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The Illumination
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Building Custom Gifts

"Gifts are why we sign The Contract"

Each session of The Contract, the Players' Contractors are invited to risk their lives in a deadly mission. Those who succeed are rewarded with a Gift Credit that can be spent here in exchange for extraordinary Artifacts or incredible Powers.

No two Contractors are alike. Each Contractor's Gifts are a unique expression of their concept, and any character concept can be realized by building custom Gifts.

Each Gift's system is automatically generated during creation. These systems are simple but specific. While such precise systems can be verbose, they focus gameplay on creatively using Gifts rather than interpreting them, and they ensure your Contractor plays the same no matter who is acting as GM.

Building Custom Gifts is Easy

Form an idea of what you want your Contractor to be able to do.
Describe your concept to this Gift-Building webpage. Select a Gift Type and Effect, then customize its modifiers until it matches your idea.
Apply flavor to your Gift by adding a description, name, and tagline.

You can also start by customizing a premade Stock Gift.

Watch the video tutorial

Further instructions are available at the bottom of this initial "Select Gift Type" page, and many elements can be tapped on hovered over for more information.

Gift Type: Powers

"Everything in life comes and goes. Everything but Powers."

Powers are a Contractor's bread and butter. They may be obvious or subtle, arcane or technological, actively called upon or passively empowering. Powers are the only Gift Type that doesn't always require equipment, making them the most reliable.

Powers include:

Any superpower
Magical spells and divine invocations
Cybernetic implants and other bodily augmentations
Supernaturally honed Abilities
Mythical Brawn, Dexterity, Intellect, Perception, or Charisma
Beneficial effects stemming from your Contractor's otherworldly nature

If your idea for a Gift isn't obviously one of the other Gift Types, it's probably a Power.

Gift Type: Legendary Artifacts

"I sure hope no one steals this."

Legendary Artifacts are high-risk and high-reward. These one-of-a-kind items are far more powerful than Powers or crafted items. However, they can be lost, destroyed, or even stolen by other Contractors. While there are ways to protect Legendary Artifacts, some risk always remains.

As your Contractor progresses, you may invest multiple Gifts and Improvements into a single Legendary Artifact, granting it multiple activated and passive Effects. Just remember, your Legendary Artifacts can be used by anyone, whether or not you're still alive.

Legendary Artifacts Include:

Unique alien technology
Mythical relics
Family heirlooms
One-of-a-kind creations

Any extraordinary equipment your Contractor did not create themselves is a Legendary Artifact.

Gift Type: Artifact Crafting

"Sure, I'll make you one. If you provide the proper incentive."

Artifact Crafting turns your Contractor into the golden goose. No Gift Type demands more sacrifice, nor a higher price. However, those Contractors who invest in Artifact Crafting create equipment that rivals the Gifts of the Harbingers. And make no mistake: most Contractors' loyalty can be bought.

Any Contractor who takes a crafting Gift can craft. When you craft with an Artifact Crafting Gift, you can either create a new Artifact with that Gift's Effect or add its Effect to another Artifact you've created.

Investing a Gift Credit or Improvement into an Artifact Crafting Gift lets you craft it once for free. After that, crafting with the Gift costs Experience equal to its Gift Cost + 1.

Crafted Artifacts Include:

Extraordinary weapons and armor
Skunkworks prototype devices
Spellbooks
Alien technology
Super-suits for your team

If you're looking to rival Hephaestus or Stark, you want Artifact Crafting.

Gift Type: Consumable Crafting

"Everybody take one. Use it if you get into trouble."

Consumables are single-use items that are easy to share and trade.

Any Contractor who takes a crafting Gift can craft. Each Downtime between Contracts, Contractors can craft one of each of their Consumables for free. Investing a Gift Credit or Improvement into a Consumable Gift grants an extra one for free. Additional Consumables may be crafted at a cost of 1 Exp each.

