracle, the blessed weapon or ammunition can damage creatures of evil that are usually immune to normal damage. This includes walkin’ dead, hangin’ judges, werewolves, and Harrowed, amongst others kinds of nasties.

Those with the faith Aptitude gain an additional bonus when using consecrated weapons or ammunition. When rolling damage for any hit the weapon scores on a target it’s been consecrated against, the faithful may add the result of a faith check to the damage roll.

A blessed character can have a number of weapons or bullets equal to her faith Aptitude consecrated at any one time. So, Sister Cabrini (with faith 4) could bless up to four weapons or bullets. Blessed characters can consecrate their own weapons and can also add their faith dice to the damage roll as normal.

The Marshal should note that this miracle is not intended to create relics. True relics of faith are powerful objects and shouldn’t be treated lightly. They certainly can’t be created by heroes with something as simple as this kind of miracle. This effect is meant to give the blessed a bit of a quick fix for those situations in which they are confronted with the unholy and must deal with it directly.

Consecrate Item

TN: 7

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: Until the next sunset 

Range: Touch

Almost every religion in the world has certain items that hold special importance for its followers: crosses, prayer cloths, holy texts, and so forth. Consecrate item allows a blessed to bestow such items with a small amount of divine power for a short time.

The types of item that can be consecrated depend on the blessed’s religion. Only items of specific important to the blessed’s religion are eligible. Examples of such items are holy water, crucifixes, prayer cloths, oils, incense, and the like.

A character couldn’t consecrate barbed wire unless he had a rather, shall we say, unique religion.

Such items are commonly used in worship services or during certain religious ceremonies and rituals. Consecrated items provide a + 2 to any rolls to invoke the following miracles: bless crops, consecrate weapon, exorcism, protection, sanctify. A hero can only gain this bonus from a single consecrated item at a time.

Additionally, the servants of Darkness find this item distasteful and actively seek to avoid it. Direct contact with a consecrated item causes a supernaturally evil creature to lose 1d6 Wind.

Holy water (or oil) splashed on such a creature causes this Wind loss for 2 rounds.

Like consecrate armament, this miracle lasts only until the next sunset, regardless of the time it is performed. However, consecrate item does not require the expenditure of a Fate Chip to invoke.

Console

TN: Special 

Speed: 1 

Duration: Instant

Range: 5 yards/faith level

Running like a scared rabbit can be downright embarrassing—especially if the local townsfolk look up to your gunslinger like a dime novel hero.

Fortunately, with console, a blessed can help his companions avoid such a shameful development.

This miracle lets your hero cancel the effects of a failed guts check on another character. The TN for this miracle is the original TN for the failed guts check. The blessed has one advantage though, the Fear level doesn’t modify his faith TN; he’s only rolling against the original number.

If he succeeds, any temporary effects, such as fleeing the scene, short-term Trait or Aptitude penalties, and the like are immediately lifted. Longer term effects, however, like reduced Traits, permanent Hindrances, and even lost Wind, are not remedied by this miracle.

Dervish

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/faith level 

Range: Self

Blessed tend to engage their foes up close and personal, rather than taking potshots at them with guns. Apparently, this sort of behavior receives divine approval because this miracle turns a blessed into a fearsome instrument of their deity’s wrath.

The blessed character gains an extra fightin’ attack on each action while in melee combat. There is no penalty to this bonus attack.

Also, for every raise she gets on the roll to invoke the miracle, the blessed gets an additional level of fightin’.

While under the influence of this miracle, the blessed must make every effort to engage her foes in hand-to-hand combat. She cannot choose to perform noncombat options, such as invoking miracles, using a ranged weapon, or the like.

If there’s no enemy in easy smiting range, the blessed must charge the nearest foe. She can make use of cover while covering the distance between her and her target, but she must use every action to move toward the enemy until she reaches him.

Although the blessed can’t voluntarily end the miracle, she isn’t obliged to attack a foe who has surrendered or is begging for mercy. Once all her foes are defeated or have surrendered, the blessed can end the effects of the dervish.

Devil’s Plaything

TN: 7

Speed: 2

Duration: Concentration 

Range: Self

Everybody’s heard the saying about idle hands—and it seems those confounded mad scientists have nothing but! With all those infernal devices they’ve invented, sometimes it seems it’s only a matter of time before humanity destroys itself! At least this miracle can provide a blessed some defense against their devilish contraptions.

When successfully invoked, devil’s plaything protects the blessed hero against the effects of any kind of gizmo. Any such device used against a character protected by this miracle automatically fails. Flamethrowers refuse to spray, Gatling pistols don’t fire, even owl vision goggles don’t function—at least with respect to the hero.

To clear up any confusion before it starts—a gizmo is a device developed solely by the methods of mad science. A Peacemaker or even a Gatling gun is not a gizmo—no supernatural assistance was needed for their designs.

The device simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t necessarily malfunction. However, even though the gizmo doesn’t work, each time its owner tries to activate it he must still check Reliability. If the device fails its Reliability check, it malfunctions as usual.

Add +2 to the Reliability roll for each raise the blessed gets on the roll to invoke the miracle.

One of Dr. Hellstromme’s understudies is getting ready to toast Rev. Harding with his flamethrower. Fortunately, Rev.

Harding has already invoked devil’s plaything, and he got 1 raise on the roll.

The mad scientist tries to roast our hero, but his flamethrower refuses to ignite. The scientist must now make a Reliability check. This particular flamethrower malfunctions on a 16 or better on the die. The villain rolls a 15 and starts to breathe a sigh of relief.

However, because the good Reverend got a raise when he invoked the miracle, the roll gets a +2 modifier. The scientist’s relief quickly turns to concern as his flamethrower malfunctions!

Dispel

TN: Special 

Speed: 1 round 

Duration: Instant 

Range: 10 yards

The servants of Evil have all sorts of black magic and evil curses at their disposal, and like most corruptions, they only get worse if allowed to fester. To prevent just such occurrences, a blessed can call on his patron to dispel ongoing magical effects.

This miracle, if successfully invoked, affects both hexes and black magic spells which have a duration. It has no effect on instant spells or hexes like soul blast. Also, spells which have a permanent duration or effect, such as helping hand, are unaffected by this miracle. If there’s any question about whether or not dispel can affect a spell or hex, the Marshal has final say.

The Dispel Difficulty Table lists the Target Number for the blessed to successfully invoke the miracle. The difficulty is based on the skill of the hex or spell’s original invoker.

If the blessed hero successfully invokes the dispel miracle, the effects of the spell end immediately.

Dispel Difficulty

Caster’s Spell Level T N

1

5

2

7

3

9

4

11

5+

13

Empathy

TN: 7

Speed: 2

Duration: Concentration 

Range: 5 yards/faith level

Knowing what another person is thinking might be useful from time to time—but it’s also pretty darn inconsiderate. Not only does that sort of thing invade a person’s privacy in the worst way, it smacks of deviltry as well. Of course, having a feel for another person’s moods is a different story.

This miracle allows the hero to get a sense of what another creature or character is feeling.

This isn’t exactly mind reading, but rather a sense of the target’s emotions.

Possible emotions the target may be experiencing include fear, anger, confusion, love, or happiness. Of course, these aren’t the only results possible. We just listed a few as examples.

If the blessed gets at least 1 raise on the roll to invoke the miracle, he may get some idea about the target’s intentions. This knowledge is limited to the immediate future, no more than 1 round for each level of faith the hero possesses. Even then, the information gained is sketchy. For instance, with 1 raise, the invoker may realize a growling wolf is angry and readying itself to attack.

Endure

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 2 rounds/faith level 

Range: Self

Throughout history, the blessed have been called upon to suffer terribly at the hands of their enemies. Martyrs in all religions have stoically endured trials which would have brought lesser men to their knees.

Endure prevents the blessed from suffering Wind loss from wounds they receive. This allows the invoker to suffer grievous injuries and still continue to fight the good fight.

It doesn’t prevent the wounds themselves, nor the modifiers from the wounds—only the Wind loss. It also doesn’t prevent Wind lost to hexes, black magic spells, or any special abilities that drain Wind.

Enigma

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1 round

Duration: 1 round/faith level 

Range: 5 yards

Some religions have a mystical component that is pretty much inexplicable to the ordinary person. Often these religions use puzzling riddles to aid their followers in meditations.

Common examples of these questions are “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “What is the meaning of life?” Contemplating one of these conundrums is enough to send the common cowpoke into conniptions.

To invoke this miracle, the blessed must be able to ask the subject the enigmatic question. That means the subject must be able to hear and understand the riddle. Language may be a barrier to the miracle, and deaf characters are simply immune. Likewise, invoking enigma during combat is difficult if not downright impossible.

The blessed must make an opposed roll of her faith versus the subject’s Smarts. If the subject beats the blessed, the miracle has no effect. On the other hand, if the blessed wins, the subject loses interest in everything except trying to figure out the riddle. He realizes that the hero’s there and has asked him a question, but he’s totally absorbed by the puzzle. He ignores his surrounding, and only an actual attack upon him can break his concentration. Once the miracle ends, he acts normally and can remember things that happened meanwhile.

Expose

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 10 rounds/faith level 

Range: Self

Evil hides in all shapes and sizes, and in the Weird West we mean all shapes and sizes.

Without some supernatural assistance, a fellow might easily get caught off guard.

Expose helps a blessed root out evil no matter where or how it hides.

When successfully invoked, this miracle grants a blessed character a +5 bonus on all Cognition rolls to detect a disguised or hidden person. This bonus even applies to characters using magic (like shadow man or impostor) to hide themselves.

Each raise the invoker gets when invoking the miracle gives her another +2 bonus.

