By Garry Handelman.
In order to take Communion, you must be affiliated with some supernatural force, and remain on relatively good terms with it. You must also already have the Divination schtick. Sorcerers can start affiliated if they start with Communion. NPCs can be affiliated with the Buro's computerised demon network which I just made up but sounds real cool so fiat, it exists, unspecified generic lords of darkness or one of the four monarchs. As for PCs: Magic Cops and Exorcists can be affiliated with Cosmic Good or "the spirits of my tribe/religion/order" and we don't need to go into any specifics, other people can go ahead and be affiliated with unspecified forces of darkness just like the bad guys (it can torment them), who think the character is funny and so keep talking to him, the Queen of the Ice Pagoda, or some god they make up themselves.
The forces with which a character is attuned (his patron force) should only be employed directly when, like a bad novelist, you can't think of any other way to introduce a Deus Machina than to have a flight of angels wheel down out of heaven and transport the characters to the next fight. Try and stay away from that.
The forces with which you commune make divination easier, add your willpower to all of your rolls with the prediction effect of the divination schtick. Whenever you use the prediction effect, your patron force may have messages for you, which you will get.
You do not need to dominate groupies, er... I mean supernatural creatures affiliated with your force to have them work for you, but if you don't dominate them (you still can), you have to respectful of their needs, or they'll leave. In fact, when you take communion, you automatically get having-dominated-for-purposes of summoning credit for one of the lesser servants of your patron force. This being should be roughly: all attributes 5, creature powers 8, two creature power schticks plus insubstantiality.
Or psychotic megalomania for the bad guys. You cannot be mentally dominated or subjected to brain-fucking by arcanowave devices. You are not proof against the illusion portions, or sensory manipulation (your optic nerve is not considered part of your brain) aspects of said powers, however.
At the end of each session in which you served the interests of your patron, you get an extra experience point. Note that you must serve your patron's particular interests, the more vague the interests of the patron the more you have to serve them to get credit. Also, whenever you do the action that qualified you for a reward, the GM will notify you by recovering all your lost magic or fortune points (his choice)- this can only happen once per session.
Last modified: June 14, 1996; please send comments to durrell@innocence.com.