Control Vermin Stay out of the woods!

1
Requires Seasoned
This Artifact allows you to command creatures.
Used by Walter Prescott, Created by Redchigh.

With miscroscopic vision or successful examination with science or occult, it becomes obvious that this is
not a naturally occurring stone but some kind of petrified resin unlike anything currently in use. You notice that the surface of the face is lined with minute geometric patterns (similar to modern computer circuit boards) With at least 4 successes on Occult, they recognize this as alien technology, perhaps carved after creation by someone else.

Upon touching any sapient entity's exposed flesh, it triggers a mind roll at 8. Failure or Botch means you are possessed by the artifact, and immediately are inflicted with a absolute hatred of humans, and overwhelming desire to flee to the nearest wilderness area and defend it from human incursion by force. On a failure, they may reroll to break free in 2 hours, on Botch it is 24 hours. Two botches in the same lunar cycle possesses them until the new moon. A possessed target will relentlessly hunt down the artifact if it is taken, though if it is not in their possession on the new moon they begin to recover over the next week or so. The artifact can possess multiple people, though only the person in posession of the artifact can use its powers. In the case of multiple possessed targets, they will work together to drive off the humans, before likely fighting over the artifact.
A single success will prevent this possession, as long as they maintain the artifact in their possession.

While asleep, you may tap into the creatures under your command and receive visions of sights and sounds the commanded creatures experience. You may also communicate with the commanded creature.

If the commanded creatures travel over 5 miles from the artifact, the effect ends for those individuals.

Commands are limited to
Sit (go to a described area the creature is familiar with and remain. If you set a specific condition that the creature is capable of noticing, you will be notified when it occurs. A single creature isn't particularly perceptive, though a horde certainly is)

Pester (They will follow a target they can see, and hop, jump, or fly as close to it as possible without touching it.)

Attack (Small numbers of the creature will attempt to attack the target(s) identified. Due to size, the damage is capped at 2, this is dodgable, and a small number might not be able to efficiently do damage at all.

Swarm (There must be a large number of individuals, such as 60+crows or thousands of bugs- and they will all attack at once, moving at the creatures normal speed. These masses are usually fairly large (20+ ft wide for the minimum size), and anyone caught in the swarm will take damage, capped at 4. larger numbers simply make the horde larger, and harder to get out of. Vision and sound is obscured when inside a swarm and disorientation is likely. You must be able to move entirely out of the swarm with a free action to be able to effectively dodge, but the most effective approach is shelter or fleeing.)


Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a Creature within 300 feet.

For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow. All other Creatures which are the same species as your target will also be compelled to follow commands that you issue if they are within 300 feet when the command is given.

Your commands must be relatively simple and within the targetโ€™s intellectual grasp. You can make them endanger themselves or otherwise go against their self-preservation instincts. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.

Possession of this Artifact causes the following Trauma to manifest over the course of a day: Territorial: If humans infringe on what you consider a private space, you must make a self control roll to not drive them out by force.. If you lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next month.

  • Your commands must be directly communicated to your target in some way, though this does not require a shared language.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Revision purchased with:
Gift from House Games of yore spent on new power: Control Vermin

Community Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind, spend 30 minutes, and use up this Tattoo Pen. 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.

  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • Remember: A Contractorโ€™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.

Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend an Action. Select a target within 300 feet. You must actively and obviously use a bladed weapon to activate this Effect. Roll Dexterity + Melee 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. Armor is fully effective against this Damage.

You may choose to have this Effect Damage all targets in a perfectly straight line up to its maximum range.

If you successfully hit your target, the value of any Armor they are wearing is reduced by 2. For material armor, this penalty lasts until it is repaired. For intrinsic armor, it lasts until the end of Combat and any relevant wound is healed.

If the target suffers an Injury from this Effect, they will receive at least a Minor Battle Scar regardless of its Severity. When this Effect causes a Battle Scar, you may select which one of the appropriate level.

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. Exhaustionโ€™s penalty and duration stacks with multiple activations.

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.

  • 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 sacrificial Injury received from activating this Effect cannot be prevented by any means or healed before 1 day has passed. It is shared with all Effects that use sacrifice. This Injury does not requires Stabilization or cause Battle Scars when it becomes Severe.
  • 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.