The miracle also grants a similar bonus to detecting hidden or disguised abominations like desert things. It even helps identify a Harrowed— no matter how much perfume the thing is wearing!

The blessed only needs to get a single success on the appropriate opposed Trait or Aptitude roll to clearly see through a disguise or detect a hidden creature while under the effect of this miracle.

Exorcism

TN: Special Speed: 8 hours

Duration: Permanent Range: 1 yard

Very rarely, an evil spirit, demon, or manitou, finds a way to inhabit a living (or unliving) body. Evicting these spirits from a mortal host is a slow and painful process. Once the ritual has begun, the spirit is wracked by holy energy and begins an appalling display. It speaks in tongues, vomits all kinds of foulness, and curses the blessed up and down a blue streak.

Attempting to exorcise a manitou is a test of the blessed’s faith versus the creature’s Spirit.

The manitou’s Spirit is determined by a draw of a card—just like during character creation. At the end of the 8 hour ritual, both sides roll.

If the blessed is successful, the manitou is banished and leaves the host body immediately. If the manitou wins, it gets a +2 to resist further exorcism attempts by the same exorcist.

A successful exorcism puts a Harrowed to rest permanently, by the way.

Fast

TN: 5

Speed: 1 minute 

Duration: 1 day/faith level 

Range: Self

A truly enlightened soul supposedly can subsist on nothing but spiritual sustenance. Of course, that’s little consolation when your stomach’s empty and grumbling!

Fast lets a blessed survive without food for a number of days equal to her faith level. She still needs water during that time, but only half as much as usual. At the end of this period, she must eat real food for at least a day before she can invoke fast again.

Your hero can’t benefit from the effects of this miracle at the same time she’s attempting to use the fastin’ Aptitude, by the way. That defeats the spiritual purpose of the Aptitude!

Falter

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round

Range: 5 yards

With this miracle, the blessed calls on the power of his patron to momentarily stun an opponent. How this power manifests depends on the blessed and his religion. A Hellfire and

brimstone preacher may loudly command his opponent to “Repent!”, while a follower of a less flamboyant belief may make a gentle touch or hand motion.

If the miracle is successfully invoked, the opponent is stunned and loses his next action in that round. For each raise the invoker gets, the opponent loses another action that round. If the opponent has no more actions that round, additional raises are wasted.

Repeated attempts in the same day to invoke this miracle on the same subject aren’t as effective. Any attempt after the first to invoke this miracle on the same subject in a single day suffers a –5 modifier on the invocation roll.

This only works on people or abominations who can understand the blessed’s intent.

Feast

TN: 5

Speed: 1 minute 

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Touch

No matter how bad things get, a man’s still got to eat! Dying from hunger is still dying— something a lot of would-be heroes seem to forget. A blessed who knows this miracle can be a lifesaver to a posse lost in the wilderness.

Feast increases the amount of food on hand. To invoke this miracle, the blessed must have at least enough food on hand to feed one person for one meal. If he doesn’t, the miracle automatically fails.

Each success the invoker gets on his roll doubles the amount of food on hand.

For example, a success and 2 raises would turn one meal into enough food for eight meals, and 1 success would convert two meals into four.

Unfortunately, food created in this manner can’t be saved. It must be eaten that day. Any uneaten food spoils by the next sunrise.

A blessed with the gift manna can use food gained that way to worth with this miracle.

Grace

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Permanent Range: Touch

There are times when it’s downright impossible to find a respectable meal—or at least one that’s not tainted with rot or worse. With all the corruption loose in the world lately, a fellow would be wise to take extra care about what he puts down his gullet nowadays. A little prayer before chow never hurt, but now, with things like Texas tummy twisters hiding in the water, it just might save a life!

This miracle completely cleanses uneaten food and unimbibed drink of impurities. This includes poisons, rot, and diseases of all sorts— even unnatural ones like tummy twisters.

Stagnant water and spoiled food are likewise made drinkable or edible by this miracle.

The invoker can purify one person’s portion of sustenance per level of her faith. The miracle can also purge any contamination from animal feed as well, affecting one animal’s daily feed per faith level.

For each raise the invoker gets on the roll to invoke say grace, she can choose one of the two following effects. Each effect may be chosen only once, so any raises beyond the second are wasted.

First, each person or animal eating the purified food gains a +2 to all Vigor checks for the next 4 hours. This includes rolls both to resist and recover from stun.

Second, each person or animal consuming a full portion of the food affected by this miracle gains a bonus of +1d6 Wind for the next 4 hours. All Wind lost is first subtracted from this bonus Wind.

Guide

TN: 5

Speed: 10 minutes 

Duration: Special 

Range: Special

Few folks would get lost if they had a legendary trailblazer or pathfinder to call upon in time of need. Guide provides the blessed with exactly that—only an omniscient patron is better than the greatest of scouts.

This miracle has two applications. The first helps the invoker locate lost items, while the second shows the blessed the way to a distant location.

When used to locate lost or hidden items, guide has a duration of 1 minute per faith level and a range of 10 yards per faith level. If the miracle is successfully invoked, the blessed is guided to the item sought.

To use the miracle to locate such items, the blessed must have a clear mental picture of the item she is seeking. If the invoker has never actually seen the item in question, she must at least have a detailed description of it. In such cases, she receives a –5 on her roll to invoke this miracle.

The blessed cannot search for a generic item with this miracle, such as “a pistol” or “the weapon that will kill the abomination plaguing Pagosa.” The item must be specifically named, like “Sheriff Conroy’s Peacemaker” or “the arrow made by the shaman Walks-In-Shadow.”

This miracle is not affected by intervening materials or the like. It guides the invoker around any obstacles like walls or chasms, if such a route exists within its range.

The invoker feels rather than knows where the item is, so she only knows the general direction to it should guide end before the item is located. If the invoker selects the second application, guide leads her to a known location.

When used for this purpose, the miracle has a virtually unlimited range and a duration of 1 day. The only restriction to the range of guide in this case is the location must be somewhere on ol’ Terra Firma.

The blessed must be aware of the desired location, although this knowledge may be gained from a map, hearsay, or any number of other means. The location itself must also cover an area of at least 100 square yards for the miracle to be effective.

The area must be a genuine geographic feature, like a town, the falls of the Wichita, or the like. The miracle automatically fails if the blessed attempts to use this application to locate an item or thing like “the hiding place of Blackbeard’s treasure” or “the area around Wild Bill’s six-shooters”—no matter how the location is phrased. God knows the difference.

As in the first application, the invoker feels rather than knows the direction of the area sought. Each day, the miracle must be invoked for it to continuously guide the blessed.

If the invoker ever goes bust on the invocation roll, the item or location is hidden from the miracle, and she can never again use guide to attempt to find it.

Hinder

TN: 3

Speed: 1

Duration: 3 rounds 

Range: 5 yards/faith level

No matter how painful it is to admit, there are times when the black hats are, if not more powerful than the white hats, at least more competent. This has led to more than one embarrassing situation in the past, but if a blessed hero’s carrying hinder, he might be able to even the odds.

When the blessed invokes hinder, he chooses a single Aptitude of the subject. If the Aptitude is one with concentrations, like shootin’ or academia, the miracle affects all the Aptitude’s concentrations.

For every success the hero gets on his faith roll to invoke the miracle, the subject temporarily loses 1 level of the chosen Aptitude. The subject can never drop below 1 level in the Aptitude. At the end of the duration, the subject immediately regains all lost levels.

A character can only be affected by one hinder at a time. Other attempts to invoke the miracle on the same subject while the first hinder is still in effect automatically fail.

Holy Roller

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Self

The blessed know asking for holy power is normally off-limits. But sometimes the horrors of the Weird West call for desperate measures. Right then, a little prayer for help can make all the difference.

A blessed character can use this miracle to gain a chip from the Fate Pot. The chip must be used on her next action. If the character meets the difficulty, she gains a white chip. A raise nets her a red chip, and 2 raises gets her a blue chip.

The chip can only be used for Trait or Aptitude checks or to avoid damage. For example, while it can’t be spent for Bounty Points, used as a sacrifice for consecrate weapon, or to activate a knack, but it could be used to help the blessed make her lay on hands roll.

A chip gained in this manner can be given to another player with the sacrifice miracle, however, the receiving character must then use the chip on his next action. Likewise, the chip can only be spent to avoid damage or assist a Trait or Aptitude check.

The downside is that if the blessed miracle worker fails the roll, her patron takes her highest chip (put it back in the pot) as penance. It’s a gamble—that’s why the blessed call this miracle “holy roller.” Of course, if she doesn’t have a chip, she can ignore this effect.

Holy Vestments

TN: 5

Speed: 2

Duration: 10 minutes/faith level 

Range: Touch

Holy vestments provides complete protection against natural temperature extremes—both hot and cold. A character under the influence of this miracle can ignore both blazing fire and frozen wastes.

While the miracle provides absolute protection against the effects of terrible temperatures, it doesn’t provide any defense against secondary effects of such extremes. For example, while a character protected by this miracle could walk through a burning house untouched by the flames, she still might succumb to Wind lost from smoke inhalation (but not the fire itself).

Against magical heat and cold, such as that produced by the hex frostbite, the miracle is less effective. In cases like this, holy vestments provides the equivalent of 1 level of Armor against any damaging effects. If the effect only causes Wind, holy vestments completely negates any such loss. Otherwise, it provides no other protection.

The invoker can affect one character for each success she receives on the roll to invoke the miracle.

Illuminate

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Concentration 

Range: Self

Darkness has always been a friend of evil. Within the folds of night, corruption hides and stalks the innocent, falling upon them at its whim. Illuminate drives away the dark and bathes the surrounding area in blessed radiance.

