Schism

Effect

Target one creature within Near range. You fracture their psyche into two competing personalities. For the rest of the scene:

• At the start of each of the target’s turns, they must spend 1 Mettle or lose their action to internal conflict (the two halves argue, the body freezes, the hands work at cross purposes)
• If they run out of Mettle, they are Stunned until the effect ends
• All their actions suffer −2 dice (Pool Penalty) from the divided attention

Resist

ECHO + Focus vs. your Channeling Sum negates. Can attempt to resist again at the end of each turn at −2 cumulative difficulty (the schism deepens with time).

Steps

+1 Mettle drain per turn per Step.

Special

If this brings a Psionic target to 0 Mettle, their connection to the Current becomes unstable — any Channeling attempt triggers automatic Backlash (roll as if one Bleed Die showed a 1).