Exert your Mind (unless the target is already drowsy) and spend an Action. Select a single Living or Animate target or a Location within 300 feet. If you select a Location, all Living or Animate targets within 20 feet of the chosen Location, besides yourself, are affected. You must use up a bottle of ink in order to activate this Effect. Roll Charisma + Culture ( dice) at Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, affected targets becomes drowsy for the next 30 minutes, during which time they suffer an additional -2 dice Penalty to all Actions. At the end of their drowsiness, they fall asleep for Contested Outcome x 3 hours.

Sleeping targets will not prematurely wake up on their own, and can only be awoken by taking Damage or nearing death from hunger, thirst, or suffocation. Drowsy targets always fall asleep, regardless of what happens while they are drowsy.

You may determine the content of an affected target's dreams while they are asleep, but they must involve you in some way, and will reveal you as the source of their sleep as well as reveal secret information about yourself to them. By maintaining Concentration, you may enter their dreams and converse with them directly.

When activating this Effect you may attempt a knockout. If you do and your Contested Outcome exceeds 4, the target falls asleep immediately. Otherwise, they suffer the drowsy penalty for 2 Rounds.

The target can be compelled to take physical actions and use their senses by other Effects, and they will still remain asleep throughout. If this occurs, they will be obviously sleepwalking to anyone who observes them.

When an affected target wakes up, they remain drowsy for the next minute, and suffer a -3 dice penalty. If an affected target successfully resists being put to sleep, they will still become drowsy for the next minute, and will suffer the same penalty.

Possession of this Artifact causes the following Battle Scar to manifest over the course of a day: Tortured Poet: Your vitality is sapped by the journal, amplifying any pain you feel. Any Stress from your Body score is multiplied by 2. Hurt becomes -2, Wounded becomes -4, Maimed becomes -8, etc., Hand Of The Author: Writing in the dream journal has taken its toll over time. Called shots against your left hand do +2 damage. If an attack hits you which could conceivably hit your stomach, roll 1d10 at Difficulty 6. If you fail, the attack hits your soft spot and does +2 damage., and Day Dreamer: (You suffer a form of minor narcolepsy, as the dream journal beckons. Every hour, if you do not rest for at least thirty minutes, roll Mind at Difficulty 7. On a failure, you become drowsy and suffer a -2 dice penalty until you rest. If you fail this check again without resting or botch, you fall asleep. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Battle Scar heals over the course of the next day.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction. Roll Charisma + Culture ( dice) at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you create a barrier around yourself, which absorbs the next Outcome + 6 Damage. Any Damage absorbed by the barrier is reflected back to the attacker, up to a maximum of the Barrier Strength Parameter’s bonus. Their Armor applies in full. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. This Artifact may only have 1 active barrier at a time.

You must maintain Concentration while using this Effect. The barrier will fall if you are interrupted, or if it absorbs the full amount of Damage. When a barrier falls, you cannot use this Effect again for a minimum of 2 Rounds.

Exert your Mind (unless the target is asleep) and spend one minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You must use up a bottle of ink in order to activate this Effect. Your target cannot be engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Culture ( dice) at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.

If the contested Outcome is positive, your target will be compelled to follow your command to their best understanding of the letter and spirit of the command until they have completed it or for your Contested Outcome in hours. You cannot issue another suggestion to the target until 10 minutes after they have completed the first command or 10 minutes after a failure.

The target is unaware that they are under supernatural influence and feel they are acting of their own free will. If you fail, they realize that you were attempting to influence them supernaturally with your command.

Your command can be an order to take an immediate Action, a conditional request, and an abstract goal. You cannot order a target to "do nothing," and they are free to take other Actions as they fulfill your request. Your command cannot be obviously self-destructive. The Effect ends if following your command would cause a target to cross one of their Limits in a way that would necessitate a Trauma roll.

Spend one minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You must actively converse with the individual in question for one minute in order to gather any information. You must use up a bottle of ink in order to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Charisma + Culture ( dice) at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

• Determine if this target is Alien in origin or whether it has any Alien energy or outside influences. You receive information about the type of energy, including the name of the relevant Source pool or equivalent. You determine the effect of any active Alien energy detected, and you get an idea as to the sorts of ways that latent Alien energy may be channeled by the target.
• You learn where the target sleeps, how long they tend to sleep each night, whether or not they have nightmares, and what their nightmares tend to be about.
• You learn a hidden desire of the target. Roll Outcome determines the relevancy / secret-ness of the desire.

The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.

You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.

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.

This Artifact can be used as a shotgun. It is roughly the same size as a shotgun but can be collapsed into A dark-steel colored metal ring 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:

• Infinite Ammo: This weapon never runs out of its standard ammunition.
• Shredder: If you successfully hit your target, the value of any Armor they are wearing is reduced by 2. For material armor, this penalty lasts until it is repaired. For intrinsic armor, it lasts until the end of Combat and any relevant wound is healed.