The oracle dons the Witherheart Mask, which glows with a strange green mist. This mask is clearly magical, though seemingly only to predict the future as the oracle begins to speak their prophecy.
On mythology:
Cassiopeia has always been interested in the occult, to the point where she's done a double major involving Psychology and Classical Mythology. She's also incredibly curious about conspiracy theories, often going down lengthy rabbitholes, though part of her keeps a distance from it in that she's only reading a fictional story. With this gift she could very well bring them to life, and she's doing it all for the funsies.
On prophecies:
One has seen enough self-fulfilling prophecies in everyday life to know that people are very easily influenced by their own wills to stick to a path or stray from one completely. Though, it inevitably ends up the way it was predicted. If you were driving a car and trying not to hit a tree on the road, your focus is so solely on the tree that you veer towards it anyway. Cassiopeia is making use of this age-old hubris, this fallacy that "I'm not like them, I won't end up like this". She's not any better than this, of course she falls into this cycle too, but at least she's aware that it does happen.
On wordplay:
If she's going to use her arsenal of words learned from 4 years of being an Arts student, it's only fair to allow the listener some level of free will. Let them play their cards against what they perceive to be Apollo's blessing, when in reality it all relies on Cassiopeia's competence.
Exert your Mind and spend at least one Action. Select a Human target within 20 feet. Your target may be actively engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Occult 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 the letter-- but not necessarily the 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 and a conditional request. 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.
You may activate this Effect as a Reaction to contest any Action a valid target is taking, reducing their Outcome by your own. Your command has no impact beyond disrupting their Action.
After completing his most recent job Harry stuck around for a while, chatting with the harbinger.
He had a request - an item that could get his friend out of peril, a device capable of destroying other objects, and leaving nothing behind.
Without skipping a beat the harbinger produced a small silver ring with deep and beautiful patterned engravings carefully carved into its sides.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. Select a Object or Construct Object within arm's reach no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). Roll Perception + Investigation Difficulty 6. Sapient targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 8.
If your Outcome is 4 or higher, the target will be fully and completely destroyed, leaving behind no meaningful remains. 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.
After you finish activating this Effect, you cannot move quicker than a walk (max 15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.
Calling on the Black Stone's connection to the deeps, the wielder may create tunnels in Earth or Stone - the depths of the Stone pulse & vibrate in an unnerving fashion before releasing a throbbing darkness that sinks into the ground, creating the tunnel.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within arm's reach. You must be in an area abundant with natural earth and/or raw minerals.
Select one of the following alterations to create out of Earth/Stone originating at the target:
The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.
This alteration lasts indefinitely but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 6 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
A small silver ring with linked blue boxes engraved into it.
The user extends their hand towards the target. When they do thin tendrils extend from the ring and search for purchase on the wearer. The tendrils attach and start sucking small amounts of power from the user as they continue to crawl along their body before retreating after the hack is done.
The user's packaged will and commands are transmitted through the ring and then antenna tendrils towards the target.
Expend a point of Battery and spend 1 Action. Select a Device within 300 feet. Does not work on Alien technology. Roll Intellect + Technology, with the Difficulty set by the GM depending on the security of the system you are hacking. Sapient targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you may issue a single command to the targeted system. This command must have a specific outcome or be a request for specific login credentials. The command you issue must be within the machine's current capabilities. For example, you cannot order a standard security camera to grow legs and walk around.
When targeting non-computer devices, you may operate switches, buttons, dials, levers, and latches.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their body and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Battle Scar: Disfigured. Permanent stains on hand from where tendrils have previously latched on.. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Battle Scar heals over the course of the next day.
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: Irrational anger and disrespect of people who have truly shoddy security setups.. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
Tiny nano machines swarm out of the ring and cover the users body in a thin sheet. The tiny bug like bots arrange themselves into a latticework over the user and once all are in place thin little cuts are made along the users skin in square patterns. Tiny rivers of blood well up at all locations of the nanites and are quickly sucked into the nanomachines, they then start cutting the small squares of the skin and prying them up the tiny bits of dermis sticking to the muscle and sinew underneath but being pulled anyways until they eventually come free. Unable to patchwork skin on the eyeball the bots flood into the occular cavity and surround the eye forming a kind of sheen over the cornea and feeding it visual info while the effect is activated. Each bug holds the square of skin over itself like a kind of card. When activated they flip the skin cards around to the underside where a hazy reflection of the surrounding area is put forward on the other side of the skin card.
Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action.
You are obscured in one of the following manners. Lasts 30 minutes.
While this Effect is active, any Effect that would obscure you 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.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see Tiny stadium bugs flipping skin cards.
Shoot your target with this Stim gun in the right vein, imbuing their skin with a Non-Newtonian property. The next time they are hit their skin will instantly react turning hard as Diamond.
Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. You must use up Stim Packet in order to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Medicine at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a barrier around your target, which absorbs the next Outcome +4 Damage. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. This Artifact may only have 1 active barrier at a time.
The barrier will fall after two hours, 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.
You turn on and turn up the volume of your wireless headphones and they surge with thick black shadows before dying down when the cast ends. For the next ten minutes your shadow will whisper translations from any sapient target around you as well as taking control of the motor control of your mouth when you speak, allowing you to speak flawlessly in whatever language your target speaks.
When concerning other facets of communication, your shadow will interpret anything you see to you in real time.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you will incorrectly interpret and only translate racial slurs and taboo words. Involuntary words of toxicity will escape your mouth and those spoken to will be compelled to physically retaliate. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect.
You may understand and communicate to humans and Sapient beings as if you are fluent in a relevant language for the next ten minutes.
This also includes understanding any recorded communications from the relevant targets, including writings, scent trails, etc.
After this Effect ends, you cannot move quicker than a walk for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.
Companions gawk at the sheer size and quantity of the equipment the survivalist stores in the Bug-out Bag, but when they open it, they find only a standard set of survival gear. Only when the survivalist opens it is its true capacity revealed.
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 and may attempt to break free, damaging or destroying the Artifact in the process.
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.
The survivalist has depended on the Bug-out Bag for so long, they've formed a powerful bond with the pack. This bond renders the pack unbreakable, and grants the survivalist an understanding of what direction it's in at all times.
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.
This Artifact's true owner is always aware of the direction and distance to this Artifact.
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 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.
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.
"The Coffin" can only be used to store things commonly found in coffins, such as bodies, clothes, jewelry, photos, weapons, coins, and similar.
This Artifact holds 5 times what it normally could inside of it. Objects stored inside are weightless. Unless you are storing something commonly found in coffins, this Artifact behaves as its mundane counterpart. This Effect cannot be used unless you are storing something commonly found in coffins.
Living things can be stored in this Artifact. They will have access to anything else inside and may attempt to break free, damaging or destroying the Artifact in the process.
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.
On a Downtime, you may change this Artifact from one type of container to another. Maximum once per Downtime.
If anyone other than you opens the container, it appears empty. Others can still destroy it to get at the contents.