Apex Cryptid

1
Requires Veteran
The power to temporarily transform into Apex Cryptid.
Used by Lucifer Inkz, Created by jwesley123.
(This Effect is obviously Alien when used. While you are Apex Cryptid, you are obviously transformed and unusual. )

Apex Cryptid: The Primordial Shift

The moment you activate this power, a deep, guttural resonance hums through the air—like a chorus of ancient, forgotten beasts calling from the dark corners of the earth. Your body twists and stretches, bones popping and muscles coiling into unfamiliar shapes. Your skin ripples with patterns that seem to mimic the natural camouflage of apex predators long thought extinct. Scales, fur, or chitinous plates may shimmer across your form, shifting with every step as though the essence of cryptids from across the globe surges through your veins.

Your human instincts dull as primal instincts take hold. Words become foreign; the structure of language replaced by a heightened awareness of your surroundings. The scent of fear hangs like a thick mist, every sound sharpened into a potential threat or prey. Your hands become crude tools—talons, claws, or massive, rugged fingers that can grasp but never delicately control.

Stress dissolves as the primal mindset overtakes you. The noise of human worries is replaced with the singular clarity of survival and dominance. In this form, you are an echo of the unknown, the whispered terror of campfire stories given flesh.

Apex Cryptid → Amalgamation of Cryptids: The Unveiling

If the battle turns against you—if pain strikes deep and the cryptid essence within senses true danger—a terrifying metamorphosis unfolds.

Your body convulses, and the injuries that should cripple you instead fuel a grotesque evolution. Limbs elongate and twist, growing jagged with predatory adaptations stolen from creatures lost to time. Gills flare along your neck. Serrated fangs emerge where human teeth once sat. The eyes of countless predators open across your body, each gazing with predatory instinct.

For one breathless minute, you become the embodiment of earth’s cryptid lore—a walking nightmare of mismatched power. Movement becomes instinctive, effortless. Every step feels like a hunt, and every breath crackles with the potential of the predator’s pounce. The air itself seems to recoil, bending to your unnerving presence


Exert your Mind and spend an Action.

You transform into Apex Cryptid for 30 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are Apex Cryptid, and you can use your equipment. The Injuries and Battle Scars of your Alternate Form and your true form are tracked separately.

While transformed, your Attributes are the same. Your Stress is reduced by 2.

If you take Injuries totaling 4 Severity or higher while transformed, you recover all Injuries and change into Amaglamation Of Crytids Across the earth. All dice rolls are at -1 Difficulty for the next minute or until this Effect ends. Cooldown 1 day.

Your alternate form renders you unable to speak any human language and incapable of fine object manipulation. You can only hold or grasp objects in a crude, clumsy way.

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.

  • Attribute bonuses from multiple sources do not stack. Instead the highest bonus is used.

Community Activated Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. This Effect cannot be used unless Only works on objects that have been imbued with a word, and only activate in accordance with the word imbued f.

You can interact with things that are within 75 feet without needing to physically touch them or be near them. Lasts for two hours. Any rolls made for Actions taken in this way use a Mental Strength of 4 in place of your Brawn rating, a Mental Agility of 1 in place of your Dexterity, and otherwise use your own Attributes and Abilities.

Telekinetic actions have the following restrictions and behaviors:

  • Line of Sight: You may use this Effect on targets which are out of sight, provided you have an understanding of their location.
  • Unarmed Combat: You can use this Effect to deal damage through unarmed attacks, grapples, and thrown objects. Attacks deal +1 Damage. Unarmed Mastery does not apply.
  • Weapons: You cannot wield weapons effectively in combat.
  • Fine Tools: You are otherwise limited to actions that a normal human could do with their bare hands.
  • Maintaining Focus: You must maintain Concentration while taking Actions in this way. If you are Injured or interrupted, you must roll Mind at Difficulty 9 to maintain Concentration. If you fail, you cannot engage in telekinetic actions for the next 6 - Intellect rounds.
  • Levitation: If you are strong enough to lift yourself, you may levitate up to within 75 feet away from the ground. Movement is limited to 5 feet per Round.
  • Multiple Items: You can only interact with one thing or take one Action at a time.

  • Using this Effect on targets which you cannot see will not give you any descriptive information about their location or surroundings, though you will have a sense of whether or not you are “touching” them, or if they bump into something.
  • Any telekinetic actions which interact with Animate targets may require contested rolls at GMs discretion.

Murian stumbled on Eisley’s old stash of Fairy Dust in the attic after her last job. That old benevolent spirit had more than a trick or two up her sleeve….

Use up this golden motes of fairy dust (unless you succeed on 1d10, Difficulty 7) and spend an Action. This Effect remains active for two hours.

As long as you are conscious, you are immune to falling Damage. Additionally, you may glide as you fall, traveling 35 feet horizontally for every 10 feet you fall. While gliding, you fall at a minimum speed of 10 feet per Round.

You are subject to the following effects while gliding:

  • Evasive Maneuvers: During your turn, if you moved mostly through the air but traveled less than your Free Movement, all attacks against you are at a -2 dice penalty until your next turn.
  • Earthbound: You cannot fly or glide in an atmosphere thin enough to be unbreathable.
  • Weight-Limited: This Effect is suppressed any time you are over-encumbered.

  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • Any penalties to dice or movement, including from Encumbrance, are applied as normal. If your movement is reduced to 0 due to encumbrance, you will begin to sink down to the ground.
  • You may activate this Effect while in midair, allowing you to slow and survive any free fall.

Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action.

You are obscured in one of the following manners. Lasts 30 minutes.

  • 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 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 must use up Quantum Cell in order to activate this Effect.

You phase out of reality for up to 10 minutes. During this time, you cannot affect the outside world but may take mental and self-targeting 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.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see sporadic imagery of each layer of the users organs.

You leave Vision of user at your location.

  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • You may use your Free Movement on the Round you phase back in, but you cannot take an Action.

Spend an Action.

You may withdraw an item from your stash, or add an item that is within arm’s reach to your stash. You may only stash targets which are in your possession, grappled, or otherwise controlled by you.

You may store Objects in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a briefcase (15 liters), and you may store up to 3 things at a time.

  • Containers which hold multiple things may count as a single item so long as the things within are generally packaged together. For instance, you may stash a clip full of bullets, a medical kit full of medical supplies, or a box of crackers, but you cannot stash a backpack full of miscellaneous equipment.
  • You may only attempt to store Objects which are free-standing and disconnected from other things. The use of this Effect will not allow you to sever any connections holding an Object in place.
  • The Maximum Object Size parameter is intended to roughly capture the weight / size restriction of items and isn’t intended to restrict shape. GM discretion is advised. A human being is level 4 in the Maximum Object Size parameter.

Stock Activated Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must use up a container of fine powder in order to activate this Effect.

You automatically detect all object that are designed to detect people, including tripwires, security cameras, detection lasers, heat sensors, etc within 50 feet of you for the next hour. You have a clear sense of both the distance and direction towards any detected items. When you detect objects, instead of learning nothing about them, you may observe each object with all of your senses.

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

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.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use a watch to activate this Effect.

Lasts 1 minute. Whenever you use your Movement, after all other calculations, the distance you may travel is doubled.

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).

  • 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.
  • 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.

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.

  • If you use this Effect to dodge as a Reaction, it succeeds without the need for a roll. Cannot be used as a Desperate Defense.
  • You may use your Free Movement on the Round you phase back in, but you cannot take an Action.

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.