House of Crow

Crow is the House of chemicals. Drugs, poisons, you name it, and some Crow somewhere has been working on it. This is another of those Houses very few specialize within, but those who do...(shudder!) With advanced techniques, you can change your drink as well as your blood.

Crow is one of the few Houses that strongly rely on the skill factor. Knowledge of chemistry, common poisons (and their antidotes) and various dyes and other chemical colouring agents is without doubt just the type of information your character will need.

Crow allows you to do All Sorts of fun things. Change your internal body chemistry so that your blood is acidic. (But be sure to make yourself immune to it.) One of my characters is specialized in a chemical that boosts psychic sensitivity... used mainly in a sex game. And don't just go for liquids! This includes itching powder, too. Have fun. (How about a perspiration totally overwhelmed with pheromones? Or urine that explodes after a moment's contact with air?)

The Basic Power

5 Points

You've got the weakest version of it. Special effects, basically. You can do very basic flavours (salty, sweet, sour, bitter, etc.) This level also gives a small bonus to any coloration shapings. The strongest shifting you can manage at this level will be the equivalent of an ounce of itching powder or other practical jokes. Internal Synthesis

15 Points

You're part of House Crow. You can learn real poisons, acids, aphrodesiacs...whatever you take the time to learn. The primary limitation at this level is that you essentially convert things within your own system, and without further aid, it is done batch by batch (e.g. -- you can make several doses of a poison. You cannot yet have it in continual availability. However, some Pahth or Amicus training could be combined in for poison glands.) External Synthesis

30 Points

You know a better range, including obscure potions, and you can make particularly powerful measures. This is where you would be taught some of the specific anti-shapeshifter measures. You can shift effects into things with contact -- e.g., mix a truth serum into a glass of wine as you hand them the glass, or saturate a shirt with contact poison. You can also be emitting the continuals, allowing for things such as a low level of pheremones. Crow Mastery

50 Points

Your chemicals have a definite bonus in overcoming the natural shapeshifter resistances. You can shift an effect directly *into* someone, per any other attempt to shift another person. You have near-total understanding and connection with your own bodychemistry, and very efficient synthesis.

Note that at the 15-point level you can have, say, poison claws, or a poison bite, but without something akin to the Pahth glands (or Amicus Viper), you'll need to 'load' them with an active, if learned, shifting. That internal synthesis, unlike the 50-point level, will start to leave you hungry and tired, depending on exactly what you're doing, fairly quickly. Special Notes

Keep in mind, poisons are what Crow is KNOWN for...but all chemistry falls in their domain. People will be ready for the Crow Master to try to poison them. They may not be ready for him to thwart drowning by synthesizing his own oxygen internally (not even air bubbles to give him away...) or for your acidic blood to start eating their good blade after they cut you. A good Crow/Shauning cross could make for quite the alchemist...