Experiemental ambient CD that changes the listener

Power: Signficant

Description: Underground music prodigy Michael Honer was always seeking to break new musical ground. How far can you push things and still realistically call it music? How far can you go in putting your emotions into a digital format for other people to enjoy? His lasting legacy is the legendary “The Afternoon is… CD. It was his last work. Although he still lives and wanders the streets in a burned out daze he never recorded anything afterwards. Some say that he quite literally put his soul into his masterpiece and is now nothing more then a hollowed out shell.

The CD is 3 hours and 33 minutes of dark ambiant music. Upon first listen, it doesn’t sound any different then stuff put out by other musicians, even sub standard compared to some. When listened to in the proper context however, it works its magic on the listener.

The listener must be totally alone and cut off from _all_ outside stimulus before starting the CD. As the listen to the entire length of it they will start to experience the sounds as colors and textures, even full images. In essence the CD will make the listener into a synaesthete for the duration of the CD. Being alone for the duration the CD may also provoke level 1 Isolation checks.

When the CD is finished, the persons senses will revert to normal, but the magic will have worked on their mind already. They will constantly feel as though the world is much duller, colors less vibrant, sounds less distinct. Its a psychological addiction to the CD (not a physical one). After the second time they listen to it in the proper circumstances, the synaesthesia will last a bit longer. Maybe 1/2 an hour or so. The downside will also be more severe with everything appearing muted and even some sounds and sights being unnoticed due to the muting.

After the fifth use, the synaesthesia becomes permanent but at the same time the listener will gain the Soul Skill “Synaesthesia” at 5%. This skill is used in the place of any sort of perception based skill (including any sort of magical sense or Aura Sight) and can be raised in the normal method. The synaesthete also suffers a negative shift to all other perceptions equal to the new skill.

As the skill increases, the music on the CD becomes increasingly complex and beautiful and the addiction continues to grow and grow until the listener does nothing but sit in the dark watching the music and sobbing quietly at the beauty of it all.