Crafted Consumables Include:

Potions
Specialty ammunition
Settable traps
Deployable super-tech
Magic makeup
Energy drinks that turn you into a mongoose

If it's supernatural, single-use items your Contractor makes, it's Consumable Crafting.

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Legendary Artifact

CliquehoodThe High School Mindset

Cost: 1

This Artifact allows you to inflame the emotions of others.

Lily chants before briefly lifting into the air, eyes glowing, before phantasmal eldritch tentacles appear from portals in midair and burrow into the heads of affected targets.

Spend an Action. Select a number of Living targets equal to your Charisma within 45 feet. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6. Affected targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6 -3 dice.

If you succeed, for the next hour, affected targets will do things they otherwise wouldn’t have done, inspired by loyalty and trust towards Lily. They will not necessarily display their emotions in an obvious way.

Actions they take will be in keeping with their character and the way they tend to deal with strong emotions. They will be unlikely to change their mind about any actions taken or decisions made until after the Effect ends.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see phantasmal eldritch tentacles appearing from portals in midair and burrowing into the heads of affected targets.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 1.

Extended System

When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
Common emotions and the actions they inspire
- Anger (shouting, cruelty, denying requests, attacking)
- Pity (stopping an attack, executing an injured target)
- Happiness (generosity, dancing, joking, socializing)
- Sadness (finding solitude, openly crying, demotivation)
- Fear (running, attacking)
If you succeed, the target MUST take at least one Action they otherwise would not have. Hey, GM who is reading this, I'm talking to you. You have to enforce this. Remember: Gifts must feel powerful.
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.

Gift Example

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Editing Gift
Cliquehood

Legendary Artifact

Emotion Control

Customize

Cost: 1

Legendary Artifact

CliquehoodThe High School Mindset

Cost: 1

This Artifact allows you to inflame the emotions of others.

Lily chants before briefly lifting into the air, eyes glowing, before phantasmal eldritch tentacles appear from portals in midair and burrow into the heads of affected targets.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 1.

Extended System

When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
Common emotions and the actions they inspire
- Anger (shouting, cruelty, denying requests, attacking)
- Pity (stopping an attack, executing an injured target)
- Happiness (generosity, dancing, joking, socializing)
- Sadness (finding solitude, openly crying, demotivation)
- Fear (running, attacking)
If you succeed, the target MUST take at least one Action they otherwise would not have. Hey, GM who is reading this, I'm talking to you. You have to enforce this. Remember: Gifts must feel powerful.
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.

Customize System

Customize your Gift's behavior.

When you're satisfied, scroll down to flavor and finish.

Tap this button any time to preview your Gift:

Cost: 1

Activation Roll

Duration

Gift Cost: +1

Range

Enhancements

Gift Cost: +3

Battery-operated (Instead of Exerting Mind to activate this Power, it has its own 3-point Source pool. The Source regenerates at the rate of one point per day and cannot be raised with Experience.)

Cannot be taken with Self-Powered

Chain of Screaming (When your target interacts with any valid target, they must roll Self-Control or be swept up in the same emotion. New targets pass it on as well, and so on, with the remaining duration decreasing by half until the chain stops.)

Conduit (You may use this Effect at unlimited range, but you require a token of your target to do so. One activation per token. The chosen token must be an object that the target actively created or that was in the target’s possession for at least 24 hours.)

Easy (When you activate this Effect, flip a coin. If you win, its Exertion cost is refunded.)

Cannot be taken with Self-Powered

Group Therapy (You may target a number of individuals equal to your Charisma rating.)

Mechanic (This Effect can be used on any Animate targets)

Overwhelm (The defensive Mind roll suffers a -3 dice penalty.)

Self-Powered (Activating this Effect has no Exertion cost, but it can have no more than 3 Drawbacks and its Gift Cost can never be increased above 1.)

Triggered (You cannot manually activate this Effect. Instead, choose a triggering event, always outside your control, that activates this Effect without requiring an Action or Exertion cost from you.)

