The Anchor Object

AX.GHW.08.02.04

A Mediumship Focus

Something personal to a person who died, not just any death, but a death with weight, a death that left a mark on the world, ideally one the practitioner has some relationship to. A photograph. A ring. A child's shoe. A piece of a burned letter. Whatever it is, the item carries a concentration of liminal presence that the practitioner uses to sharpen their focus when the signals get too noisy.

Anchor Object | Focus | Mediumship
Mechanical Effect:
  +2D to all Dead Reach Expression rolls (the anchor object
  provides a specific liminal signal to tune against,
  rather than working through general noise, the practitioner
  has a known frequency to orient from).
  When using Quiet the Unquiet, the Threshold for simple
  unfinished business is reduced by 1 (minimum 1). The
  anchor object's history makes the practitioner credible
  to the recently dead.
  The object is perceptibly wrong to non-practitioners
  with any liminal sensitivity, animals avoid it; Haunts
  recognize it on sight. The practitioner cannot fully
  conceal that they carry something significant about death.
  This is not always a disadvantage.
Acquisition: Found rather than purchased. The item must
  carry genuine personal death history. A practitioner
  cannot manufacture an Anchor Object; they find it through
  their work, are given it by someone who understands what it
  is, or carry something from their own death event (for
  Haunts, frequently something from the circumstances of
  their return).

Improvised Foci: A general memento mori (not personally significant), a ritual object associated with liminal work, or a fresh object from a current investigation's death site provides +1D to one Expression (chosen at the start of the scene) rather than +2D, without the Anchor Object's Threshold reduction.