Smell fear

2
The power to learn details about others.
Used by Maria Sueño, Created by ShadyTradesman.
(Activating this Effect is not obvious. The only sign you are using an Effect is Eyes rolling back into her head. )

Maria smells the air near the target, and her eyes roll back into her head. She experiences their darkest nightmares.


Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions to activate. Select a Sapient target within arm's reach. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Influence at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You learn Fears: (phobias, worries, insecurities).

The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is Eyes rolling back into her head. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Community Power Gifts

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.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action.

Summon up to 3 Sapient revenant soldier at your location. They last for two hours or until they move more than 150 feet from you or are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. You may have at most 3 minions active at a time.

  • Initiative: Minions act directly after you in Combat starting the Round after they are summoned.
  • Combat: Minions roll 4 dice to dodge, Grapple, or make firearms Attacks. Their unarmed Attacks are melee range and deal +2 Damage.
  • Body/Mind: Minions have 5 Body. Your minions roll 3 Mind resistance dice.
  • Armor: Minions have 1 Armor.
  • Movement: Minions can move 15 feet per Round as Free Movement and double that when performing an all-out Sprint.
  • Intelligence: Minions have human-level intelligence and can speak your language. They can use equipment, Artifacts, and Consumables. However, they cannot Exert their Mind.
  • Actions: Any Perception checks they make are rolled with 3 dice. Any other roll is made with 3 dice. They can lift and haul as though they have 2 Brawn.
  • Unusual: Minions are obviously Alien to any observer.

You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see shifting forms and bellowing screams of the damned.

  • Minions die if targeted with Energy Transfer (before the Effect resolves) or if an Artifact or Consumable they use would Injure them or cause them to roll Trauma.
  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • Your minions may count as additional targeting types based on their flavor. For example: Living, Computer, Creature, etc.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You no longer require any food, water, sleep, or air in order to survive.

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Delusions of Grandeur.

Force and finesse go hand in hand.

A narrative must have a careful balance of both, lest it collapses under the weight of meaningless strength or dissolves into empty gestures. To wield power is to understand when to strike hard and when to let the tension linger.

A delicate dance of impact and restraint, all for the sake of the perfect scene.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your Brawn rating is increased by 3. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Brawn (cannot be used on combat rolls or Effect activations).

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

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You are permanently and visibly transformed: Beetle Form. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living being when targeted. Your Dexterity is increased by 1.

You may make a +2 Weapon Damage boiling spray (functions as handgun) attack without additional equipment.

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

Stock Power Gifts

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.

  • In the case of a failed activation, GMs should consider how bystanders would realistically react to a potentially-outlandish accusation of mind-reading.
  • 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 30 minutes. You may only target yourself. 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, non-Effect 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 Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.

Your alteration "heals" over the course of the next month, after which it is fully cured.

  • Remember: A Contractor’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.
  • Example environments for adaptation: space, all saltwater, all fresh water, all water under 50 feet deep, all water deeper than 50 feet, the jungle, radioactive areas, a specific alien world, etc.
  • 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 one minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You must actively converse with the individual in question for one minute in order to gather any information. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Influence at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You learn a hidden desire of the target. Roll Outcome determines the relevancy / secret-ness of the desire.
  • You learn their relationship to a specific individual (chosen prior to the effect activation).

The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

Any information you gather is spoken aloud in conversation and made publicly available.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.

You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.

  • 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 cannot hack things outside of your range over remote connections such as the internet. The system you are affecting must be physically within range.
  • 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.

You gain the following benefits as long as as long as you are visibly dressed head to toe in black with hardly any skin showing.

You and everything you are carrying is obscured in one of the following manners. You may Spend an Action to change the way in which you're concealed.

  • Hearing: You are completely obscured from hearing. You produce no sounds while this Effect is active. All attempts to detect you via hearing fail. Attempts via other senses where hearing would assist are rolled at -2 dice.

While this Effect is active, any Effect that would obscure you or your equipment specifically from other, additional senses fails automatically.

If someone discovers you, this Effect will not help you hide from them for the next minute. Activating a targeted or obvious Effect, attacking, or being Injured ends the Effect. When the Effect ends, it is disabled for one minute.

You may turn this Effect on and off at will during its duration.

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: compulsion to test the awareness of allies by sneaking up on them with a weapon.

  • You may only switch this Effect on or off once per Round on your initiative as a Free Action.