Is there any defense against Glorious Visage? I know the rule book doesn’t give any (that I know of) but I wonder if any fellow GM’s have ideas. For example, would it be out of line to have a Whisper be able to provide a counter to it? Maybe some sort of weird ritual charm infused with ectoplasm/demon blood that can be worn?
Like any other undesirable outcome, the effects of Glorious Visage can be resisted (presumably with Resolve).
Several special abilities can help make resisting Glorious Visage more effective or less costly:
-the other Forgotten Gods ability, Closing of the Eye
-the Whisper ability, Warded
-the Cult ability, Anointed
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As @cyberpreppy mentioned, there are lots of abilities that help resist supernatural and mental consequences in the game.
There’s also teamwork actions, like Protect, where a character can resist in place of another.
It makes total sense that a Whisper could use their powers to protect their teammates – if they resist for them, they can describe that in many of the ways you mentioned. Maybe they have Tempest, and want their resistance to be summoning an electroplasmic fog to blot out the horror of the forgotten god and allow escape. Maybe they have Compel, and they say their resistance is quickly commanding a handful of ghosts to distract the god’s avatar/cultists so the crew can act against them without suffering from their withering gaze.
Resistance can be proactive, changing the fiction, adding to the story, and sometimes it can look a lot like an action.
They could also flashback and explain how they got the charm/idol/goggles that protect them from the god’s terrible avatar. Spend a coin or a rep to take a downtime action (or several) to acquire or craft that asset, set a quality rating they have to achieve (likely high), and roll/spend coin as needed.
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Is this a situation where a PC wants to use Glorious Visage without zapping their friends, or a situation where an NPC has a Glorious-Visage-like attack to use against the PCs?
Assuming this is a PC using the attack, I think the first thing to note is that it only affects people who can see the user. If the PCs have the drop on their enemies, it’s simple for the rest of the crew to wait just around the corner while the adept goes in first to mindblast everyone. If they’re all going to be in the room, the adept could shout a code word alerting the other PCs to close their eyes or look away. If the adept can afford to wait until his team is ready, I’d let anyone who isn’t personally under attack to close their eyes automatically, and let those in melee make a skirmish/prowl/maybe finesse roll to create distance or an opening to safely close their eyes. If the adept is personally threatened and needs to fire immediately, all the other pcs would need to make some kind of action roll, maybe using Survey to notice and react quickly.
If the PCs want to get an item or ritual to protect themselves from their friend’s mindblast, I would let them do it, but I would want it to come with interesting drawbacks or trade-offs of its own. Instead of an amulet that just makes them immune, how about enchanted masks that make the wearer unable to see gods and horrors? Make it take up a box of gear, make it weird-looking and hard to explain in polite society, and let them worry about what else they might not be seeing while they wear it…
Sorry for the late reply.
My question was in regard to GV being used against the PCs, but it turned out to be a non issue since the crew decided to go in a different direction. Still, these replies have some good ideas for when/if it comes up in the future.
Hi. Npc, unlike pc, can’t resist consequences. What if a pc use level 4 glorious visage on the demon Setara ? Is she instantly dead ?
Not necessarily. As a demon, she may be resistant or even immune to some effects. If her power is great, you may open a clock towards defeating her, but she’s not defeated until the clock is completed. It may weaken or make her flee. It depends on how powerful Setarra is in your game and what makes for the most interesting gameplay.
Or she may be straight-up banished, of course.
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My rough approach for major, named NPCs has been to start a clock equal to double their Tier, and tick off segments when they resist consequences.