Regaining Essence from Anchors:

There are four ways a Wraith can regain Essence from her Anchors. They range from extremely safe, and mostly automatic, to extremely risky and strenuous.

All Wraiths instinctively know that these options exist, though they might not know the dangers involved with some of them. And this is yet another chance for a wily Shadow to try and get some Tainted Essence via a poisoned suggestion or two.

There is also a limit to how often a Wraith can try to gain Essence from an Anchor. A Wraith cannot make more Essence rolls in a Scene than that Anchor has dots in its rating. The more powerful the connection between the Wraith and the Anchor is, the more power she can harvest from it.

Proximity: By resting in the presence of one of her Anchors for a Scene, she suffuses herself in the emotion behind that Anchor. She can regain one dot of Essence for each dot she has in that Anchor at the end of the Scene, but only if she does nothing more mentally strenuous than contemplate or meditate in that time.

No roll is necessary for this.

Sympathy: If the Living feel the core emotion that binds a Wraith to her Anchor while in the presence of that Anchor, the Wraith may attempt to soak up that feeling. This roll can be made regardless of whether the mortals in question felt that emotion on their own, or if the Wraith "helped" them along.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Anchor Rating

Action: Instant.

Dramatic Failure: The Wraith cannot try to pull emotion from the Anchor for an entire day. Also, the Shadow can make a Tainted Essence roll, using half the Anchor's rating, rounding up, due to the wasted chance and/or effort.

Failure: Nothing happens, and the Wraith may try again so long as the mortal is feeling, but at a cumulative -1 Modifier due to the frustration of failure.

Success: One dot of Essence is given to the Wraith per success.

Exceptional Success: The Wraith not only gains a dot of Essence for each success on the roll, but also reaches such a degree of connection with the mortal that the Wraith may now consider her a Consort.

Potency: By gently pulling the strong, ambient emotion from the Anchor for a turn, she can try to get a faster replenishment of Essence.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Anchor Rating

Action: Instant.

Dramatic Failure: The Wraith cannot try to pull emotion from the Anchor for an entire day. Also, the Shadow can make a Tainted Essence roll, using half the Anchor's rating, rounding up, due to the extreme frustration the Wraith now feels.

Failure: Nothing happens, and the Wraith may try again, but at a cumulative -1 Modifier due to the frustration of failure.

Success: One dot of Essence is given to the Wraith per success.

Exceptional Success: The Wraith not only gains a point of Essence for each success on the roll, but also gains back a point of Willpower for the heady sense of self-affirmation this gives her.

Larceny: By violently ripping the emotion right out of the Anchor, the Wraith can get a larger than usual replenishment of Essence from it. This is highly dangerous, however, as it may reduce her connection to the Anchor, thus decreasing both her hold on the world and her overall pool of Essence. This is usually only done by a Wraith in extremely dire need of power, such as when Ghost Hunters are on the verge of destroying her Anchor and there's nothing else she can do.

To perform this, the Wraith spends a point of Willpower, and a roll is made using Presence + Anchor rating. Each success gives an amount of Essence equal to the total rating of that Anchor: If Bloody Mary rolls Presence 2 and the 4 dice that go with her haunted chapel, and gets a 2,3,5,6,8,9 result, she gets 8 Essence from the roll {4 dots in that Anchor x 2 successes = 8 Essence }.

This method of gaining Essence from Anchors is one of the few instances where Essence gain that exceeds a Wraith's Essence pool does not result in wasted successes. The outpouring of emotion is so primal and powerful that the overage can be kept by the Wraith, however temporarily. This extra, "stolen" Essence is highly unstable, and bleeds away at the rate of one dot per turn, above and beyond any expenditures the Wraith may incur.

Cost: 1 Willpower

Dice Pool: Presence + Anchor Rating

Action: Instant.

Dramatic Failure: The Wraith cannot try to leech or pull emotion from the Anchor for an entire day. Also, the Shadow can make a Tainted Essence roll, using the Anchor's full rating, due to the extreme frustration the Wraith now feels.

Failure: Nothing happens, and the Wraith may try again, but at a cumulative -1 Modifier due to the frustration of failure.

Success: A number of dots of Essence equal to the Anchor rating is given to the Wraith for each success.

Exceptional Success: As with a success. Also, the extreme confirmation of the Wraith's connection to the Anchor means that she doesn't have to test it, via the roll described below.

The savage removal of raw emotion from the Anchor threatens the Wraith's connection to it. Immediately after the roll to take the Essence, another roll must be made using the Wraith's Resolve + Anchor's Rating, to see if the connection holds. This roll is modified by -1 for each success scored after the first on the original roll.

To go back to Bloody Mary, again: she has a Resolve of 3, and her player scored two successes on the initial roll, which means that she must subtract one die from the normal 4 associated with her chapel, leaving only 6 dice to test the connection with.

Dice Pool: Resolve + Anchor Rating

Action: Instant.

Dramatic Failure: If the Anchor had more than one dot, then its rating is dropped to one, which decreases the Wraith's Essence Pool accordingly. If the Anchor only had one dot remaining, the Wraith either disappears into another Anchor to undergo a Harrowing, or vanishes completely if she has no Anchors remaining. In addition, the Shadow can make a Tainted Essence roll, using the Anchor's previous rating, no matter what fate befalls the Anchor.

Failure: The Anchor's rating is decreased by one, which also decreases the Wraith's Essence Pool by one. If the Anchor only had one dot remaining, the Wraith either disappears into another Anchor to undergo a Harrowing, or vanishes completely if she has no Anchors remaining.

Success: The Wraith's connection to the Anchor is tested, but holds.

Exceptional Success: The Wraith's connection to the Anchor not only holds, but is spectacularly reconfirmed. The Anchor's rating is raised by one dot, which also raises the Wraith's Essence Pool by one. This new dot can take the Anchor's rating above 5, if that's the case.