When opening this book, the pages are blank when a page is burnt.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate.
You may understand and communicate to humans as if you are fluent in a relevant language for the next hour.
This also includes understanding any recorded communications from the relevant targets, including writings, scent trails, etc.
While active, you may choose to use glib tongue. When you do, anything you say (even gibberish) will be exactly what the target wants to hear. You gain no understanding of what that might be.
“If you use this Effect to spend an hour speaking with a native speaker of a human language you don't know, you may Exert your Mind and roll Intellect + Culture Difficulty 7. With Outcome 4 or higher, you permanently learn that language and accent.
Description:
The Shadow Briefcase is an unassuming, sleek briefcase on the outside, but inside, it houses an array of advanced technological tools designed for the secure handling and, if necessary, the selective and legal disposal of sensitive evidence.
Technological Features:
• Quantum Encryption Module: Documents or digital evidence stored within the briefcase are encrypted using quantum cryptography, making them virtually unhackable. Only the lawyer and authorized personnel can decrypt and access the information, ensuring unmatched confidentiality.
• Biometric and Retinal Lock System: The briefcase is secured with a dual-lock system that requires both a biometric scan (fingerprint or DNA) and a retinal scan, ensuring that only the designated legal operative can access its contents.
• Selective Evidence Disintegrator: A built-in mechanism for the destruction of physical documents and digital media, which operates under strict legal protocols. It can disintegrate materials into atomic dust using pointed directional lasers.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Evidence of crimes within arm's reach no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). You cannot target objects which are currently in someone else’s possession. Roll Intellect + Culture Difficulty 6.
If your Outcome is 4 or higher, the target will be completely destroyed and can no longer function, though it may still be repaired. If your Outcome is less than 4, the target will be partially damaged, and any attempts to use it will suffer a dice penalty equal to your Outcome.
When activating this Effect, you may spend an extra minute and maintain Concentration. If you do, it has no Exertion cost, and you may destroy an object which has up to 3x larger dimensions, or up to 27x larger volume than the normal maximum size.
When pressed against themselves, the wielder feels a wave of despair and loss overtake them rather than actually piercing their flesh. Dragging the blade across their body fully invokes the transformation, twisting and changing their body into an agent of their own suffering.
The Arch-Vampire has an innate feeling of 'wrongness' to look at. Porcelain skin with veins of blackened blood, and an ambient aura of black-fire malice.
Broken Thorn is a manifestation of the one who brought it into being, the vampire Lorelei. The blade was formed after Lorelei was forced to experience warmth and acceptance again and again, even as her monstrous self. A home-cooked meal mixed with human blood without judgement, a vision of Melody's old friends around her on the hospital bed after having saved her, the loyal attentions of a feline servant, and seeing the carefree joy of a little girl so much like her.
The vampire tore the dreams she had in life from her heart, corrupted as they were from loneliness and suffering, and fused them with the power she received from the Contract.
No one would hurt her again. Never again.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. This Effect cannot be used unless you have drunk at least a pint of blood from a sapient being in the last hour.
You transform into an Arch-Vampire for 30 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are an Arch-Vampire, and you can use your equipment. Your Battle Scars, Injuries, and physical Liabilities are carried over between forms. Reverting from your Alternate Form cannot cause your existing Injuries to kill you. Instead, you remain Incapacitated.
While transformed, your Brawn is increased by 2 and your Dexterity is increased by 2. You do not suffer any Stress while transformed.
While transformed, instead of your normal clothes and equipment, you are equipped with: A red cloak, red gloves, dark metal armor plates (3 armor obvious), heeled black boots, the Broken Thorn, and, if held when activating this effect, the Tenebrae Magnus Gladius. The inner cloak is filled with knives in sheathes numbering 30 in total. (+2 armor for sheer volume of metal)
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see you draw your blade across your neck, splattering blackened blood across the floor, and transform with a swirl of black malice and a horrible noise into an even more monstrous form.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma: Broken Dreams - (Nightmares). If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
A very large battle ax made out of bone
This Artifact can be used as a great sword / giant axe. It is roughly at least twice as large as a great sword / giant axe and cannot be concealed on your person or disassembled for storage.
Attack by rolling Brawn + Melee, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +5 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
If the sack is opened by anyone other than its owner it appears to hold mundane, but uninteresting items reflecting the interests of its owner. For an antique appraiser, it would show discarded paperwork, pictures of artworks, a few measuring tools, etc.
