Initially, the Shard appears as little more than a rather ornate silver ring, bearing a large piece of obsidian speckled with what look like stars and stardust. When transformed, however, the Shard becomes an enormous scythe, forged not from steel or metal, but from a shard of a miniature reality, pitch-black and swirling with stardust and galaxies.
This Artifact can be used as a great sword / giant axe. It is roughly the same size as a great sword / giant axe but can be collapsed into an ornate ring and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
Attack by rolling Brawn + Melee, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +7 Weapon Damage.
Luci communicates her desire to augment an item through visual art, using the surrounding shadow and darkness to help form the swirls of pure energy that infuse themselves into the items she desires.
On firearms, her shadow will slink along the barrel and firing mechanism, making it far more efficient and adding its own kick to the fired bullet, making it deadlier while also assisting to manage recoil.
On melee weapons, the shadow slinks along the weapon with either barbs or thorns.
On other mundane items, their shadows become slightly more pronounced and may even shimmer if looked at closely enough. This improvement strengthens the bonds of the item with more supernatural or mundane energies, allowing it more freedom, efficiency, and durability.
This Artifact has been upgraded.
This Artifact receives 2 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +2 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice. While it is upgraded, the item cannot be destroyed.
Upgraded weapons count as any material your opponent might be particularly vulnerable to. Upgraded Armor cannot be circumvented by called shots. Upgraded Devices do not run out of fuel or energy.
The contractor's consciousness at the moment of their death is inscribed upon layers of printed circuits, handily minimised (based on proprietary Maikendo™ technology!) for on-the-go hotswitching via a slot on MOLL(ⲩ)'s Dream Engine.
A contractor's work is, after all, never finished.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You are permanently transformed into an Engram Cartridge.
You can use any Powers that do not require movement on your own. You must be wielded or equipped to use other Powers. You cannot use Artifacts or Consumables, but if you have transformed into a Legendary Artifact, you may use the other Effects attached to it.
If anyone wields, equips, wears, or uses you while you are transformed, you may take physical actions using their body. Your Action comes directly before theirs in Initiative, and all rolls are made with your stats. You may opt to utilize your Action to "help" your host, allowing them to use your dice pool for their chosen Action.
If you are broken, you cannot take any Actions until you are repaired.
You can perceive your surroundings as normal, and you may control the functioning of the object you have transformed into (for example, opening your doors if you are a car).
Your passive Powers affect anyone who wields you.
The data gathered from Laz's age changes have now allowed a greater understanding of cellular reconstruction. Laz's device now secretes nanites constantly into the user's bloodstream through dermal absorption. Activation reads brainwave patterns to determine the envisioned form and adjusts smoothly, preventing the tearing, gore, and nudity of the previous system. Yes, bones still shift under the skin, and clothing is reconstructed but in a much less disturbing display. Further, the reconstruction need no longer be actively maintained. Once complete, it remains until changed. Releasing a form, however, does still cost the wearer an exhaustive amount of energy that must be recovered.
After the events of a previous Contract, Laz wanted to be anyone else. Eliza helped him work out how he can be. Now he finds himself doing business with another face
Exert your Mind and spend a minute.
You become disguised in a manner of your choosing. The disguise lasts until you either activate a new disguise, or choose to end the effect.
The new appearance may have a different sex, age, and race to your own, and you may alter height by up to a foot and your weight by 50%. Your disguise cannot directly mimic an existing person. You may change the appearance of your outfit. A disguise cannot affect your Attributes or other stats.
You may roll Charisma + Crafts to attempt to make your disguise Beautiful. If your Outcome is 6 or higher, non-Effect Charisma rolls where your good looks could help are rolled at -2 Difficulty. If you fail or botch, you are ugly instead, and non-Effect Charisma rolls are made at +2 Difficulty.
After this Effect ends, you cannot move quicker than a walk (15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.
While Luci communicates with her target (and in her own case, while she's projecting her thoughts and feelings onto the page), she draws a picture depicting the target's trauma and the circumstances behind its manifestation. Afterward, she rips the page out, crumbles it up into a little ball, and gives it to the target to eat.
It slips down into the user's stomach, melts into a bubbling mucus, and forces itself into their nervous system. The rogue energies force themselves directly up and into the target's brain, where they seek out the trauma they have been sicced on and forcefully pull it from the roots of grey matter. Not a pleasing experience in the slightest.
But to cap it off, the mucus coagulates in the target's stomach and begins to bubble violently until, inevitably, the target vomits the mucus back up. The inky black liquid- not too immediately dissimilar to the likeness of a roundworm, as it splatters onto the surface, takes a physical form related to the removed trauma and groans lowly as little appendages reach out and attempt to crawl back into the target's body.
When constantly meddling with what goes on outside of the base reality, there is always a likelihood that someone or something unfriendly may notice her. The Well is home to a variety of creatures, after all.