This miracle creates a diffuse light equal to daylight in a circular area 10 feet across, centered on the invoker. The light seems to radiate from above, although no source can be detected. No shadows are created in the area illuminate comes from.

Any search rolls made within the area receive a +2 as long as this miracle is maintained.

Additionally, all sneak rolls receive a –5. This makes the shadow man hex much less effective.

Most importantly, if the blessed gets at least 1 raise on the roll to invoke illuminate, all supernaturally evil beings suffer a –2 to all Trait and Aptitude rolls while within the confines of the light. Any such attacks which originate from outside the area and affect targets in the area receive a –1 penalty.

Inspiration

TN: 5

Speed: 1 minute sermon 

Duration: Special 

Range: Special

Evil thrives on fear. Only a few folks know this, but it seems the blessed often find out quicker than others. Their good-natured tendencies to help those in need usually bring them face-to-face with things that sometimes don’t even have a recognizable face.

When the blessed are fortunate enough to survive their adventures, their tales often inspire those around them.

The next part won’t make sense until the Marshal lets you read the chapter on Fear in the Deadlands rulebook, but that’s okay for now. Feel free to take the miracle anyway, and know that you should use it after defeating some major villainous presence to relay the inspiring story of your posses’ good deeds, natures, and accomplishments to the desperate masses.

Every success adds +2 to the blessed’s tale- tellin’ roll to reduce the Fear Level. The blessed has to tell his tale immediately. He can’t “save up” an inspiration bonus to use on a later sermon.

Intercession

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round

Range: 10 yards/faith level

Blessed heroes often try to carry the burdens of the world on their shoulders, but there are times when a fellow must carry his own load. Of course, that doesn’t stop a really determined martyr from lending a hand—or more!

Interpret Vision

TN: 5

Speed: 1 

Duration: Instant 

Range: Self

Nothing’s more frustrating after a visit to a prophet than not being able to make sense of his prophecies. Unfortunately, the nature of visions is such that even the

Intercession allows a blessed to swap his value in a single Trait with another character for foreteller is often unsure of the meaning of the augury. However, if a short period. This trade affects not only the Trait’s die type, but also its Coordination.

The exchange affects all Aptitudes related to the Trait, allowing them to be rolled with the new die type.

There are several restrictions on this miracle, however.

First, the blessed’s Trait die type must be greater than (or at least equal to) the other character’s. If the Trait die types are equal, the blessed must have the higher Coordination.

Second, the miracle doesn’t transfer any die modifiers, positive or negative, either character may have (except from a supernatural Trait).

character is fortunate enough to locate a blessed with this miracle, he can get some help in understanding the divination.

A blessed hero can never use this miracle on her own visions, but she can invoke it two work on those of others. The miracle doesn’t automatically reveal the augury’s meaning.

Rather it helps the character by translating symbols within the vision into the real-world equivalents. For each success she gets on the invocation roll, she can translate one symbol in the prophecy.

To do so, the blessed must hear the prophecy herself, although not necessarily from the prophet himself. Secondhand renditions of the vision, unless diligently recorded at the time of the foretelling, give the invocation a –2 modifier. Prophecies garnered from legend or hearsay, on the other hand, give the blessed a –5 modifier on the roll.

The miracle can only be attempted once on any single vision.

Unless the invoker goes bust, this miracle instantly reveals to the invoker whether or not the vision is genuine or a charlatan’s ruse, even if the roll is unsuccessful.

Jawbone of an Ass

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/faith level

Range: Touch

Samson’s faith turned the jawbone of a dead mule into a fearsome weapon.

Your hero might not always have her favorite hickory stick on hand when it’s time to knock a few heads for the greater good, so she might want to take a few pointers here.

When successfully invoked, this miracle turns any vaguely club-like item into a holy head-cracker. The item must be rigid, roughly cylindrical in shape and at least a foot and a half in length. Beyond that, there’s a lot of leeway; a stick, chunk of firewood, broomhandle, or even a bone does nicely.

The weapon does your hero’s Strength damage, plus an additional 1d6 for each success and raise she gets when invoking jawbone of an ass. On top of that, the weapon has a DB of +1 for each success and raise as well.

She needs fightin’: brawlin’ to use the weapon effectively. Since many blessed have issues with taking a life, she can choose to do either lethal or brawling-type damage with it.

The weapon’s damage isn’t magical so some abominations may not be too impressed with it.

Judgement of the Unrighteous

TN: Special

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/faith level

Range: 10 yards/faith level Vengeance belongs to the Powers

That Be, but occasionally, they’re willing to share it with a faithful servant.

Judgement of the unrighteous lets a blessed show the particularly wicked the errors of their ways.

The downside to this miracle is that the blessed must first turn the other cheek—although not necessarily intentionally. In other words, your hero has to let the bad guy hit him first and take at least a single wound level before he can cast judgement of the unrighteous.

Once that’s happened, the blessed can invoke the miracle. He has to target a specific opponent when he does, and he’d be wise to choose the one that’s done the most damage, as you’ll see in a minute.

Also, he can only pass judgment of the unrighteous on foes with human intelligence (or greater!). No condemning the poor beasts of the field! The Marshal has final call on what’s a fair target for this miracle.

When invoked, this miracle converts any wound level penalties caused by the target opponent from negative modifiers into positive ones as long as the Trait or Aptitude roll is directly affecting that foe. Thus, a fightin’ attack or spiritual backhand miracle would get the bonus, but a succor cast to keep another hero in the fight—even if she’s fighting the target—wouldn’t.

Later attacks by the target during the duration that cause damage may increase this modifier if they cause heavier wounds. Use the highest wound level caused by a single attack before or during the miracle’s duration. Of course, the blessed has to still be suffering the modifier; there’s no passing judgement for events in the distant past!

In addition, any damage the blessed causes the target gets the same bonus, whether it’s lethal or brawling.

Wounds from other sources still cause their normal penalties, however. These may even cancel out the benefits of the miracle, which is why judgment is best invoked against the blessed’s most dangerous foe!

Finally, even if the blessed has the thick-skinned Edge or other means of reducing the wound penalty, he gets the bonus modifier as if he didn’t. And, in case you’re wondering, your hero can’t combine this with bear the cross, but he could use it with martyrdom.

Reverend Harding takes a bullet from a cultist’s pistol, causing him two wound levels. He’s already suffering a Light wound

(-1 penalty) in the same location, for a total of a Serious wound

(-3). He invokes judgement of the unrighteous against the gun-

The Blessed 13

toting cultist, offsetting the last penalty and actually gaining a +2 bonus. He still suffers a -1 penalty from the earlier wound, so his total bonus against the target is

+1; against any other foes, he’s -3. His first action is to cast smite on himself. Since this move isn’t a direct action against the target, he doesn’t get the bonus to his roll. However, on his next action, he wallops the goon with his axe handle, gaining the bonus not only to his fightin’ roll, but also to his damage as well. If, on his next action he chooses to invoke spiritual backhand against the target, he gets a +2 bonus to his faith roll, and +2 to the Wind he causes if the miracle is successful.

Last Rites

TN: 5

Speed: 1 minute 

Duration: Permanent 

Range: 1 yard

Once a fellow’s been put down, he ought to have the common decency to stay down. All too often lately, the dead have been getting back up to wander around and cause no end of trouble. And it can be downright disheartening to see Aunt Edna as a zombie.

When this miracle is performed, either over the body of the recently deceased or over a fresh gravesite, it removes the usual worries of unexpected resurrections. As long as last rites is performed within 12 hours of a character’s death, there is no chance of him coming back as any type of zombie, vampire, ghost, Harrowed, or other form of undead.

This miracle can also put down a reanimated corpse or walking dead—if the blessed can somehow convince the creature to hold still for the minute necessary to invoke the miracle.

However, against a true Harrowed, it only gives the creature a –2 to all Trait and Aptitude rolls for 1 minute for every level of the blessed’s faith.

Obviously, this miracle is not likely to be used often in combat unless the hero is fighting really slow abominations!

Lay on Hands

TN: Special 

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Touch

Holy healers have been around since ancient times. They’ve just never been in such demand.

The blessed use this miracle to heal the wounds and afflictions of others (not themselves). The problem is that if the healer is not truly faithful, he takes on the subject’s malady as well.

The base TN for healing a subject’s wounds is shown on the chart below. Use the TN for the highest wound level the victim has sustained.

The entry for “maimed” applies to severed limbs, diseases, blindness, and other extremely serious maladies. Maimed gizzards and noggins cannot be healed with this miracle. Working with dead folks takes a bit more doing.

The blessed cannot bring back the truly dead with this miracle. That takes quite a bit more effort. Nor can the miracle heal the undead, like the Harrowed. Once a person’s breathed his last, there’s little that can be done for him.

The blessed actually feels the victim’s pain, so she must subtract the patient’s total wound modifier from her roll. As usual, only the highest wound modifier applies, so if the blessed is already suffering a larger wound modifier of her own, she doesn’t suffer any additional effects.

If the healer is successful, the victim is completely healed in all areas of his body. The patient maintains his wound modifiers for the next hour (due to stiffness in the healed areas), but he is not otherwise considered wounded.

The bad news is that if the healer fails the roll, the patient isn’t cured, and the healer takes on the same maladies or wounds. If these are wounds, the blessed takes the victim’s highest wound level to the corresponding hit location on

her own body. For example, if the victim’s highest wound level was a serious wound on his left arm, the blessed would take a serious wound to her own left arm, but she wouldn’t be affected by any of the patient’s other injuries.