When opened by its owner it shows the sack's true contents, which the inside seemingly stretches to accommodate.
When a living creature enters within and the sack is tied off, it is as if they are being held by an amorphous cloth on all sides with no sense of up or down.
This Artifact holds 5 times what it normally could inside of it. Objects stored inside are weightless.
Living things can be stored in this Artifact. They will have access to anything else inside but cannot break free.
If this Artifact is destroyed, things inside may get out, and it will cease to function until it is repaired.
When scanned or investigated without opening, the contents of this container appear normal and unremarkable.
If anyone other than you opens the container, it appears empty. Others can still destroy it to get at the contents.
This Artifact has a way of falling back into its owner's possession. Whether that means suddenly appearing in one's things, being found somewhere previously unobserved, or having been returned by mail or bystander.
This Artifact cannot be broken. If this Artifact is lost and in no one else’s possession, it finds its way back to its true owner during the next Downtime.
By default, the creator of this Artifact is its true owner. The true owner may formally bequeath this Artifact onto another person within arm’s reach, after which they are its true owner. If the true owner dies or is destroyed, their ownership ends. If this Artifact has no true owner, anyone may spend one day attuning to it to become its true owner.
If this Artifact is in no one else’s possession, its true owner may Exert their Mind and spend two Actions to bring it to themselves.
A cigar that can morph into the size of a rifle. The rifle is made completely from gold and has the internal parts of an AK. There are numerous skulls and soul-like depictings on the gun. Every being who dies due to this gun gets their soul harvested and added the appearance of this weapon.
When in cigar form, the cigar can be light and the souls of the trapped are burned to create the illusion of a real cigar being smoked.
This Artifact can be used as a rifle. It is roughly the same size as a rifle but can be collapsed into A Cigar and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Firearms, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +5 Weapon Damage.
This item is a living thing. When targeted, it counts as a Living Creature in addition to its other target types. If destroyed or abandoned for more than two days, it dies and becomes unusable.
You also gain the following effects:
The Axe of Legend's blade has been imbued with the metal of the dark lord of rock and roll. It shreds chords and flesh. The rock god commanding it may recall it to their hand at will.
This Artifact can be used as a sword / axe. It is roughly the same size as a sword / axe and just as difficult to conceal.
Attack by rolling Brawn + Melee, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +4 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The lightning bracers can be activated to summon a thunderbolt into the wearer's hand. Throwing these thunderbolts makes an incredibly loud boom. Once a thunderbolt is in hand, the wearer can throw as many as they wish. The electricity from these bolts will jump between nearby targets.
This Artifact produces ephemeral projectiles that can be used as a javelin.
Attack by rolling Brawn + Athletics, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +3 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The 255TE "Lancer" Rife fires an extremely deadly spike of plasma at its targets. It comes standard with a volume control, allowing the soldier to mute its normally fearsome lightning crack report for stealth missions. When not in use, it can collapse into a small metal disk that can fit into any utility belt.
This Artifact can be used as a rifle. It is roughly the same size as a rifle but can be collapsed into a metallic disk and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Firearms, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +5 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The Predatory Raiment has a cloak feature that allows its owner to hide themselves and their equipment with active camouflage. When viewed, they look like a slightly shifted and shimmering version of the surrounding environment.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are not at all wet and you are wearing this Artifact.
You and everything you are carrying is obscured in one of the following manners. You may Spend an Action to change the way in which you're concealed.
While this Effect is active, any Effect that would obscure you or your equipment specifically from other, additional senses fails automatically.
If someone discovers you, this Effect will not help you hide from them for the next minute. This Effect does not end early when you activate an obvious Effect, attack, or receive an Injury.
If the Selkie's seal skin is worn close to the body, any contact with salt water will cause them to transform into a seal. While transformed, they have full access to their normal suite of Powers.
This Effect activates whenever you are submerged in salt water. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event.
You transform into small for two hours or until you choose to end the Effect. See the Extended System text for stats.
While transformed, you cannot use any equipment (including Artifacts and Consumables), and you cannot use your Active, Targeted, or Trap Powers. However, you can use your Passive Powers. Any equipment you are wearing transforms with you.
Injuries and Wound Level are carried over between forms. However, transforming can never kill you; you merely remain Incapacitated until your Injuries are sufficiently healed.