The Russo Technique "Why yes, I do speak Sintha'unathi."

1
Requires Seasoned
The power to communicate with Creatures, humans, and Sapient beings.
Used by Frank Russo, Created by Ozz.
(This Effect is obviously Alien when used. It is clear that you are communicating with the target. You must actively and obviously be using up a cigarette.)

Surprisingly, asking for a helping hand from the eldritch being that's made you it's vessel isn't too hard! Frank's main method of interrogation requires a bit of negotiation with benefactor, namely feeding it via smoke break. After which, it's finally open to sharing a bit more of it's power, namely that over voiceovers and subtitles.

For about 30 seconds, his voice appears to cut between various crappy dubs, progressing through various human & inhuman languages before finally settling on the right one.

Communication is more than just you talking, it's what you hear too. To stop Frank's brain from frying itself from all of the heinous shit he's been forced to overhear day-to-day, his benefactor has begun offloading some of that stress to itself, protecting his mind.

Exert your Mind and spend one minute. You must use up a cigarette in order to activate this Effect.

You may understand and communicate to Creatures, humans, and Sapient beings as if you are fluent in a relevant language for the next hour.

Communicating with a being cannot directly damage your Mind or cause Injury. All rolls to resist Effects that rely on communicating with you are made at -1 Difficulty.

  • Communing with creatures does not grant them intellect but does allow you to converse with them.
  • The target of "human" refers to any target that speaks a human language.
Revision purchased with:
Improvement from running To Russia With Love spent on new power: Interrogation Techniques    (since refunded)
Gift from playing in The Winter Hunt spent on new power: Interrogation Techniques
Hide fake ads

Community Power Gifts

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You are permanently and visibly transformed: Fext. You are considered to be a Sapient, Non-Living being when targeted..

You no longer age naturally, and supernatural attempts to age you fail.

Your Injuries no longer degrade with time.

The Severity of any Injury caused by Glass is increased by 2.

  • The increase in Injury Severity stacks with any similar effects, such as the Silver Bullets drawback on Regeneration.
  • Attribute bonuses from multiple sources do not stack. Instead the highest bonus is used.

Take a Severity-1 Injury and spend an Action.

Summon a single Demon at your location. They will last for two hours, or until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. You may have at most 1 minion active at a time.

  • Attacking: Minions can make melee range attacks with 5 dice to attack and +1 Damage.
  • Body: Minions have 6 Body.
  • Movement: Minions can move 20 feet per Round as Free Movement, and double that when performing an all-out Sprint. Your minions can fly at their normal movement speed.
  • Intelligence: Minions have dog-level intelligence, and cannot communicate back to you. They cannot actively use Equipment.
  • Actions: Minions cannot dodge or Defend. Any Perception checks they make are rolled with 3 dice.

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. Exhaustion’s penalty and duration stacks with multiple activations.

  • Exhaustion penalties and duration stack. If you activate this Effect or another Effect with Exhaustion, your penalty will worsen, and the duration is increased by one hour.
  • The Injury received from activating this Effect heals in 1 day and cannot be prevented or prematurely healed by any means.

You gain the following benefits at all times. You must actively and obviously be using weed to gain the benefits of this Effect.

You may understand and communicate to humans and Sapient beings as if you are fluent in a relevant language.

  • The target of "human" refers to any target that speaks a human language.

You gain the following benefits as long as Item must have been created by ring and you are engaged in combat with melee weapons.

+2 dice to all rolls with melee weapons. You may Defend against firearm attacks from any range using melee weapons.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Point Control: Called Shots that you attempt only require a Contested Outcome of 2 for small targets and 4 for tiny targets.
  • Dismember: If one of your attacks causes a Battle Scar, you may choose for it to be some form of dismemberment, depending on the Severity of the Injury you caused.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

Whenever you use your Movement, after all other calculations, the distance you may travel is increased by 25 feet.