Healing Difficulties

Wound Level TN 

Wind 3

Light 5

Heavy 7

Serious 9

Critical 11

Maimed (limbs only) 13

Lion’s Den

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Concentration 

Range: Sight

While throwing martyrs to wild animals isn’t as popular a punishment in the Weird West as it was in olden days, a blessed may still find himself menaced by the beasts of the field. For those occasions, there’s the lion’s den miracle.

This allows the invoker to soothe the savage beast.

When this miracle is successfully invoked, the blessed can select one type of normal animal within sight. The blessed can tame one animal of that type for every level of faith the holy person possesses.

The animals affected cease attacks of any sort. If possible, they calmly lie down and peacefully watch the blessed for as long as he remains in sight.

If the blessed receives a raise on the invocation roll, the affected animals perform simple, non-aggressive favors for the blessed. This includes, for example, fetching a small object.

If he gets 2 raises, the blessed gains a limited ability to communicate with the animals for the duration of the miracle. The animals perform any task he requests to the best of their abilities, including attack a foe. Although the animals must make a guts check to attack a supernatural creature, while affected by lion’s den they receive +2 to that roll.

This miracle affects only normal animals, but it can affect any normal animals—including those summoned or controlled by others, magically or otherwise.

Martyrdom

TN: 5

Speed: 1 (Vamoose) 

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Sight

Religious champions have been suffering for others since biblical times. The blessed heroes of the Weird West aren’t about to break such a noble tradition, and for those times when they aren’t in the right place to jump in front of a bullet for someone else, there’s martyrdom.

This miracle allows a blessed to take damage meant for a companion. Range is no object. The blessed only needs to be able to see the intended victim.

The invoker must call forth the miracle at the time the damage is received—invoking it afterward does not work. That means he has to use a vamoose to invoke martyrdom.

The only way a blessed can take multiple wounds for another on a single invocation of this miracle is if all the wounds are delivered on the same action—from an explosion, for example.

Once the miracle has been successfully called forth, the invoker takes the damage instead of the other character. The hit location and damage remain the same for the blessed as on the original target, but the blessed’s Size (if different from the victims) is used instead.

The miracle transfers the entire damage and its effects. This includes all wound levels, Wind loss, and stun checks. Any secondary effects, like a rattlesnake’s poison are also transferred to the invoker. Supernatural effects, like the bite of a lycanthrope or those from a hex, are negated on an Onerous (7) faith roll. Otherwise they’re transferred along with the damage.

Finally, if the blessed goes bust invoking this miracle, both he and the original victim suffer the wound!

Mediate

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round 

Range: 10 feet/faith level

Too often, tempers get the best of folks. What starts as a few angry words might end in a gunfight or in some poor soul swinging on the end of a rope.

Mediate allows a blessed hero to calm a potentially violent situation. This miracle is only effective before the lead starts flying. Once the fight’s started, mediate doesn’t work.

Much like protection, this miracle doesn’t require a faith roll to invoke it. The hero only needs to announce her intent to use mediate, and then spend an action. Once she’s spent the action, the effects of the miracle last until the beginning of the next round.

During that time, anyone within the area who attempts to take a hostile action must roll his Spirit versus the blessed’s faith. If he wins the contest, he’s free to do as he wishes. However, if he fails, he’s unable to make any offensive moves until the next round.

This effect applies to all characters within the miracle’s range, friend and foe alike, and includes the blessed herself. This miracle is granted to help the blessed find a peaceful solution to a problem, not to give her an unfair advantage in a fight!

An unfortunate do-gooder may find himself standing between two thick-headed gunslingers as they begin blasting away at each other.

Sometimes it’s tough being the good guy.

This miracle is only effective on humans— including those of the Harrowed persuasion. Other forms of undead and all other abominations, including a manitou in control of a Harrowed, are unaffected by mediate.

Mercy

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 5 rounds/faith level 

Range: Self

It doesn’t make much sense to go to a gunfight with a hickory stick—not unless you’re looking to cash in on your Heavenly rewards a little early! But folks who get shot have an alarming tendency to end up dead, so lots of blessed are gun shy—if you’ll pardon the phrase.

Mercy gives a blessed the option to use lethal weapons like guns and such in a nonlethal fashion. Any damage done by the blessed’s weapon is treated just like brawling damage.

That means, the hero totals his damage as normal. Then, for every wound level he’d have inflicted, the target only suffers 3 Wind instead. Every 2 full wounds inflicted this way causes a real wound.

The miracle works on any and every weapon the blessed uses during its duration. The only exception to this is gizmos. Mercy does not work with these unholy contraptions. The blessed can end the miracle’s effects at any time he chooses, in case the going gets really bad.

Mighty Fortress

TN: 7

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: 1 hour/faith level 

Range: Touch

Just as the blessed are the mortar that strengthens a good, God-fearin’ society with their unflinching faith in the divine, even the very buildings around them can become stronger.

This miracle greatly, but temporarily, strengthens a building against physical damage.

For every success the blessed gets on his faith roll, the Durability of the structure increases by +10 points. The Armor is also increased by +1 level for every raise on the roll.

The miracle can also be used to strengthen vehicles, including gizmos. When used for this purpose, mighty fortress only increases the Durability of the vehicle by +5 points for each success. The vehicle never gains any Armor points from the miracle, no matter how well the blessed rolls.

Any damage to the structure (or vehicle) is first subtracted from the temporary Durability points. At the end of the miracle, any remaining Durability points gained from this miracle are lost. Mighty fortress does not repair damage to structures or vehicles in any way.

Mysterious Ways

TN: 7

Speed: 1 round

Duration: 1 round 

Range: Self

There’s a well-known saying that goes, “God moves in mysterious ways.” This miracle provides proof that certain blessed do as well.

With this miracle, the hero can walk through solid material as if it were thin air. While invoking the miracle, the blessed must concentrate on the area she wishes to pass through.

The miracle doesn’t make the blessed intangible, nor does it change the substance she’s walking through. Physical attacks of all kinds still affect her while she’s under the effects of mysterious ways.

If the blessed gets a single success on her faith roll, she can walk through wooden walls or structures. With a raise, she can also do the same with stone structures, and with 2 raises, she can even pass through solid metal. The blessed can use this miracle to free herself from shackles or similar bonds.

The miracle only lasts 1 round. If the miracle ends while the blessed is still within the solid matter, she’s become a permanent fixture!

Opportunity’s Knock

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round

Range: Self

Sometimes, your hero gets only one chance to turn the tide against the forces of Darkness. If she misses it, even by a second, all hope might be lost. Luckily, with a little divine guidance, your blessed never need miss such an opportunity.

When invoked, opportunity’s knock turns another of her Action Cards into the equivalent of a red Joker. She doesn’t get a draw from the Fate Pot, but she can go at any time during the round—and even interrupt another character’s action with a Quickness check.

She can’t use this on a card up her sleeve, but she can keep another Action Card there and still enact the miracle. Also, she can’t keep the Action Card she chooses to affect this way beyond the end of the round.

Ordain

TN: 7

Speed: 1 hour 

Duration: Special 

Range: Special

With all the minions of Darkness running around nowadays, the more help a hero can get, the better. Ordain lets a blessed recruit allies, whether short term or for the long haul.

This miracle has two applications. First, it can be used to grant limited use of a miracle to another of the invoker’s religion. Second, ordain can assist a character who’s decided to take up his personal cross and fight the good fight.

When used to bestow the use of a miracle upon another, the invoker must choose a miracle he already knows. The character receiving the miracle must be of the same religion as the invoker, and have at least 1 level of faith.

For each success the blessed gets when invoking this miracle, the recipient gains one use of the miracle bestowed. She has full access to all the miracle’s effects, but she must invoke them using her own faith Aptitude. Any attempt to invoke the miracle, even a failed one, is considered a use. So beware, ye of little faith.

Although a non-blessed can only be under the effect of a single ordain at any given time, a blessed may ordain as many characters as he wants. The drawback is that for each character he’s ordained in this fashion, he receives a cumulative –2 to his own faith rolls when he tries to invoke a miracle he’s already bestowed on another. Once an ordained miracle has been invoked by the ordained, its negative modifier is removed. Miracles the blessed has not passed to others are not affected by these modifier.

The second use of ordain assists the recipient in the ordeal of becoming blessed. The Marshal has full details on the process necessary, but for the duration of her holy quest, the character gains a +1 to all faith and Spirit rolls. There is no negative effect on the blessed for the second use of this miracle.

Panacea

TN: Special 

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Touch

There’s a veritable cornucopia of diseases, poisons, and other such maladies in the Weird West. As if it weren’t already bad enough with normal complaints like cholera or rattlesnake venom, the Reckoning opened up a whole new can of pestilence.

Lay on hands can provide relief for disease, but using it for that is extremely difficult and dangerous to boot! This miracle provides a cure for diseases, poisons, and infections—both natural and supernatural in origin.

Panacea can cure any sort of disease, regardless of its source. It’s more difficult to minister to maladies of a supernatural origin than normal ones, even with this miracle. The TN for the miracle is based on the source of the disease and is listed on the table below.

The miracle is also effective in curing poisons and infections. Each of these maladies has a single TN, regardless of the source of the effect.

Parasites, like prairie ticks, are affected by this miracle as well. However, certain curses or possessions may resemble diseases or poisons, but panacea doesn’t work against them.

Panacea does nothing to heal any wounds suffered due the affliction, it only cures the illness or toxin. Other methods, magical or mundane, must be employed to treat any resultant wounds.

Panacea

Like most curative miracles, panacea has no effect on Harrowed characters, though is might kill illnesses harbored with the sicken power.

