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Liminal Sight

Expression: Liminal Sight

AX.GHW.08.02.01

The dead are in the room. This is what they look like.

Liminal Sight is the foundation of Mediumship, the capacity to shift perception into the frequency where the dead and the liminal are legible. All Haunts can do a version of this passively (Psychic Sensitivity, AX.GM.06), but Mediumship extends it: precise identification instead of vague awareness, reading the history of a space rather than just its current spiritual weight, and perception at distances the passive sense doesn't reach.

This is a perception and investigation expression, not a communication or traversal one. Liminal Sight reads; it does not reach.

Liminal Sight- Applications

Extended Perception (Minor Action, Threshold 1)

The practitioner consciously extends their liminal awareness beyond its passive range. Until the end of the scene, they perceive restless dead, spiritual remnants, and liminal markers at Far range (rather than Near). They can identify what they sense, type, approximate state (calm, distressed, hostile), and whether it is aware of them, without a secondary roll.

For non-Haunt practitioners without Psychic Sensitivity, this application provides the base liminal perception entirely.

Scaling: Excess successes extend range to Distant (1 excess), or provide specific location within the range band rather than just presence (1 excess).

Death Echo (Primary Action, Threshold variable)

The practitioner reads the liminal residue of a specific location or object for events that occurred there. Recent deaths register clearly; events with strong emotional weight at the moment of death register clearly regardless of age. Ordinary past events require higher Thresholds.

  • Recent death (within a week): Threshold 2. Vivid impression of what happened, emotional state, presence, physical circumstance.
  • Past violence or significant death (within years): Threshold 3. Vaguer; emotions and physical sensation present, specific words or faces require more successes.
  • Old deaths or long-past events (decades+): Threshold 4. Only the strongest impressions survive, great violence, unfinished business, or repeated pattern leave readable marks.

Scaling: Excess successes sharpen detail, vague impressions become specific events; emotional register becomes identifiable voices; approximate timing becomes precise.

Backlash:

  • Minor: The echo inverts, the practitioner receives impressions from their own most recent brush with death or serious injury. Disadvantage on all Wit rolls for the remainder of the scene as the intrusive memory competes with present perception.
  • Moderate: The death echo doesn't stop. The practitioner cannot voluntarily end the perception for the rest of the scene and remains partially overlaid on the event's moment. All Thresholds increase by 1 for the remainder of the scene to account for the split perception.
  • Severe: Something in the echo looks back. A restless entity associated with the event becomes immediately aware of the practitioner and their location, not a vague attention but a direct lock. The GM determines the entity's nature and intent. It knows where the practitioner is, right now, and it noticed them looking.

Read the Departed (Primary Action, Threshold 2–4, requires physical contact with remains or personal object)

With physical contact with remains or a significant personal object, the practitioner accesses impressions from the consciousness that once inhabited the body or held the object. This is not the same as speaking with a ghost; it reads an echo rather than reaching an active entity. The departed cannot respond, but the reading surfaces memories, emotional context, and facts they knew.

  • Surface impressions (feelings, relationships, recent events): Threshold 2
  • Specific memory or knowledge: Threshold 3
  • Hidden or actively repressed information: Threshold 4

Scaling: Excess successes provide additional clarity or allow the practitioner to ask a follow-up question (one per 2 excess successes).

Backlash: Apply the Death Echo backlash table.