Dominic furiously shouts out the activation phrase Market Crash to his keyboard and it alights, activating several defensive protocols that emerge in the form of a shimmering light blue bubble of force that encapsulates him and the area in his immediate vicinity the barrier crackling and sparking with electricity as the battery unlocks the true potential of lithium. When struck lightning arcs off the barrier as it converts the energy of the attack into a devastating retaliatory bolt ensuring that Dominic is protected from the attack and that his assailant sorely regrets targeting the man who will one day dismantle the Illuminati! Though it does burn the battery out, Dominic needs to be careful about carrying a few replacements. The Deep State loves to strike when you are at your weakest and he couldn't afford to be caught without.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction. Select a Animate target within arm's reach. Roll Intellect + Technology at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a barrier around your target, which absorbs the next Outcome +6 Damage. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. This Artifact 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. As long as it does not fall, the barrier regenerates back to full strength at the end of each Round of combat.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma: Deep State Agent: Must make a self control roll to trust someone with his life or with details about his real identity.. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
Exert your Mind and spend a Free Action. Select a Non-Alien, Non-Sapient, Animate target within 20 feet.
For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow.
Your commands can be complex and multi-layered, though they must still be specific. You cannot make them obviously endanger themselves or violate their instinct for self-preservation. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.
When activated, the air near the target location shimmers like static on an old VHS tape. A low, almost inaudible hum pulses—some swear it sounds like reversed speech or shortwave radio gibberish. Then, the illusion flickers into place, as if being beamed from a grainy broadcast or decoded from a corrupted satellite feed. Observers might feel a faint pressure in their skulls, like déjà vu or a memory that isn't theirs.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within 45 feet. Choose an illusion to generate, which can be no larger than a briefcase.
The chosen illusion is generated at your target, and it will remain in place for the next minute or you choose to end it. It can be perceived by people through their sight. The illusion cannot be used as an attack. You cannot make an exact replica of an existing Animate being or Object.
Anyone who touches the illusion (or who would be able to perceive it significantly through a sense it cannot fool) realizes it is an illusion, and the entire effect will be ended for all targets.
The illusion will remain fixed to its initial Location. It may have moving parts and engage in simple, predetermined movements but cannot perform anything complex or interactive unless you maintain Concentration and “puppeteer” it.
Any illusion made to disguise an Object as a different Object with a similar size and shape last a minimum of one day and can only be broken by a scientific analysis, investigative Effects, or witnessing the object being used in an inconsistent way.
The user folds their arm or appendage in on itself, creating tension, and that tension is then released in an explosive strike with a rapid decompression causing the limb to stretch further than normal.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you lose all tension from the punch as it targets a random ally, including yourself. (Roll a die to determine new target). Roll Dexterity + Brawl 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.
Any Injury inflicted is considered unstabilized even if its Severity is less than 4. The equipment and roll required to Stabilize it is treated as though it is a minimum of Severity 6.
If the target receives an Injury, they are knocked back 5 * Severity feet.
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.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see your body stretch and compress at extreme speeds.
When Selma uses this Gift, the air around her drops a few degrees, a subtle shiver brushing against anyone nearby. She leans close, her voice barely more than a breath, whispering into the target’s ear. As she speaks, a faint, ghostly glow — like moonlight caught in mist — gathers at the wound, shrinking it until it vanishes entirely, leaving nothing but untouched skin behind.
Selma's healing is not loud, not explosive, but intimate — a communion between the dying and the dead-yet-walking. She does not command flesh to mend; she convinces it, softly, to forget its pain. Her words are stitched with a magic older than hope, with a certainty that death is neither enemy nor end, but a passage. "Whisper of Life" is not a shout against mortality — it is a secret, a hush passed between bodies that are trying to survive just a little longer.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Intellect + Medicine at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, the Injury is reduced in Severity by your Outcome. If you reduce its Severity to 0, the Injury is fully healed. Otherwise, it is partially healed and will heal the rest of the way at its natural rate.
This counts as a successful Makeshift Stabilization if the Injury was not already Stabilized; any Battle Scars caused by the Injury will remain. You may specify a specific condition that the patient must adhere to. If they break this condition, the treatment is immediately reversed. Record this regimen as a Condition. Lasts until the end of their next Contract or 1 month for non-Contractors.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is The air around her chills slightly. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
Preston raises his staff to the sky and there is a flash of distant lightning. A few seconds later, thunder rumbles menacingly, the lights flicker, there is a gust of wind, and Preston disappears at one location and appears at another.
The effect occurs at the source and destination simultaneously, though there is no sign he is the source (besides appearing/disappearing).
Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions. Select a Location within your line of sight. You must actively and obviously use a staff to activate this Effect.
You are transported directly to the chosen Location. Anyone who is touching you as you Travel will be brought along with you. You must wait 1 full Round before activating this Effect again.
The aristocrat knows a ritual that allows them to rent the best version of any item. They set $10,000 worth of cash on fire and place the item to be upgraded in the fire as well. While in the flame, the item morphs into a high-end version of itself. After a while, it reverts.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. You must use up $10,000 cash (or equivalent) in order to activate this Effect. Cannot be used to improve Armor.
Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 3 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +3 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice.
The detective can flash their badge and bark out orders to a person or a crowd, and the target will have trouble ignoring their command.
Exert your Mind and spend at least one Action. All Sapient targets within 20 feet of you are affected. You must actively and obviously use a police badge to activate this Effect. Your target cannot be engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your targets. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. Any affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.
If the contested Outcome is positive, your targets will be compelled to follow your command to the letter-- but not necessarily the spirit-- of the command until they have completed it or for your Contested Outcome in minutes. 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. Commands may force a target to violate one of their Limits, and they will need to make a Trauma roll once the suggestion wears off.
The psychic can reach into another's' mind and pilfer their deepest memories. Doing so causes the psychic's nose to bleed and is exceptionally draining.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Living, Animate target within 25 feet. You must maintain Concentration while the effect is active. Roll Intellect + Investigation at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you are able to view your target's memories. If you fail, the target knows you're attempting to read their memories.
You may ask a number of specific questions about their memory equal to your Contested Outcome. For example, “what is their computer password,” “What were they doing at 4:00PM yesterday,” etc. You cannot get answers to broad, analytical questions like “are they a good person?” or “what are their plans for the future?”
Each memory takes as long to read as it takes to answer the question. When replaying a full memory, it is replayed in double time.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is your nose bleeding. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
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.
Come one, come all! Stand in amazement and behold as the Fire Eater consumes a flame as if it were cotton candy! Gasp with fright as they breathe a plume of fire a great distance! And yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite dangerous.
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.
The survivalist is adept at following an animal through any terrain. Once they find a recent track, they may focus their will to illuminate the trail of their target. Any part of the target's trail within eyeshot glows a bright, misty green. Even the trails made by vehicles the target was riding in are illuminated.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You may select a target at any range if you use up fresh tracks of the target. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Survival at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.
Any information you gather is revealed by illuminating the trail in a glowing light and made publicly available.
You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.