The miracle is only effective on victims still living. It can’t restore life to a character who died as a result of poison, disease, or infection.

Characters with the ailing Hindrance who are cured by this miracle must spend the required Bounty Points to buy off their Hindrance.

Unlike with lay on hands, if the invocation roll for panacea is failed, the invoker doesn’t contract the disease. However, if the blessed goes bust, then she contracts the whole, nasty illness.

Malady TN

Normal disease (cholera, typhoid, etc.) 5

Any infection 7

Any poison 9

Any parasite or supernatural disease 11

Parley

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 minute/faith level Range: Self

How can a blessed spread the word of her beliefs if she can’t speak the language of her audience? Simple: She uses this miracle.

When successfully invoked, parley allows the blessed to communicate in unknown tongues. The miracle translates both the invoker’s words to others and vice versa.

Parley translates the blessed’s words so all within earshot of her can clearly understand— even if multiple languages are spoken. For example, the invoker could be simultaneously understood by Spanish, Japanese, and Apache speakers and conversely understand their responses.

A blessed under the effect of parley can understand and be understood even within the area of babble on.

Only the invoker receives this translation effect, others in the area without a common language still can’t understand each other.

This miracle is only effective on creatures that have a spoken language in the human sense.

Thus, it’s ineffective as a method of communication with animals and nonspeaking abominations.

Perseverance

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/faith level

Range: Self

If at first you don’t succeed, try again; that seems to be the point the divine powers are trying to hammer home with this particular miracle.

Perseverance awards your hero for not giving up just because he doesn’t enjoy immediate success.

When the blessed casts perseverance, he chooses a single Trait or Aptitude roll and action he’s trying to accomplish. For the duration of the miracle, each time he fails at the task, he gets a +1 bonus to his next attempt at that exact same task. This modifier is cumulative until he succeeds, then it’s completely cancelled.

For example, if he’s attempting to hit a particularly nimble walkin’ dead with his Peacemaker, each time he misses he gets a +1 to the next shootin’ roll. So, should he miss three times in a row, his fourth shot is at +3. Once he does hit the confounded thing, though, he loses all the bonuses on the next attempt, but the cycle does start over if perseverance is still in effect.

The miracle can only target one specific activity and associated Trait or Aptitude roll. If your blessed changes tactics and tries a different method, he loses any bonuses.

In the example above, should the hero decide to give up on his marksmanship and beat the zombie with a stick, he gains no bonus from perseverance.. The bonus to his shootin’ is lost, although he can start over if the miracle’s duration allows.

Prayers of the Faithful

TN: 7

Speed: 2

Duration: 1 round/faith level

Range: 10 yards/faith level There’s strength in numbers,

particularly if those numbers are joined in a common faith and cause. This miracle allows your blessed to draw upon the power of other faithful of her own religion to assist in overcoming hardships.

Once invoked, any cowpokes in range can immediately sacrifice one of their own Action Cards—just as if they were making a vamoose—to utter a little prayer of support for the blessed. For this prayer to actually work, the character making the prayer must have at least one level in faith and have the same religion as your hero. He also has to spend the Action Card at the time of the miracle’s casting—no waiting!

Each character can only do this once, and your blessed cannot participate in this part of the miracle. For each character who sacrifices an Action Card in this manner, she gains a +1 bonus to her next Trait or Aptitude roll—which she must specifically state when she invokes the miracle. No pulling the old bait-and-switch on divine favor!

The bonus your hero gains in this manner can’t be greater than her faith Aptitude level. For example, if she has faith 5, the maximum modifier she can receive from these prayers is +5, no matter how many are praying for her.

The miracle lasts for 1 round for each level she has in faith, or until she attempts the named Trait or Aptitude roll—successfully or not—whichever comes first.

There is one exception to this limit. The blessed can garner prayers of the faithful to assist with her own natural healing rolls. To do so, she must invoke the miracle the day prior to actually making the healing roll. Even though such healing normally takes longer than the duration allows, Heaven cuts her a little slack and allows it.

Finally, a blessed can only benefit from a single prayers of the faithful at a time, even if she invokes it for another Trait or Aptitude.

Protection

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round 

Range: Self

One miracle used by all western religions is protection. This is simply reliance on one’s deity or deities to protect the faithful from supernatural evil. Any character with at least one level in the faith Aptitude may attempt this miracle by presenting her holy symbol or otherwise declaring the power of her deity. Like we said before, if your character is a follower of the Indian spirits, you can’t use this miracle, no matter how much faith you’ve got. The spirits do grant favors, just not this particular one.

A supernaturally evil opponent must make a

Spirit total versus the hero’s faith. Should it lose, the creature cannot touch the character or otherwise cause her direct harm. It could still push over a bookshelf the blessed happened to be standing under, but it couldn’t fire a weapon, cast a hex, or use its special abilities on her until it wins the spiritual contest.

Of course, this doesn’t do the blessed’s companions a bit of good. They’re still fair game. Truly valiant heroes that have protection often find they can help the rest of their posse by standing directly between the horrific creature and their hapless friends. Be careful, though.

This can be a really awkward place to be should the miracle suddenly fail.

Faithful characters shouldn’t rely on this miracle too often, since the winner of the contest between the blessed and the beast is likely to waver back and forth. And any creature affected by protection probably doesn’t need more than one opening to finish the fight.

Permanently.

Quench

TN: Special 

Speed: 2 

Duration: Special

Range: 10 yards/faith level

There’s a place for fire in a religion, but burning down a schoolhouse—or worse, your hero himself—isn’t it. With quench, your blessed can invoke a little Heavenly aid in extinguishing fires of both earthly and unearthly origin.

The TN for the miracle depends on the intensity of the fire and is shown on the table below.

If successful, the miracle immediately quenches the fire. Unless restarted by an outside force, the fire stays permanently extinguished. Due to the power of this miracle, however, no fire can restart on the target for 1 round for each level of the blessed’s faith.

While quench does initally put out ghost rock fires, unlike other blazes, these do restart on their own after 1 round for every level of your hero’s faith Aptitude.

Quench

Intensity TN

Lantern, torch 3

Campfire 5

Bonfire 7

Small burning building 9

Large burning building 11

Magical fire, ghostrock 13

Reassurance

TN: Special Speed: 1

Duration: Permanent Range: Touch

There are things hiding in the Weird West so terrifying they can take a year off a fellow’s life— if they don’t give the poor fool a heart attack!

And few things are more disheartening than having the fastest gun in the West turn and run just when the posse needs him most.

With this miracle, a blessed can help a character overcome a failed guts check with a reassuring touch and a few words of encouragement—and a boost of holy power.

To invoke this miracle, the blessed must touch a hero who has failed a guts check.

The TN for the miracle is the same as the Terror score for the cause of the guts check.

If the miracle is successfully invoked, all further effects of the failed check are canceled. For example, a character could stop running away and return to the fight. Any negative modifiers received as a result of the failed check would also be canceled.

However, Wind lost as a result of a failed check is not healed by this miracle, nor is aging reversed. Faith lost in such a manner is not restored by this miracle.

Phobias caused by a Scart Table result are only cured by reassurance if it’s cast within the same round the guts check was failed.

Heart attacks caused by a bad Scart Table check are a special case. Although reassurance can’t restore a lowered Vigor Trait, it can halt any further effects of the heart attack. In other words, if this miracle is successfully invoked, it can prevent the death of a character to a heart attack induced by a failed guts check.

A blessed character cannot cast reassurance on herself.

Retribution

TN: Special

Speed: 1 (Vamoose) 

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Sight

A lot of blessed believe if a fellow slaps one cheek they should turn the other. Sometimes, those trusting folk end up with two red cheeks. Others among the faithful hold to the old law of “an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth.” This miracle fully supports the tenets of the second philosophy.

With retribution, the blessed inflicts a wound on an opponent who has just wounded him. The wound level suffered by the target is identical to the one the target inflicted on the blessed.

Retribution may only be exacted for the last wound received, and must be inflicted on the character or creature who dealt the wound. (If multiple wounds were somehow delivered by a single attack, as in an explosion, the miracle does exact punishment for all the wounds.)

The blessed must first receive a wound from the target in order to use this miracle. He must also survive the wound in order to invoke the miracle. Retribution can’t be cast before the wound has been inflicted, even if the character has a card up his sleeve.

After the blessed suffers the original wound, he must then use his next-highest Action Card to invoke the miracle. (Cards up a sleeve are always considered highest for this purpose.) If the holy hero has no Action Cards left, he can’t invoke the miracle. After that, it’s too late.

The miracle only inflicts the amount of wound levels actually received by the blessed. So, if the character reduced the damage with Fate Chips, for example, retribution only delivers wound levels equal to the reduced wound—not the original.

This miracle transfers actual wounds, not damage. Therefore, size difference between the blessed and his foe neither increases nor decreases the wound inflicted by retribution.

Finally, retribution may only be invoked once for each wound.

Reverend Harding finds himself cornered in a box canyon by a persistent Mojave rattler. The rattler deals him a devastating blow with a tentacle, doing a critical wound (4 levels) to his guts. The good Reverend manages to keep his feet and invoke retribution against the rattler. The Good Lord hears his plea, and with

His divine wrath the miracle inflicts a similar wound to the rattler’s body, causing a critical wound (4 levels) to the abomination’s guts.

Sacrifice

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Permanent Range: Sight

A central belief in most religions is that of sacrifice. The blessed can call upon this intervention to give one of his own chips to any other character in sight. He doesn’t have to pay the usual “two-for-one” cost of trading chips.

The blessed can give chips to nonbelievers as well as members of his own flock, unless the recipient’s beliefs run entirely counter to his own (such as an evil cultist).

