Ritual of the Serpentine Form

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This Artifact allows you to augment others' bodies.
Used by Lau Boros (real), Created by geniebottle.
On Legendary Artifact Book of the Devourer.
(While you are augmenting your target, it is obvious you are treating them. The augmentations you provide are not outwardly visible nor obvious. You must use this Artifact obviously when activating this Effect.)

Lau can spend time putting ingredients together and performing ritual surgery on a target to add features.

Blessings are boons granted passively through possession of the book. Further scribing of rituals would allow for more powerful effects, but requiring time and effort to perform.


Exert your Mind and spend eight hours. Select a Living target within arm's reach. The target can easily Resist.

You may add one augmentation to your target. Each augmentation counts as a Battle Scar and can have exactly one of the following Effects:

  • Specialized: You receive +2 dice to a particular non-combat Action.
  • Environmental Adaptation: You do not suffer harm from heat, cold, pressure, or lack of oxygen in a particular environment, provided that challenge normally exists in that environment.
  • Implanted Tool: You have access to the functionality of some common Device at all times. The selected Device can be no larger than a motorcycle helmet.
  • Armor: You have 2 Armor at all times. As always, Armor from multiple sources does not stack.
  • Pouch: Part of your body functions as a hidden pocket. It can hold no more than a briefcase (15 liters).
  • Zippy: Your Free Movement is increased by 10 feet.
  • Maws and Claws: Your unarmed attacks do +2 Weapon Damage instead of -1.

The augmentations you provide are not outwardly visible nor obvious.

You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.

  • Remember: A Contractor’s Body rating is reduced by 1 for each Battle Scar after their fourth.
  • You may not augment targets with pouches or implanted devices that are larger than they are.
  • Targets without Body ratings may have a maximum of 4 augmentations.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Community Legendary Artifact Gifts

Spend an Action. 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 Christmas tree fire at your target. Your fires require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning.

Lighting a target on fire deals 5 Damage each Round on your turn, 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.

You may extinguish flames as a Reaction. This does not extend to explosives.

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

  • Someone may attempt to extinguish a fire that you started by spending an Action and rolling Dexterity + Athletics. An Outcome of 5 puts out the fire
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

You gain the following benefits as long as 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.

  • Arcane: You are partially obscured from being noticed by all senses, natural and supernatural. All attempts to notice you are rolled at -3 dice. Attempts to recall identifying information about you require a Mind roll at Difficulty 8.

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.

  • GMs should use their discretion when determining the exact impacts of this Effect, particularly in conjunction with environmental factors. Standing still against a complex background may render you impossible to detect, and footprints in snow may make it easy. A chance to detect you is not guaranteed.

Exert your Mind and spend 1 Action. 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. You must use up lithium-ion battery in order to activate this Effect. More than half the target object must be present in order to begin repairs. Roll Intellect + Technology 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.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action.

Summon a single Non-Sapient, Animate tadorin at your location. They last until they are destroyed They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. This Artifact may have at most one active at a time.

  • Initiative: Minions act directly after you in Combat starting the Round after they are summoned.
  • Combat: Minions roll 4 dice to dodge, Grapple, or make unarmed Attacks. Their Attacks are melee range and deal +3 Damage.
  • Body/Mind: Minions have 7 Body. They automatically fail all Mind resistance rolls.
  • Armor: Minions have 3 Armor.
  • Movement: Minions can move 15 feet per Round as Free Movement and double that when performing an all-out Sprint.
  • Intelligence: Minions have dog-level intelligence and cannot communicate back to you. They cannot actively use Equipment.
  • Actions: Any Perception checks they make are rolled with 3 dice. If ordered to protect someone with its life, your Minion may sacrifice itself to absorb an Attack on their behalf, provided it is within 15 feet of them. They can lift and haul as though they have 4 Brawn.
  • Unusual: Minions are obviously Alien to any observer.

  • Your minions may count as additional targeting types based on their flavor. For example: Living, Computer, Creature, etc.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. Roll Charisma + Melee at Difficulty 6.

Create a repulsion field which extends out 45 feet from you in every direction, and lasts for the next minute. Any demonic or undead entities within the field cannot move any closer towards you. If they were within 45 feet from you when you activated the effect, they are immediately pushed back to the edge of the repulsion field.

You must maintain Concentration during this Effect.

You may spend an Action or Reaction and Roll Charisma + Melee at Difficulty 6. to use your repulsion field to Defend against all attacks made towards you during that round of Combat. This does not break your Concentration.

You must remain standing in the same location while this Effect is active. Moving to a new location will interrupt your Concentration and end the Effect.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Stock Legendary Artifact Gifts

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.

  • Hearing: You are completely obscured from hearing. You produce no sounds while this Effect is active. All attempts to detect you via hearing fail. Attempts via other senses where hearing would assist are rolled at -2 dice.
  • Sight:You are partially obscured from being noticed by sight. All attempts to detect you using sight are rolled at a -3 dice penalty, and all attempts to detect you where sight would assist are rolled at -1 penalty. Anyone who detects you cannot determine any visual details about you beyond your general shape.

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.

  • GMs should use their discretion when determining the exact impacts of this Effect, particularly in conjunction with environmental factors. Standing still against a complex background may render you impossible to detect, and footprints in snow may make it easy. A chance to detect you is not guaranteed.

Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action.

You automatically detect all people wielding weapons within 300 feet of you for the next hour. This includes any who come within range during the duration. You have a sense of how many valid targets are nearby, as well as their distance and direction.

  • This Effect does not satisfy the line of sight targeting requirement for other Effects.

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.

  • When triggered, the Effect activation resolves immediately after the triggering Action. It is not Reaction speed.
  • Creature Stats
    • Medium (large house cat up to human) Body 3. Brawn 1. Dexterity 3. Fall damage reduced by 1.
    All creatures get +3 dice to any non-combat Action that they are naturally adapted for. All creatures Medium and larger may attack by rolling Body, dealing +0 Damage (+1 for “predators”). Gms and Playgroup leaders can apply other bonuses and effects to specific animals.
  • Animals that are quicker than humans (like dogs) have 50 feet of Free Movement. Animals that are very slow (like turtles) have 0 feet of Free Movement.
  • You cannot transform if there is not enough room to do so.
  • The form you take must have the same stats and abilities as a single, extant animal of the relevant size.

This Artifact can change its appearance. When not transformed, it is roughly the same size as a passport but can be collapsed into a wallet and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.

Spend a Quick Action to activate. This Artifact changes its appearance into a chosen Object. 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.

When used as identification and scanned, the scanner will act appropriately and bring up appropriate generic information. Further searches for the identity in the computer will turn up no results. This will not open security doors on its own.

  • If there is not enough free space to expand the object, it cannot be expanded. You cannot expand this Object as an attack.
  • Changing the Artifact’s appearance does not allow you to conceal its Alien nature while any of its other Effects are in use.

This Effect activates whenever you are recorded. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a Non-Sapient Object within 20 feet no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event. Roll Perception + 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 triggered, the Effect activation resolves immediately after the triggering Action. It is not Reaction speed.
  • The penalty from an object being damaged will stack with itself if a target is hit multiple times, but the object is destroyed when it reaches a total penalty of -4.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.