The howl of the Banshee foretells death. Those who hear you are plagued with intense visions of their own demise, or that of those they hold dearest: either way, it's rarely a pleasant thing to experience.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Sapient or Creature target within 20 feet. Roll Brawn + Alertness Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7. If they are incapacitated or unconscious, they fail automatically.
If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target loses that much Source. Once their Source is depleted, excess Outcome is applied as Mind Damage. If you deal at least 3 Mind damage, the target gains a new Trauma of your choice. The Trauma should be general and not specifically mention you. You should not have to be involved to trigger the Trauma.
This Trauma may be removed by Effects or mundane therapy, as normal. Affected targets are aware that they are being attacked and can generally tell who did it.
Jan. 13, 2024, 8:33 p.m. - Revision Cost: 1. Added Drawback: Sacrifice, Removed Drawback: Humanities
Alexei Petrovich has got to be the most muscled person you've ever seen. Tire sized arms, calved that could be melons, and a chest made of steel. He really is one of the strongest men alive.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your Brawn rating is increased by 1. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Brawn (cannot be used on combat rolls or Effect activations).
You also gain the following effects:
While cooking, Pen uses her nails to pierce the base of her palm and allows a drop of her blood to join with whatever she's making, focusing her mind on people that have hurt her in the past and using that physical pain, as well as a simple incantation, to fuel her intent.
A simple ritual that Pen learned which causes angry spirits of the target's ancestors to immediately begin to haunt and affect the target. Her blood ties her to all of her ancestors by her DNA, and upon consumption by a target mingles with theirs to cause anyone in their family tree that might be angry with them to make that anger known. Most of the time, this is a spurned relative who died relatively recently - however the curse goes as far back as it needs to find an angry spirit. If you go far back enough, everyone has a connection to someone that died bitter and alone.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend 30 seconds to turn food into a trap. This trap lasts one day or until triggered or disarmed. This Effect cannot be used unless Pen prepared the food herself. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6. Choose any number of the following symptoms:
The trap looks like food. Only those who have seen this trap before can identify it as a trap. Anyone who is aware of the trap may intuitively avoid, trigger, or destroy it.
Any Living target within within arm's reach that uses the trap as food will trigger it. Your target may resist by rolling Body at Difficulty 8.
When the trap is triggered, the target is afflicted with a Condition that causes the chosen symptoms. Symptoms begin to appear immediately, and will remain and continue to worsen until the affliction is cured. The affliction is not contagious and will not spread to others.
The affliction is not treatable by modern medicine. It may be diagnosed by rolling Intellect + Occult at Difficulty 6, and can be cured by bloodletting into a ritual circle while a priest performs an exorcism.
Any Scars, Traumas, or Injuries caused by your symptoms cannot be healed until the underlying Condition is cured.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
The user gives a command in form of a brief, spoken, question, ex: "Have you considered taking a nap?" or "Shouldn't you miss?". As the question is spoken, time seems to stop. Cracks form in the naked air around the target as reality struggles to maintain its cohesion and the target's head is briefly surrounded by two-dimensional tentacles, reaching from these cracks to caress their scalp. Against the linear flow of time and the laws of causality these unnatural thoughts take shape and the target is convinced to ponder the stated question and follow the suggestion within as quickly as possible.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend at least one Action. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. Your target may be actively engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Influence 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 Outcome in Rounds. 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. 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.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see Reality breaks.
This Effect ends if you are stunned, fall asleep, go unconscious, are incapacitated, die, or if your total Stress ever exceeds 5.
Take a Severity-1 Injury and spend an Action to activate. Select a target within 20 feet.
You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a torch's flame at your target. You may create or extinguish fires the size of a lighter or candle flame without Exerting your Mind. When you create a fire, you may choose to maintain Concentration for up to 4 Rounds. As long as you maintain Concentration, the fire you created cannot be extinguished. Afterwards, they require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning, and can be extinguished as normal.
Lighting a target on fire deals 2 Damage per Round, starting in the 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.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see blood leaking from your body and boiling upon contact with the air.
Jessica summons a barrier of collapsing light crystals, their unnatural glow reflecting a mixture of eerie blues, purples, and unsettling hues that defy earthly color. As the crystals form, they twist and bend the light, creating a translucent, razor-thin wall. The effect is both mesmerizing and disturbing—the light distorts her image within, stretching her form to strange, twisted proportions. The diffraction of light warps everything behind the barrier, giving it an almost otherworldly, impossible geometry. The barrier feels like a beautiful anomaly, yet its very presence suggests something unnervingly wrong, as though reality itself is bending to Jessica's will.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Roll Intellect + Science at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a Barrier extending out 15 feet from yourself, which absorbs 2 times the next (Outcome +2) Damage. Only applies to attacks which originated outside the 15 foot radius, and protects anyone who is within that radius. You may choose to create a bubble barrier. If you do, no physical objects or entities can pass into your bubble until the barrier is broken, but you and the barrier cannot move. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. You 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.
Any target that is or was under the protection of your Barrier in a given Round cannot take an Injury greater than Severity 6 that Round.
The detective can learn a lot by watching someone for a minute. Each subtle detail, every unexplained stain, reveals something about where the target has been. Ocassionally, they'll drop a business card, or explain how to contact them. The detective is listening.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend a minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target does not know you're watching them. At the end of your investigation, roll Charisma + Investigation at Difficulty 6.
You learn a single specific piece of information, chosen from the following list, about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.
You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.
Unimportant characters just can't seem to hit our hero with their attacks. Injuries that are sustained from underlings are conveniently non-severe.
You gain the following benefits as long as the attacker isn't important enough to have a name.
You have 4 Armor, which reduces incoming Damage. Armor from multiple sources does not stack. This Armor cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.
The aquamancer channels a nearby source of water into a flexible whip, which can be used to attack or to defend.
Spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use at least a gallon of water to activate this Effect. Roll Dexterity + Athletics Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling to Dodge or Defend as a Reaction, Difficulty 6.
If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 4.
You may use this Effect to Defend against any melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks within range or Clash against any Attack targeted at you. Using it to Defend deals no Damage but does not cost Exertion.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
As a free creature, The Fairy cannot withstand being caged or imprisioned in any way. Luckily, they possess a glamour that allows them to unlock any lock binding them with a wink of their eye. The lock falls open with a sparkle of light and a sound like a ringing bell.
Spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien door, container, knot, or lock within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless the targeted lock or door is being used to restrain or imprison you.
You may lock, unlock, and/or open your target.
There's a certain strength that comes from displaying the flag of one's country. As long as the Soldier holding their country's flag or wearing something emblazoned with it, they are less likely to be injured in battle.
You gain the following benefits at all times. You must actively and obviously be using clothes or a uniform that displays the flag of your country to gain the benefits of this Effect.
You have 4 Armor, which reduces incoming Damage. Armor from multiple sources does not stack. This Armor cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.