Failure means no chips are transferred.

Safekeepin’

TN: 7

Speed: 10 minutes 

Duration: 1 hour/faith level 

Range: Touch

Even a hero’s got to sleep sometimes, and that isn’t always a safe proposition nowadays. Sure, if a blessed’s got the time, she can sanctify a place and make it proof against evil, but since that takes a week, it’s not something she can do every time she wants to bed down for the night.

Safekeepin’ is a short-term ward the blessed can invoke to protect a small area. The miracle temporarily prevents supernaturally evil creatures from entering the warded area. It’s not as effective as sanctify and isn’t permanent, but it only takes about as long to invoke as the blessed spends saying her bedtime prayers.

The miracle protects an area 15 feet in diameter. Any supernatural creature attempting to enter this area is stopped for 1 round.

Creatures summoned or created by magical means are also affected by the miracle. The invoker is immediately awakened and aware of the nature of the threat. No surprise or Cognition roll is necessary.

After the first round, the creature can force its way through the safekeepin’ by making a Hard

(9) Spirit roll. Once the ward has been breached by even one such creature, the miracle ends.

The miracle doesn’t provide any defense against mundane threats like angry Indians, rabid grizzly bears, or even black-hearted cultists.

Sanctify

TN: 11

Speed: 1 week Duration: Permanent Range: Touch

The blessed are able to ask their deity to consecrate hallowed ground, making it painful for evil creatures to walk upon it.

To work this miracle, the blessed must remain in the place to be sanctified for an entire week. Once the ritual is completed, a circle with a radius equal to 10 feet times the blessed’s faith (or one temple, church, etc.) is hallowed.

When an evil creature steps upon sanctified ground, it must make an Incredible (11) Spirit roll every round. If it fails, it begins to smoke and steam as if burning, and it takes the difference in Wind. This damage is spiritual and so can actually affect undead as well as other abominations. Sanctify only affects a Harrowed if the manitou is in control. Otherwise, while the Harrowed may be evil, she’s only humanly so.

Sentinel

TN: 5

Speed: 1 minute 

Duration: Concentration 

Range: Self

Everyone needs someone to watch over them from time to time. Blessed heroes are generally predisposed to filling that role for folks in particularly dire straits. As often as they find themselves shepherding the flock, it’s a good thing they get a little divine help in this miracle.

To invoke this miracle, the hero must designate someone or some place to guard or watch over. The blessed can’t choose himself to guard, but he could name his church or even his campsite as the place he’s warding.

Sentinel has two possible effects when it’s invoked. For each success the blessed gets on his faith roll, he can choose one of the effects. So, with 2 successes, the hero gains both benefits of the miracle. Further raises are of no additional effect. The benefits are listed below:

First, the hero gains a +5 on his Cognition rolls to avoid surprise. This bonus only applies to rolls for that purpose, and other Cognition checks are made as normal.

Second, the hero does not need to sleep as long as he maintains sentinel. However, for each night the hero stays awake in this manner, or doesn’t get at least 4 hours of rest, he receives a cumulative –1 to all Trait and Aptitude rolls. This modifier persists until he gets 8 hours of sleep.

Smite

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 minute 

Range: Self

With this miracle, the blessed heroes of the Weird West can smite the evils of the Reckoning back into the last century.

When invoked, the invoker’s Strength die type is raised +1 step for every success.

Snake Handlin’

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: 5 rounds/faith level 

Range: Touch

No self-respecting blessed should be without a sturdy walking stick. Not only does it help relieve a tired back on long trips across the frontier, but it’s also good for showing the unrepentant the error of their ways. This miracle lets the blessed turn her trusty stick into a symbol of divine wrath.

The hero must have a fairly stout stick of at least the length of an ax handle to invoke this miracle. Calling upon her patron, she casts the staff onto the ground. Snake handlin’ turns the wood into a living snake for the duration of the miracle. The blessed can also end the effect at any time by picking up the serpent.

With a single success, the serpent is a simple, nonpoisonous snake with no special abilities.

Other than appearing from an otherwise normal piece of wood, that is.

If the hero gets a raise on the invocation roll, the snake produced is a venomous one—usually a rattler, although any type is possible.

Regardless of the type chosen, the creature’s characteristics and abilities are identical to those of a rattler. Blessed heroes should keep in mind poisonous snake bites can be deadly, so they should use restraint when invoking this miracle.

The snake obeys the commands of the invoker to the best of its ability. These commands need not be spoken out loud—the creature can sense the hero’s intent. However, the snake has no real intelligence, so it can understand only the simplest of instructions.

Unlike many summoned animals, snakes created by this miracle do not have to make guts checks to attack supernatural creatures.

Profiles for both types of snakes created by this miracle are listed here.

Non-Poisonous Snake

A medium-sized constrictor snake (like a 6- or 7-foot boa or python) is a good example of this type of snake.

Corporeal: D:1d4, N:2d8, Q:3d8, S:2d8, V:2d4 Fightin’: wrasslin’ 3d8

Mental: C:2d6, K:1d4, M:1d6, Sm:1d4, Sp:1d4 Size: 3

Special Abilities:

Squeeze: If the snake gets a hit to the head or guts on a man-sized or smaller target, it causes the victim to lose 1d4 Wind at the beginning of each round. He can break free by winning an opposed Strength roll.

Poisonous Snake

Rattlesnakes, cobras, and asps are all good examples of poisonous vipers.

Corporeal: D:1d4, N:1d6, Q:4d12+2, S:1d4, V:2d4 Fightin’: brawling 4d6

Mental: C:2d10, K:1d4, M:1d6, Sm:1d4, Sp:1d4 Overawe 2d6

Size: 2

Terror: 3

Special Abilities: Bite: STR

Poison: If one of these poisonous serpents causes a wound, its fangs poison its victim. The victim must immediately make a Fair

(5) Vigor roll. If the roll is successful, the area of the bite swells painfully and (if it’s a limb) can’t be used for 1d6 days. If he fails, the victim dies in 1d6 hours unless someone treats the wound. This requires a Hard (9) medicine: any roll.

Solace

TN: Special 

Speed: 1 week

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Touch

This miracle removes dementias, no matter how they were gained. It can even cure dementias a character took as a starting Hindrance, although these must still be bought off with Bounty Points in the usual fashion.

Harrowed Hindrances of a mental nature can also be cured this way, but the character must also pay the full Bounty Point cost to remove them, as well.

Only one dementia at a time can be healed with this miracle, and the blessed can only perform this miracle on any individual once a month.

The base Target Number to heal a character’s dementia is shown on the table below. The difficulty is based on the relative severity of the dementia, as determined by the Marshal. Some examples have been given to help the Marshal make this decision.

Solace Difficulty

Removing a Harrowed Hindrance is a bit tougher, as part of those dementias derive from the manitou itself. Only 1 point of a Harrowed Hindrance is removed for every successful invocation of this miracle.

Dementia TN

1 point Hindrances; mumbling, eccentricities, mild delusions 5

2 point Hindrances; absent minded, minor phobias 7

3 point Hindrances; paranoia, more serious delusions 9

4 point Hindrances; major phobias, manic-depressive 11

5 point Hindrances; schizophrenia, very serious delusions,
evil deeds, any Harrowed Hindrance 13

Solomon’s Advice

TN: 7

Speed: 1 minute 

Duration: Instant 

Range: Sight

Most God-fearin’ folk in the Weird West turn to their spiritual leaders for advice and guidance. So who do the blessed turn to? You know.

Anyone who’s ever been faced with a difficult decision understands the importance of narrowing down choices. This miracle helps a blessed faced with a number of alternatives eliminate at least a few of the wrong ones.

For each success the character gets on his roll to invoke the miracle, the Marshal eliminates one incorrect solution or choice. If the blessed has only two possible solutions, then, successfully invoking Solomon’s advice tells him which choice is correct.

The hero can only use this miracle when the number of possible choices for his dilemma is no greater than his faith Aptitude. Also, he must clearly understand his choices, and the correct answer must be among his options.

For example, a hero who’s just rode into town and found a murdered cowpoke couldn’t very well use this miracle to determine the killer— there are just too many possible candidates, and the hero doesn’t even know who’s a suspect! On the other hand, if he investigates the crime and eliminates all but a few suspects, Solomon’s advice can help him further reduce the number.

Most importantly, this miracle can only be used once per adventure.

Soothe

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 5 rounds/faith level 

Range: Touch

Goodly folk don’t like watching another fellow suffer.

Soothe lets a blessed ease the pain of another character. Like lay on hands, a blessed cannot use this miracle on himself.vWhen successfully invoked, soothe removes all wound modifiers the target character is suffering. It doesn’t actually heal wounds. It only removes the pain the wounds may cause.

Soothe also prevents the character from suffering wound modifiers from any new wounds received for the remainder of the duration. After the miracle ends, the subject once again suffers the normal modifier for his highest current wound level.

Spiritual Backhand

TN: 7

Speed: 1 

Duration: Instant

Range: 5 feet/faith level

Most miracles given to the blessed are subtle wonders, and few directly harm a foe. That’s because a blessed’s patron generally prefer the hero confront the forces of Darkness face-to- face and whip them on her own. Nonetheless, there are times when assistance is needed above and beyond the usual. Spiritual backhand is the exception to the subtlety rule. This miracle lets the blessed reach out and touch his opponent in a very real way.

This miracle strikes the subject with an invisible force. Although the force itself can’t be seen, its effect on the target is likely to be noticeable. Spiritual backhand does not do damage to the target, but it does cause Wind loss. For every success the blessed gets on her faith roll, the subject loses 1d4 Wind. Once a target has been reduced to 0 Wind, spiritual backhand has no further effect on it.