Spend an Action. Select a Living target within 45 feet. Roll Charisma + Occult Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling Body, Difficulty 6.

If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 4. The target's material Armor is completely ignored.

The target suffers a -3 dice penalty for the next hour or until the Injury is healed. This dice penalty does not stack multiple times on the same target.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see The afflicted person begins to rot and decay from the inside out.

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

  • "Material Armor" includes armor from equipment but not Armor from Mythic Brawn, barrier, or mystical armor.
  • 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 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.

Spend 10 minutes. Select a Object within arm's reach that is of any size. Cannot be used on Alien technology. More than half the target object must be present in order to begin repairs. Roll Perception + Alertness 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.

This Effect ends if you are stunned, fall asleep, go unconscious, are incapacitated, die, or if your total Stress ever exceeds 5.

  • 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. Select a target Location within 75 feet. You must actively and obviously use Spirit Talisman to activate this Effect.

You may perceive things as if you were standing at that Location for the next 30 minutes. You may move your senses back and forth between your projected location and your real location without prematurely ending the effect. You may only have one projected location active at a time.

  • This does not satisfy the Line of Sight requirement for targeted Effects.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 10 feet. You must actively and obviously use a ballpoint pen to activate this Effect.

You place a ward, which is fixed to a target Object that can be moved and repositioned. You can hear and see through the ward as though you were standing at its location. You may have at most 1 wards active at once.

The ward requires Concentration to monitor, though it will remain active until you deactivate it. The ward can be discovered if someone knows what they are looking for, but is otherwise inconspicuous and cannot be identified as a ward.

  • Any targets visible via your ward satisfy the line of sight requirement for targeted Effects.
  • 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.

Take a Severity-1 Injury and spend an Action. Select a Living or Sapient target within arm's reach. Roll Intellect + Occult at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you possess your target for a number of minutes equal to the Contested Outcome. The target has no control over their body or actions, and they are functionally unconscious through the entire possession, retaining no memory other than any Traumas they might obtain.

You do not leave your original body behind when you possess a target. When a possession ends, your original body will reappear at the host bodyโ€™s same location. You may spend an Action to end the possession early.

Stats: During the possession, you use the host bodyโ€™s Body rating, but your own Mind rating. Any rolls you make use the host bodyโ€™s Brawn, Dexterity, and Perception but your own Charisma, Intellect, and Abilities. You gain the effects of any physical Assets and Liabilities they have. You cannot read the targetโ€™s mind or memories.

Gifts: You have access to and can use any of your own Powers which are not intrinsic to your biology or physical body. You cannot access any Powers or other supernatural effects which the target has, unless they are intrinsic to the targetโ€™s biology or physical body.

Death: If the host body is killed or destroyed while you are still possessing it, you will die along with it.

Eviction: If you attempt to force your host to take actions which would violate one of their Limits or their instinct for self-preservation, they may resist by rolling Mind. If their Outcome is higher than or equal to the contested Outcome, the possession ends and you are evicted from their body. Otherwise, they may Exert their Mind to evict you from their body.

  • Access to equipment-based Gifts such as Signature Items depends entirely on whether you are holding the relevant object, and is not impacted by whether or not you are possessing a 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 eight hours. Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you cause a major Battle Scar instead of an augmentation. Your target must make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect. 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.

  • Remember: A Contractorโ€™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.

Spend 10 Rounds and use up this a bottle of metallic fluid. Select a Object within arm's reach that is no larger than an SUV. Cannot be used on Alien technology. More than half the target object must be present in order to begin repairs. Roll 7 dice Difficulty 6, dice penalties do not apply.

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.

  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • 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 1 minute. Select a Computer within arm's reach. 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.

If your command does not require bypassing the security of the target (for example, typing on a computer that is unlocked), you do not need to Exert your Mind to activate this Effect, and activation only takes a single Action.

Your Hack cannot be reversed through mundane means for a number of hours equal to your Outcome.

Every hack you make leaves behind a flickering image of a ghost in the system as a personal "calling card" that informs anyone who uses the system that the hack occurred.

  • 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.