Touch of Frost

Touch of Frost (••, Acqua •)

 * Action: Instant and resisted
 * Dice pool: Dexterity + Crafts - target’s Defense
 * Cost: 1 Wisp
 * Duration: 1 scene

A touch of the Noble’s hand or foot chills her target to the freezing point. The Noble may use the Charm on a person or object.
 * Dramatic Failure: The Noble freezes herself, not what she touches; she suffers from the effect of an ordinary success, at a level equal to her Acqua.
 * Failure: The target is chilled briefly, but suffers no impediment from it.
 * Success: The target’s temperature immediately drops below freezing. A person suffers from the Extreme Cold Tilt [CofD 282] for the rest of the scene, taking a penalty equal to the activation successes (to a maximum of -5.) A solid object is encased in a thin layer of ice, and any attempt to use it during the current scene is penalized by the activation successes (maximum of -5, again) as the user’s hands slip off it.
 * Exceptional Success: A person targeted by the Charm is chilled to the point of frostbite. In addition to the penalty, he takes a single point of lethal damage. A targeted object is damaged if the Noble’s Acqua exceeds its Durability - warping from the sudden chill removes 1 point of Structure.

The cold created by the Charm will yield to warm emotions as well as physical warmth. The Extreme Cold Tilt on a person ends if someone who loves the target warms him with her body for 1 turn per activation success. Heartfire flames melt an ice coating or warm a person immediately.

Upgrade: Wide (Acqua ••)
The Noble can coat the place she stands with ice. On solid ground, the Charm coats a circle with a radius of 5 yards per activation success with ice, creating the Ice Tilt [CofD 284] in that area. If the Noble is standing or swimming in water, the Charm freezes the water without trapping her, making an ice platform thick enough to bear her weight (though it has the Ice Tilt) with a radius of 1 yard per activation success.

Except in subfreezing temperatures any ice the Charm creates starts to melt at the end of the scene; ice coatings vanish immediately, ice platforms can last several minutes before breaking up.