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Invoke

Expression: Invoke

AX.GHW.08.05.03

The compact has depth. Most practitioners never find out how much.

Invoke is the expression that goes beyond what the practitioner's own bloodline can sustain — reaching into the compact's established channel to the Hollow entity and drawing on what is on the other end of it. This is not summoning. It is not communication. It is deliberately opening the line that is always there and asking it for something specific.

The Hollow entity does not direct Invoke. The practitioner initiates. What comes through is shaped by the compact's terms and the practitioner's specific request. The results are real and powerful, and the practitioner takes on additional weight in the compact's accounting each time they do it. Experienced practitioners use Invoke sparingly and deliberately.

Invoke — Applications

Hollow's Mark (Primary Action, Threshold 3)

The practitioner calls on the compact's authority to mark a specific target — not a physical mark, but a shadow designation that communicates to entities with shadow awareness that this target is of interest to the Hollow entity's compact. For the remainder of the scene:

  • Any shadow-affiliated entities that encounter the marked target treat them with the wariness appropriate to something the compact has flagged. Hostile shadow entities may reconsider attacking.
  • Any entity that has Psychic Sensitivity or equivalent supernatural awareness perceives the mark on the target and understands its general nature: this target has been designated by a compact with the Hollow.
  • The practitioner can track the marked target's location at Far range without a roll (the mark registers in the bloodline's awareness).

Shadow Threshold (Primary Action, Threshold 4)

The practitioner uses the compact's channel to establish a zone of shadow authority at a location within Near range — typically a doorway, threshold, or defined boundary. For the remainder of the scene, entities with Hollow nature (shadow entities, compact-bound creatures, lesser shadows) cannot cross the designated threshold. Entities with Illuminated nature can pass freely; all other entities pass normally.

This is not a generic ward. It specifically uses compact authority to deny shadow entities access, and they know why they cannot cross. It does not bar the practitioner or their compact's source.

Scaling: Excess successes extend duration (1 excess = until next Long Rest) or expand the threshold to cover a room-sized area rather than a single crossing point (2 excess).

Backlash:

  • Minor: The Hollow entity's attention focuses sharply and personally on the practitioner for the rest of the scene. The practitioner is acutely aware of being observed and assessed — the cold at the edge of their perception is specific and deliberate. No mechanical effect, but the GM should make the quality of this attention clear and present.
  • Moderate: The channel pulls harder than it should. The practitioner takes 1 Shadow damage and the connection to the Hollow entity remains open and uncomfortable until their next Long Rest — a constant cold at the edge of awareness, the sense of something patient watching everything they do. One obligation to the compact's source (GM-defined) becomes immediately due rather than future-deferred.
  • Severe: The line opens fully. The Hollow entity manifests briefly — not physically, but perceptibly: everyone in the scene with any supernatural awareness experiences the presence of something vast and consuming that is paying attention to this practitioner. The practitioner takes 1D6 Shadow damage and the entity delivers one direct instruction, obligation, or demand in the practitioner's awareness. The practitioner may refuse it, but the compact registers the refusal.