If your last Action was used for an all-out sprint or you are already accelerated, you may spend an Action to accelerate without a roll, adding 100 feet/Round (not affected by your speed bonus) to your sprint speed, to a max of an extra 300 feet/Round. As long as you stay at these speeds, you may use this distance per Round as your Free Movement.

Any terrain you traverse while accelerated must be passable by a standard vehicle at similar speeds. Stopping, turning sharply, or decelerating more than 100 feet/Round must be performed as an Action. Failing to decelerate with an Action (whether because of an obstacle, sudden unfavorable terrain, an Injury, or other event) counts as a tumble or catastrophic vehicle collision as per the vehicle rules.

Outside of Combat, any non-Gift, non-movement Actions you attempt take drastically less time to complete, as long as your personal speed is a factor in the Action. Total time reduction is determined by the GM and capped at 90% (executing the Action takes no less than 1/10th the normal time).

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Compulsive Liar.

  • The time reduction on non-Movement Actions applies only to the parts of actions when your personal speed is a factor,: pouring water or smoking a steak are not affected, but constructing a shelter or picking a lock would be. The GM will determine how much the total time is reduced based on how relevant personal speed is to the task.
  • 100 feet/Round is approximately 22 mph.
  • Any Encumbrance penalty to your movement still applies, but you do not suffer from any sort of exhaustion.
  • Damage from a collision depends on your speed at the time, as well as what you hit. GM's discretion, but generally moving faster than a car on the freeway and hitting a dense, solid object like a wall or a tree should be lethal. Mundane armor will not apply, but any supernatural forms of protection will.

Stock Power Gifts

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: perform a fire-breathing trick. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire). Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you take a Severity-4 Injury as the fire burns your throat. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.

You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a firepit's fire at your target. Extinguishing a fire does not cost Exertion. You may create or extinguish 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 4 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 shredded by any Damage dealt, destroying material Armor once it reaches 0.

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

  • Your fires may be extinguished with appropriate Actions and materials. Stop, drop, and rolling to extinguish requires spending an Action and making a Dexterity + Athletics roll, with an Outcome of 4 putting out the flames.
  • If the target is larger than your flame size, the Armor destruction creates a weak point instead of applying to the entire 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.

You automatically detect all illegal materials within 50 feet of you for the next hour. You have a clear sense of both the distance and direction towards any detected items. You do not learn any details about the detected items.

  • This includes any objects that come into range during activation.
  • This Effect does not satisfy the line of sight targeting requirement for other Effects.

You gain the following benefits as long as Must be driving a rugged vehicle such as an SUV truck or armored car. and you are piloting any vehicle.

You receive +2 dice to any rolls to pilot a vehicle.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Drive-By: You may drive or pilot your vehicle as a Free Action, without taking any penalty on other Actions.
  • Steady As She Goes: The motion of your vehicle never causes your passengers dice penalties, and you do not suffer dice penalties from the unsteadiness of any vehicle you are riding in.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Roll Dexterity + Brawl Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling Body, Difficulty 6.

If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 2. The target's Armor is completely ignored.

When you activate this Effect, instead of occurring immediately, you may choose to delay its effects until the target takes a particular Action. For example: "when they fire a gun" or "when they swim in deep water."

Instead of dealing Damage all at once, the Injury caused by this Power starts at Severity 1 and worsens at the rate of one level per Round until it reaches the Severity it would have otherwise been.

  • A given target can have a maximum of one Suspended Effect on them at a time. The selected triggering Action cannot be used to reveal information about the target (e.g. no "activate when they are a vampire"). It must be an Action they take, not a thought or something that happens to them.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of Effect. There must be no substantial obstructions between you and your target.

You gain the following benefits as long as as long as you have drank a half gallon (lethal) amount of blood in the past 24 hours.

Any Injury you receive heals quickly, reducing its Severity by one level each hour. Any Injuries you receive while this Effect is active do not deteriorate over time. However, any Battle Scars caused by such an Injury will remain unless it is Properly Stabilized as normal.