Cannot be taken with Self-Powered

Willful End (You may end this Effect before its duration has elapsed as a Free Action.)

Seasoned Enhancements

Conditionally Costless (This Effect does not require Exertion in certain circumstances. The condition should be balanced such that it has an activation cost the majority of the time you are able to use it.)

Requires Seasoned status.

Cannot be taken with Self-Powered

Formative Experience (If the target fails or botches their defensive roll, they gain a Trauma, which must be related to the chosen emotion in some way.)

Requires Seasoned status.

No Contest (If the Contested Outcome of your activation roll is 4 or higher, the activation cost of this Effect is refunded.)

Requires Seasoned status.

Strong Emotion (Affected targets will take extreme and often out of character actions inspired by the chosen emotion. They also display the emotion obviously.)

Requires Seasoned status.

Drawbacks

Gift Cost: -2

Conditional (This Effect is only available when a certain condition is met. This condition must be severe enough that this Gift is unusable the majority of the time.)

Critical Failure (Roll a single D10 when you activate this Effect. If you roll a 1, you critically fail in a way that is extraordinarily dangerous. Failure should cause at least a Severity-4 Injury, a Major Battle Scar, or an effect counter to its purpose.)

Disfiguring (Possession of this Gift grants a minor Battle Scar that can only be cured by buying off this Drawback.)

Disturbing (Witnessing this Effect's Activation is extremely disturbing and/or morally abhorrent to the average person. Anyone who witnesses its activation will almost certainly be repulsed, outraged, and think differently of you from that moment on.)

Disturbing aspect:

Elemental (Instead of choosing an emotion, you may only inspire a single emotion or narrow band of emotions.)

Emotion:

Exhausting (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.)

Long Cast (This Effect takes one minute to activate.)

Maddening (Possession of this Gift causes a Trauma that cannot be cured by any means. The chosen Trauma must be likely to come up on a Contract.)

Mage (Activating this Effect requires two consecutive Actions of Concentration. It involves intricate use of the body and voice. If interrupted during activation, the Effect fails. It is obvious you are preparing to activate an Effect during casting.)

Cannot be taken with Disturbing

Once per Day (You may only use this Effect once per day.)

Sacrifice (Instead of Exerting your Mind or expending Source, activating this Effect gives a Severity-1 Injury that worsens by 1 Severity each time you use an Effect with Sacrifice. This Injury cannot be prevented by any means or healed before 1 day has passed.)

Cannot be taken with Self-Powered

Snap Out of It (If any affected target takes or deals Damage, this Effect ends.)

The Feeling Is Mutual (Your own emotions are affected to the same extent as your target.)

Traumatic (You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means. If you fail or Botch, you receive one Mind Damage and a new Trauma.)

Tunnel Vision (While this Effect is active, you are at -2 dice to all Actions and cannot Concentrate.)

Customize Flavor and Finish

Gift Name

Tagline

(Optional) Introduce the Gift in a flavorful way.

Attach to existing Legendary Artifact?

Item name

The name of the Legendary Artifact

Item description

(Optional) A physical description of the Artifact

Visual Description

A concise description of what this Gift looks like when it is used. What do participants and observers experience? This will be referenced by GMs at game-time to help them narrate.

Anyone who witnesses you activate this Effect is very likely to be disturbed to see phantasmal eldritch tentacles appearing from portals in midair and burrowing into the heads of affected targets. You must obviously use this Artifact to activate this Effect. When activating this Effect, this Artifact is obviously Alien and cannot be concealed under your clothes or similar.

Extended Description

(Optional) Wax poetic about this Gift's background, metaphysics, etc.

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Editing Gift Cliquehood

Editing Gift Cliquehood

Legendary Artifact

CliquehoodThe High School Mindset

Customize System

Activation Roll

Duration

Range

Enhancements

Seasoned Enhancements

Drawbacks

Customize Flavor and Finish

Visual Description

Extended Description

Editing Gift
Cliquehood

Editing Gift
Cliquehood