Amalgamations are typically just leftover spurts of energy that coagulated together and created something malformed. Most of the time, they are not that dangerous even if they are a little feral.
Revenants, wraiths- whatever you want to call them, they tend to manifest as undead spectres or wraiths- entities that are formless and only when looked at may take form due to the mind's inherent need to seek sanity. They may crawl itself up just in time and worm their way into Luci's mind if she isn't careful with some of her powers, and they will attempt to live out certain vices vicariously through her, in an attempt to experience basic needs that they are starved of in the Well.
Eidolons are typically not a concern for the complete opposite reason that Amalgamations aren't. They can be describe more accurately as a system than actual entities that were here long before the universe existed and will be there long after. Simply put, whatever Luci might be up to will hardly ever register for them- like to what esteem an elephant might hold an ant.
To most people, The Well is a type of Hell, and that doesn't necessarily change for Luci, except for with the creation of this power, allowing her to purge rogue entities from her mind and more safely maneuver the vast Oblivion. It has the unintended effect of also working against normal traumas.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Your target must make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect. Over the course of one minute, your patient must communicate with you and reveal at least one of their Traumas to you, including the details of those Traumas and the circumstances of how they were acquired. After the full treatment time has elapsed, roll Charisma + Crafts at Difficulty 6.
Your target may Resist. If your treatment is successful, you may remove one of the patient's revealed Traumas without incurring any Experience cost.
Once per day per target, you may choose to use this Effect to stabilize the Mind of a target within arm's reach. Treatment takes 30 seconds but will not remove any Traumas. If you are successful, restore 2 Mind damage.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see the target consume a piece of paper, and then a minute later, vomit up a thick black mucus. As it splats on the ground, it reaches up with several thin appendages and tries to crawl up and back into the target's mouth.
The user pours ink across the canvas and after watching it sink and seep into the sketchbook, must then makes a formal request for what they would like to see.
Time Walk: The ink seeps into the page and begins to move on its own, translating from the watchful eyes of shadows past into a complete picture upon the sketchbook page.
Got a Bad Feeling About This Place: Areas containing traps and ambushes are cleanly drawn together- to such detail that the user can recognize what the area looks like, while also being intuited upon the rough direction and distance.
Other: Pathways and passageways, whether hidden or overt, are clearly illustrated and labeled on the page.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 1 mile You must use up 1 liter of Ink in order to activate this Effect. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Crafts at Difficulty 6.
You learn the following information about the area:
You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.
Upon selecting the item of choice to repair, the user, must splash a surge of ink over the desired object. It completely surrounds the object for a few seconds before coagulating together beneath the object, into a pool of ink that bubbles and boils. From it, a spectre will rise from the Well beneath- an amalgamation that looks as if comprised of various humans and creatures stitched together by someone who failed biology. It looks different each time.
An incomplete drawing of the object will then appear on the sketchbook, reflecting the damaged parts of the object they desire to repair. The user will then need to fill in the incomplete drawing using nothing but their own drawing skills. As the user slowly completes the sketch, the spectre will reach down into the well, pull out various creatures from the Well, tear them into pieces, and melt them down into viscous blobs of ink, and mold them into the object. The ink will gradually take form into the vehicle and root itself within it.
This ritual is fragile- if the user is unable to finish it in its entirety, the repaired parts will melt back into ink and sploosh onto the ground.
Matter and energy can not be created or destroyed. Its fuel must come from somewhere.
Spend 10 Rounds. Select a Object within arm's reach that is of any size. You may target Alien technology, so long as you have an understanding of its intended function. When repairing Alien targets, you must Exert your Mind. You must use up 1 liter of ink in order to activate this Effect. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means. More than half the target object must be present in order to begin repairs. Roll Perception + Crafts at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, your target is repaired back to a functional state. If you fail, you spend the full time working before realizing you cannot repair the target. If your target only requires fuel or power and is otherwise in working order, this Effect costs no Exertion, and the target is fueled/powered for the next 24 hours.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see a spectre will rise from the Well beneath- an amalgamation that looks as if comprised of various humans and creatures stitched together by someone who failed biology. It looks different each time. As the user slowly completes the sketch, the spectre will reach down into the well, pull out various creatures from the Well, tear them into pieces, and melt them down into viscous blobs of ink, and mold them into the object..
This sketchbook is able to create imitations of perfect objects and bring them forth into reality. It does require some form of direction, in the form of a drawn picture. The picture, once finish, will rapidly lose form into a shapeless blob of weightless black ink. Within the span of a couple seconds, it will reform into the drawn object. This process isn't super squeaky clean- Luci only barely managed to stabilize the energies flowing through this artifact and so meddling with it can sometimes lead to a little more than a warning spurting out at the user.
Sometimes an undead spectre or wraith- someone who died in search of perfection- may crawl itself up just in time and worm its way into the user's mind, and will attempt to live through that person, acting out one of the vices that had killed them in the past.