This miracle does affect creatures immune to normal Wind loss, like Harrowed.

Strike Blind

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/2 levels of faith

Range: 10 yards

Sometimes all a sinner needs is a taste of the wrath of God to convince him to change his ways. And sometimes, all some Hell-spawned abomination needs is to go blind just long enough for a burly hero to sneak up behind it and wallop it on the head! Not surprisingly, this miracle blinds an opponent.

The blessed’s opponent must make a Vigor roll or be blinded for the duration of the miracle. The TN for the Vigor check is based on the invoker’s roll to invoke the miracle. See the table below to determine the TN for the roll.

While blinded, the target is at a –6 to any Trait or Aptitude roll that relies on sight. In addition, ranged attacks (like shootin’ or throwin’) the target makes are at an additional –4, for a total of –10!

The blindness lasts 1 round for every 2 levels of faith the invoker has. (Don’t forget the Golden Rule—round down!) Against creatures that don’t use vision as a primary sense, this miracle is ineffective. This includes creatures such as Mojave rattlers, prairie ticks, and tumblebleeds.

Strike Blind

Invocation Roll Vigor Check TN

5 3

7 5

9 7

11 9

13+ 11

An undead ghost rock miner is attacking Sister Cabrini with a rusty pick he’s pulled from the gaping wound in his own back. The good Sister decides to use strike blind on the abomination and then make a run for it. She rolls a 10 on her faith check to invoke the miracle—a success! The walkin’ dead must now make a Vigor check against a TN of 7 to avoid being blinded. Luckily for Sister Cabrini, it fails, and since she has a faith of 5, the zombie ’49er is blinded for 2 full rounds. Without much more than a look over her shoulder, Sister Cabrini high- tails it out of there to fight another day.

Succor

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Permanent 

Range: Touch

This is the blessed’s quick and dirty version of lay on hands. When invoked, it instantly rids the recipient of 1d6 Wind per success (reroll Aces).

The blessed, being the pious individuals they are, can never grant succor to themselves.

This miracle has no effect on the Harrowed.

Sparrow’s Fall

TN: 5

Speed: 2

Duration: 1 day/faith level

Range: 1 mile/faith level

They say Heaven knows when even a single sparrow falls from its perch. That’s probably a little beyond the realm of even divinely inspired humans, but with this miracle, a blessed can at least keep track of one of her own flock.

When she invokes this miracle, your blessed must name a specific person. Furthermore, she can’t target an unwilling character with sparrow’s fall; the subject must allow it, otherwise it simple fails. Finally, the target character must be within range at the time she invokes the miracle, or it fails before she even rolls her faith.

If these conditions are met and she makes her faith roll, for the duration of the miracle, she is constantly aware of the state of the subject’s well-being. In game terms, she knows the target’s wound levels and current Wind.

If she gets a raise on her faith roll to invoke sparrow’s fall, she knows the rough direction and distance to the chosen character.

Finally, thanks to the power of the miracle, she can give Fate Chips to the chosen character to prevent wounds or Wind loss for the duration of the miracle without having to sacrifice one of equal value to the Marshal. She can do so regardless of the distance separating the two, but the blessed must be conscious to pass along the Fate Chips.

Your blessed can only invoke a single sparrow’s fall at a time. The drain on her spiritual awareness is too great to let her maintain more than one.

Strength of Fellowship

TN: 7

Speed: Vamoose

Duration: Instant

Range: 5 yards/faith level

Earlier we mentioned strength in numbers, but there’s also courage there as well. Strength of fellowship helps your blessed boost the morale of his fellow worshipers when faced with the horrors of the Weird West.

When invoked, strength of fellowship provides a bonus to the guts rolls of all cowpokes within range who share your blessed’s religion (i.e., have at least 1 level in the same faith Aptitude). This bonus is equal to the total number of characters within range of your blessed who have the same faith Aptitude as he does. Those who don’t neither gain from nor contribute to the bonus.

There is no upper limit to this modifier, but it only applies to a single guts check made in the same round as the miracle is invoked. Later checks do not get this bonus.

This miracle is cast as an active defense—in other words, as a vamoose— because often abominations have a habit of jumping out at your character when he’s not expecting it! To invoke strength of fellowship, your hero must spend his highest Action Card.

Sometimes the servants of Darkness manage to put the frighteners on folks before they’ve even had a chance to roll Quickness. In that case, your blessed can chuck a white Fate Chip (or higher) into the Fate Pot to invoke strength of fellowship at that time.

Your blessed counts toward the number of the total bonus to the guts check and receives it as well.

A cowpoke can only benefit from a single strength of fellowship at a time.

Temperance

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: 5 minutes/faith level 

Range: 5 feet

Everybody’s perceptions are colored by his own opinions. Unfortunately, a person’s sentiments may keep him from seeing the truth or lead him to foolish acts. This miracle lets a blessed help another character gain a clearer view of a situation.

To invoke the miracle, the hero must be able to speak calmly and rationally to the subject for at least a minute. At the end of that period, he makes an opposed faith roll against the subject’s Spirit. If he’s successful, he can remove the behavioral effects of a single mental Hindrance. For each raise, he can negate another such Hindrance.

By “behavioral effects,” we mean those Hindrances which cause the subject to act in a particular way. Stubborn heroes listen to reason for a short time, vengeful ones lay aside a vendetta, and even randy folks can think above their waistline.

Other effects of the Hindrance aren’t reduced in any way.

For example, if temperance is used to temporarily offset yeller, the miracle would give the subject the backbone to act bravely for a little while, but folks who knew him would still think of him as a coward. He still suffers the –2 modifier if he tried to persuade folks who look down on that sort of thing.

Dementias can also be temporarily relieved by temperance, but for long-term cures, solace must be used.

The tenets of a character’s religion are not considered a Hindrance and can’t be affected by this miracle. A Buddhist isn’t going to stop being a pacifist no matter how well you roll.

This miracle can only be used once a day on any particular subject.

Test o’ Faith

TN: 9

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round 

Range: Self

It’s said through faith anything is possible. A blessed with this miracle knows through faith anything is at least easier.

When invoked, test o’ faith allows the character to substitute her Spirit Trait for any other Trait for the purposes of a single Trait or Aptitude roll during the same round.

Reverend Harding is facing a desperate gunman who’s holding the schoolmarm hostage, a pistol to her head. He wants to shoot the six-shooter from the man’s hand. Now, as a warrior of God, the Reverend’s no slouch with a hogleg, but even for him, this is a tricky shot. The Reverend has a normal shootin’: pistol of 5d8. However, his Spirit die type is a d12. Trying to boost his odds, the Reverend performs a test o’ faith successfully, allowing him to substitute his Spirit for his Deftness for one action. This lets him take the shot with an effective shootin’ of 5d12.

The Lord Provides

TN: 7

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: 1 hour/faith level

Range: Self

The Good Book tells the faithful to ask and their needs shall be answered. This miracle proves the truth in that passage.

Once she’s invoked the Lord provides, your blessed gets a +5 on her scroungin’ rolls, plus an additional +2 for every raise. Now, she may not find exactly what she wants if her roll is successful, but she does find what she needs. Exactly what that entails is the Marshal’s call, of course.

The miracle is likewise effective in a wilderness setting. There, the blessed gains a similar bonus to her appropriate survival rolls to find food and water. Out in the wilds, it’s a little more straightforward than in the city, so for every success and raise, she finds enough food and water to feed a single person for one day.

Two Places

TN: Special 

Speed: 1 round

Duration: 1 round/faith level 

Range: 100 yards/faith level

Good folks have always been in short supply, but lately they’re downright scarce. With all the abominations and other servants of Darkness slinking around the West these days, sometimes it feels like a hero has to be in two places at once. While that may be a daunting proposition to most heroes, the blessed aren’t your run-of- the-mill heroes.

This miracle allows a blessed to create an identical spiritual double of himself. When he invokes the miracle, the hero can have the double appear anywhere within range, with one exception—the hero and his double cannot be within eyesight of each other.

The blessed may be separated from the double by a hill, a building, or even a particularly dark night. In fact, the two can be as close as opposite sides of a wall, as long as they can’t possibly see each other. If there’s ever an unobstructed line of sight between the hero and his double, the miracle immediately ends.

The double created by two places looks exactly like the blessed. The blessed can see, hear, and even speak through the image.

Otherwise, it’s intangible and unable to directly affect the physical world. However, if the blessed gets at least 1 raise on his roll to invoke two places, he can invoke the following miracles through his double: falter, martyrdom, protection, sacrifice, and succor.

Splitting attention between two different locations is tough—even for an honest-to-God miracle worker. Any Trait or Aptitude rolls the hero makes during the miracle’s duration are at a –2.

If the action heats up and the Marshal decides the game has moved into rounds, the blessed rolls his Quickness (with the –2 modifier) and draws his cards as normal. However, on each action he must choose whether to act himself or through his double—he can’t do both. It is possible to switch back and forth between the two during a round if the hero has multiple actions.

Finally, the double is immune to all forms of physical attack—even from other insubstantial beings, such as a Harrowed with the ghost power. Of course, if the blessed uses martyrdom through his double, he takes the transferred wound himself. The only magical attacks that can affect the blessed through the double are spells or the like that influence or target the mind.

Unfetter

TN: 5

Speed: 1 round 

Duration: Instant 

Range: Touch

There’s an old adage that claims the truth shall set you free. Well, there are a lot of folks still moldering in the hoosegow waiting for the truth to unlock their door. Fortunately, the truth gets a little incentive from above to work quickly on behalf of the blessed.

This miracle unties bonds, unlocks shackles, and opens doors holding the blessed hero or his companions captive. Each success springs one such device holding the hero. Of course, there’s no reason the character can’t use it more than once if her jailers were particularly thorough with her restraints!

The purpose of unfetter is to free a blessed from captivity. It can open other doors or locks, but it takes a lot more work. Any attempt to open a closure that’s not binding the blessed

gives the hero a –6 on her roll to invoke the miracle. Also, she can only try the miracle once per day on each such device.

Walk on Water

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Concentration Range: Special

Not every servant of Heaven can part the waters of the Red Sea or even the Rio Grande. That doesn’t mean they still don’t need to cross them from time to time. They just have to find another way. This miracle provides the blessed with just that.

Successfully invoking this miracle grants the invoker the ability to walk on water. The blessed can tread upon water just as if it were solid ground, regardless of whether it’s a small pond, whitewater river rapid, or storm-tossed sea.

Also, a blessed who invokes this miracle can enable others of her religion to attempt the same marvel. To do so, each character must make an Onerous (7) faith roll of his own. If successful, he can walk on water just as if he’d invoked the miracle himself. The character doesn’t gain the actual miracle, just access to it for a short period.

The invoker can affect one other character per level of the blessed’s faith, and she must be able to see the character at the time the miracle is invoked.

Water of Life

TN: 7

Speed: 1

Duration: Instant

Range: 10 yards/faith level

All life on earth needs water to survive. Given that, it’s really no surprise that most religions place a great importance on the substance.

Turning this fount of life into foul poisons, toxic liquids, and the like just doesn’t sit well with many blessed or their divine patrons.

Water of life lets your hero cleanse liquid of any harmful impurities and turn it to a revitalizing tonic. Regardless of how foul or toxic the target liquid is this miracle converts it to the purest of pure water. Acid, poison, alcohol, or any similar vile substance is instantly neutralized and purified.

Your hero can change 1 gallon of liquid per level of his faith to water with this miracle. He doesn’t have to see it, but he does have to know where the water is and it must be within range when he invokes the miracle.

So, for example, he could transmute the acid in a tank on a mad scientist’s back to water if he knew it was there; however, he can’t simply cast the miracle blindly and cleanse the entire area.

The miracle has an added effect: Not only is the liquid cleansed, but water of life provides it with a mild healing power. Any hero that drinks of the water so created regains 1d6 Wind for each success and raise the blessed received when invoking the miracle.

She must drink the liquid within 1 minute of its conversion, however, for this effect to work.

Water to Wine

TN: 7

Speed: 2

Duration: 1 hour/faith level

Range: Touch

The previous miracle completely purifies liquid, making it crystal clear water. This miracle, on the other hand, turns a beverage into a pacifying intoxicant.

Sure, drunkenness is frowned on by nearly all religions, but between shooting an enemy or rendering him senseless without violence, most would likely choose the latter!

When cast, water to wine turns up to 1 gallon per level of your blessed’s faith of water, coffee, tea, whiskey, or just about any other, non-alchemical beverage to a pleasant, but powerfully intoxicating, drink. A single sip of the liquid is sufficient to cause its effects.

For the duration of the miracle, anyone who imbibes the liquid must make a Vigor roll against a Fair (5) TN or settle down for a nice, relaxing nap. For every raise the blessed gets on her faith roll to invoke this miracle, that TN increases by +2.

Even if a drinker manages to stay awake, he suffers a -1 modifier for every success and raise your hero received on her faith roll to all other Trait and Aptitude checks for the duration of the miracle.

As noted, a single drink is sufficient to cause the effects noted above. At the Marshal’s discretion, cowpokes who imbibe the liquid with gusto may receive additional modifiers to the Vigor roll to remain awake.

Wellspring

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 minute/faith level 

Range: Touch

Often a posse in the desert, or even the prairie, finds itself needing water more than words of wisdom or reassurance. After all, what good is divine guidance if a fellow dies of thirst before he can act on it?

This miracle allows the blessed to bring water forth from the ground. No matter if she’s in the middle of the Mojave or on a rock shelf in the Sierra Nevadas, wellspring produces a flow of pure, fresh water that is clean, drinkable, and even refreshing.

The water bubbles forth from the ground at a fairly good rate—10 gallons a minute or so. If the surrounding terrain permits, it pools up and remain until it’s removed or evaporates. Of course, the water can be contaminated by the ground, so the hero should get it quickly.

Wings o’ Angels

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: Concentration 

Range: 10 yards/faith level

Everyone wants the high ground in a fight.

From up there, a cowpoke’s got a good view and an even better shot. But there’s one problem with elevations—the higher you are, the harder you hit when you fall.

This miracle protects a hero against prosecution for violating the laws of gravity. It doesn’t let a character fly, but it does cushion falls.

The blessed can affect one character within range for each success he gets on his faith roll. He can even use it to cushion his own fall, although he’d better have a card up his sleeve if the drop catches him off-guard. Of course, he’s welcome to invoke the miracle and then step off into space.

Characters under the effect of wings o’ angels descend at a Pace of 10. That’s a good clip, but not so fast as to cause a fellow damage when he rejoins the ranks of the earthbound.

Word o’ Honor

TN: Opposed 

Speed: 1 minute

Duration: 1 day/faith level 

Range: 10 yards

There’s not much worse than fibbing to a blessed. (“Sure, Padre, I promise to never touch another drop o’ that demon rum.”) All but the most coldhearted folks find it difficult to look a holy person right in the eye and lie right to his face. This miracle makes it nearly downright impossible.

To invoke the miracle, the blessed has to talk to the subject for at least a minute. This must be a two-sided conversation, not a tirade of Hellfire and brimstone.

Sometime in the course of the conversation, the blessed needs to extract a promise of some sort from the person he’s talking with. This can be anything from “I promise to quit swearing” to “My gun will be at your side.” However, it’s got to be something that’s actually within the subject’s ability to pull off. There’s no use promising to haul the moon out of the sky, because it just is not going to happen.

Once the subject makes the promise of his own free will, the blessed rolls to invoke the miracle. If he’s successful, the subject has to do his best to live up to the intent of the promise.

That’s right. No fancy word games here. The important thing is the intent of the words, even if it conflicts with the intent of the speaker (say for instance, to flat-out lie just to get away from the blessed).

By the way, Marshal, this is a perfect example of something that should be roleplayed out entirely. Don’t leave this kind of thing up to the dice. Make the blessed’s player work for that promise!

To invoke the miracle, the blessed rolls his faith against the promiser’s Spirit. If he beats the promiser, the miracle takes hold.

There’s no way for the subject to personally avoid fulfilling her obligation to the blessed, unless she’s promised something that she would personally find morally wrong. This miracle is meant to enforce a person’s better nature, not work against it. Of course, other folks can still get in the subject’s way.

In theory, a blessed would never ask someone to do something wrong, much less force such an action by way of a miracle. If this happens, the miracle just plain doesn’t work. The Almighty’s generally not in the business of forcing people to sin.

The effects of the word o’ honor aren’t permanent though. That kind of thing would infringe just a bit too much on the subject’s free will. The miracle lasts one day for each level of faith the blessed has.

In this case, “day” means the following dawn. If the promise is made at midnight to a blessed with faith 1 (which is admittedly awfully rare), the miracle’s power ends in just a few short hours.

Blessed folks often use this miracle to get semi-reasonable folks to leave others alone for a while. It’s a good way to put an end to a feud, at least for a while.

It’s also handy when the blessed needs a few extra hands to help out with a job, but he’s afraid that they might back out at the last second. Still, few blessed would actually use the miracle to knowingly put even a villain directly in harm’s way. (In such cases, the miracle could even fail.)

Wrath

TN: 5

Speed: 1

Duration: 1 round/faith level 

Range: Self

There’s one thing that’s true of most higher powers: You really don’t want to make them mad.

The same can be said of the blessed. Most of the time, they’re peace-loving folk, content to preach their creeds from any stump or soapbox they can find. Sometimes, though, they get into situations in which words fail them. Then it’s time to set down their scriptures, take up their weapons, and kick some butt.

This is not an ability that should be used too often. After all, many religions proscribe harming others, even with good reason. When the blessed runs out of cheeks to turn, though, that’s when wrath comes in handy.

To invoke the miracle, the blessed needs to make a Fair (5) faith roll and cough up a Fate Chip. The color of the Fate Chip determines how much extra damage the blessed can do with her next successful attack. This is all explained in black and white on the table below.

The effects of the miracle last 1 round for every level of the blessed’s faith or until the blessed actually hits someone or something in combat, whichever come firsts. Unsuccessful attacks don’t cause the miracle to come to an end. The blessed’s free to give it another try with her next action (assuming the miracle’s duration doesn’t expire before then).

Sister Cabrini has finally had enough. She’s already turned more cheeks than she even knew she had. Now she’s ready to bring the Lord’s righteous wrath down on the heads of the fools who’ve been trifling with her. The good nun pulls the Peacemaker from under her habit and lets loose with it. She rolls to invoke wrath and succeeds easily. Since she’s got a faith of 6, she’s got 6 rounds to make use of the miracle.

Cabrini’s player decides that she wants to make an impression here, so she smiles and spends a blue Fate Chip. She cocks her pistol and shoots at the villain’s chest. Unfortunately, the shot goes wide.

On her next action, Cabrini fires again, and this time she hits. Normally, a Peacemaker does 3d6 damage, but this bullet does a full 6d6. Yowch!

Wrath

Fate Chip Effect 

White +1 damage die

Red +2 damage dice

Blue +3 damage dice

Legend +4 damage dice