The drawings can be predone so long as they follow along with the proper prerequisites.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action. You must use up a competently drawn picture of the object desired (at least 4 successes) in order to activate this Effect. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means.
Choose an Object which could fit inside a regular backpack (up to 27 liters). It must be Non-Alien and generic. You can create explosives, but they are limited in size to being no larger or more powerful than a satchel charge. You cannot create firearms.
Roll Perception + Crafts to fabricate up to 5 copies of your chosen Object. The Difficulty is assigned by the GM and depends on the specificity of your chosen Object. Your created items no longer expire, and will last until they are destroyed.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see an Eidolon of the Well. The act of meddling with other planes of existence does not come without some undesired side effects. Sometimes, when peering through the veil with the intent to make use of its energies, something stares back and imparts upon the onlooker a warning of disorienting magnitude.
Luci's inherent map-making skills may not be the most prime, but with the assistance of this artifact, her scouting abilities are premier. Using the map created by Dance of the Shadow, Luci can pinpoint any area on the map, cover the page with ink, and manifest a live constantly moving image comprised of ink that moves and snakes along the page on its own to simulate what's going on in that location as if she was standing there herself.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. This Effect cannot be used unless the area has been investigated or properly mapped out to a thorough degree. You must use up 1 liter of ink in order to activate this Effect. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means.
You may perceive things within 1 mile of you with perfect clarity as though there were no walls or obstacles blocking your view for the next 30 minutes.
Others near you may choose to observe what you are perceiving by looking at Luci’s sketchbook.
You may perceive through up to 15 feet of material. The Difficulty of all Perception rolls made through a wall are increased by 1 per wall.
After visiting his church recently, he had found a rather odd scripture that seemed if it was put there just for him. The scripture itself was a rather small pocket bible holding in certain passages and itself had a bit of a burnt cover but the pages perfectly fine. From out the book and to the hand spits holy fire.
Spend an Action to activate. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire).
You may start a new fire as large as a fire in a residential fireplace at your target. You may create fires the size of a lighter or candle flame without Exerting your Mind. Your fires require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning.
Lighting a target on fire deals 3 damage per round, starting in the next round after the one in which they caught fire. This damage is reduced by Armor, but the target’s Armor rating will be depleted by any damage dealt, destroying the Armor once it reaches 0.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
When Winter Fang's glittering string is drawn, an ice arrow crystalizes nocked and ready to fire. These ice arrows melt quickly after piercing their foes, leaving deadly wounds instead of evidence.
This Artifact can be used as a bow. It is roughly at least twice as large as a bow and cannot be concealed on your person or disassembled for storage.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Athletics, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +3 Weapon Damage. Attacks do not require a successful called shot to do damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The Skeleton Key slips easily into any keyhole and turns without a fuss.
Spend an Action.
You may lock, unlock, and/or open any number of doors, containers, knots, or locks within arm's reach of you. Cannot be used on Alien technology.
If you successfully operate a lock, you may choose to destroy it, rendering it inoperable.
The spy can do up their passport to take on the appearance of any valid form of identification they may need.
This Artifact can change its appearance. When not transformed, it is roughly the same size as a passport and just as difficult to conceal.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. This Artifact changes its appearance into an Object within the category of forms of identification. This lasts until you decide to end the Effect, which may be done as a Free Action.
The new object's appearance can mimic specific items (such as a particular painting, a certain person’s ID, etc), but must be of a similar size and weight to this Artifact.
The new appearance is illusory; it will hold up to scrutiny, but its composition is not altered and it gains no new functionality. Any attempt to use it for a function which it cannot perform (for instance, making bread look like a knife and then trying to stab someone) will cause the illusion to fail or allow a Perception check to see through the illusion, at the GM's discretion.
The Future Soldier's PSG is capable of briefly supercharging its effectiveness with a jolt of Omega Cell energy. While active, the future soldier glows with an extremely bright golden light.
While the shield is supercharged, the Future Soldier cannot move or see the outside world, but they are completely isolated from anything that occurs outside the shield.
Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action or Reaction.
You phase out of reality for up to 4 Rounds. During this time, you cannot perceive or affect the outside world or take any Actions. You cannot move. Nothing can interact with you in any way.
When you activate this Effect, you may limit its duration to a period of your choosing. If you are able, you may also end it as a Free Action on your initiative.
You leave a golden glow shaped like yourself at your location.
The airship of solitude is the mad scientist's lair and preferred mode of travel. Not only does it include a full science laboratory, it can be collapsed into an incredibly small canvas cube and easily transported. The mad scientist may pilot the ship alone or rely on its autopilot features for ultimate convenience.
This Artifact can be used as a blimp. It is roughly the same size as a blimp but can be collapsed into a phone-sized canvas cube and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
This blimp has full science laboratory, bullet-proof envelope, and ample parachutes. Any roll to pilot this vehicle receives +2 dice.
You also gain the following effects: