Ghost in the Machine "I'm in."

1
The power to issue commands to technological devices.
Created by shady.
(When activating this Effect, it is obvious you are interacting with the target. )

True to their namesake, the hacker can penetrate the security of any computer system, granting access to its informational stores, or, in a pinch, allowing them to issue commands. The hacked system will display a flickering image of a ghost until it is dismissed.

While hacking, The Technician's fingers move with supernatural speed, blurring like a ghost.


Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute to activate. 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. The hacking roll and their defensive roll are both 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.

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.

Community Power Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend one minute.

You automatically detect all Evidence Of Crimes 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.

If no Evidence Of Crimes targets are within 50 feet of you, and then one enters range, you automatically detect it, even if this Effect is not active.

The means by which any Evidence Of Crimes are hidden or disguised is made clear to you, as well as how to access them if they are secured. This includes objects secured via the Stash Effect.

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

Spend an Action. Select a target within 300 feet of you. You must have a specific target in mind, but you require only an intuitive understanding of them, such as their name, face, or Location.

You may send a single message to your target. It can be no more complicated than a multi-page letter or a long email.

The message will only be perceived by the intended recipient. You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.

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

  • Receiving a message does not force a target to pay attention to you, and they can feel free to ignore your message if they choose. Depending on the flavor of your Gift, they may or may not be able to return to it and read it later on.
  • Generally you cannot communicate with Contractors who are not in a Contract with you.
  • 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 at all times.

You are permanently and visibly transformed: ROBOT. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living Computer when targeted..

No single organ in your body is critical for life. If any of your body parts are separated from your body, you may take Actions with the severed part for three hours. You may reattach severed body parts by spending an Action and Exerting your Mind.

You no longer age naturally, and supernatural attempts to age you fail.

Your appendages can reach an additional 30 feet.

You cannot ignore or decrease the effects of Stress for any social rolls you make.

You cannot be mistaken for a normal human. You cannot always use standard human clothes, equipment, vehicles, and facilities, and when you can, you suffer an increased Difficulty.

  • Detached parts move at 5 feet per Round. You may activate awareness Effects through detached sensory organs. This does not grant extra Actions.
  • You may stretch or retract your limbs once per Round on your Initiative.
  • Attribute bonuses from multiple sources do not stack. Instead the highest bonus is used.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action. Select a Location within 50 feet. You must actively and obviously use trees and foliage to activate this Effect.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of trees and foliage originating at the target:

  • Dome: Create a dome or other simple, enclosed structure made of trees and foliage up to 20 feet in radius, 12 feet high, and 12 inches thick.
  • Sculpt: Sculpt a surface made of trees and foliage up to 40 feet by 40 feet. You may make aesthetic changes or minor functional improvements like a ladder or stairs. You may sculpt windows, doors, and similar alterations into structures you created with this Effect.

The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.

This alteration lasts three hours but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 6 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

You may sculpt your walls, domes, or tunnels as you create them, without any additional activation time or cost.

You may choose to make your modifications dangerous. If you do, anyone who tries to climb or move across your alterations takes 2 Damage each time they do so. Such alterations are obviously dangerous.

  • Attempting to break any alterations with inappropriate tools may damage or destroy the tools at the GM's discretion.
  • Any structures you create leave precise gaps for obstacles in their path or push them out of the way. You cannot directly destroy objects or structures or damage beings by creating walls or domes.
  • Tool guidance for GMs:
    • Difficulty 9: Brawn 5, no tools.
    • Difficulty 7-8: One-handed tools or makeshift tools (like a sword). Mythic Brawn without tools.
    • Difficulty 6: Appropriate manual tools. Crowbar, sledgehammer, armor-shredding attacks.
    • Difficulty 4-5: Power tools, vehicles, explosives.
  • This Effect produces the substance you are controlling unless it is drawn from the environment via “Required Environment” Drawbacks.
  • 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 you are engaged in unarmed combat.

+2 dice to rolls for Attacking, Defending, and Clashing without a weapon. Unarmed attacks do +2 Weapon Damage (instead of -1). The target's Armor is fully effective against this damage.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Brutal Strikes: If your attack inflicts a Battle Scar, you may choose which of the appropriate-severity Battle Scars the target suffers. If it causes a less severe Injury, you may inflict a Minor Battle Scar of your choosing.

  • Unlike the Ability Brawl, this Effect does not affect small weapons such as knives.

Stock Power Gifts

You gain the following benefits at all times. You must actively and obviously be using clothes or a uniform that displays the flag of your country to gain the benefits of this Effect.

You have 4 Armor, which reduces incoming Damage. Armor from multiple sources does not stack. This Armor cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.

  • This Effect’s Armor rating cannot be increased by any other Effects.
  • When shredded, it returns to full potency in one hour.

Exert your Mind and spend 30 seconds to trap a region of any shape that contains your current location and fits entirely within 300 feet. This trap lasts one day or until triggered or disarmed. You must use up a dart in order to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Survival Difficulty 6.

The trap looks like a tripwire, a pressure plate, or a hidden switch. Only those who have seen this trap before can identify it as a trap. Anyone who is aware of the trap may intuitively avoid, trigger, or destroy it.

Any Living target that enters the chosen region will trigger the trap. The target may contest by rolling Body, Difficulty 6.

If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 2. The target's 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.

Instead of dealing Damage all at once, the Injury caused by this Power starts at Severity 1 and worsens at the rate of one level per Round until it reaches the Severity it would have otherwise been.

  • Multiple traps cannot be placed in the exact same location or be triggered by the same single Action. Nor can one trap triggering cause another to trigger.
  • Trap can only be spotted by someone who has witnessed this particular trap before, has been informed, or possesses relevant supernatural abilities. They must achieve an Outcome of 4 or higher on a Perception + Alertness roll to do so.
  • The area you choose where the trap can be triggered may be just a single location, similar to a tripwire or a pressure plate, or it can be a proximity trigger which hits anyone who comes within the specified range of the trap. This is defined by you when you place the trap and cannot be changed once the trap is placed.

You gain the following benefits as long as as long as you have drank a half gallon (lethal) amount of blood in the past 24 hours.

Any Injury you receive heals quickly, reducing its Severity by one level each hour. Any Injuries you receive while this Effect is active do not deteriorate over time. However, any Battle Scars caused by such an Injury will remain unless it is Properly Stabilized as normal.

Spend an Action or Reaction. Select a Non-Alien Creature target within 20 feet. The target may Resist.

You possess your target and have control over their actions for the next hour. Your original body will be left behind, unconscious. You may perceive through your original body's senses by maintaining Concentration. If your original body is touched, you may roll Perception + Alertness to notice. You may spend an Action to end the possession early.

Stats: Any Actions you take will use the possessed creature’s Brawn, Dexterity, and Perception, but use your own Charisma, Intellect, and Abilities.

Gifts: You do not have access to any Gifts while you are possessing your target.

Death: If the host suffers an Injury, or is destroyed or incapacitated, you are evicted back into your own body. If the possession ends and your original body was killed or destroyed, you will die.

Eviction: You cannot force your host to take Actions which would violate their instinct for self-preservation (which includes engaging in Combat for any purpose other than self-defense or natural hunting); any attempt to do so will sever the connection and send you back into your own body. If you are forced out of the target's body prematurely, you must make a Trauma roll.

Targets with Body ratings higher than 10 require a Charisma + Animals roll resisted by the target’s Body. Kaiju and environment-scale targets are immune.

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

  • If targeting a Sapient target that counts as a Creature due to an Effect, you must succeed a contested Mind roll. You roll at Difficulty 6, and the target rolls at Difficulty 8.
  • 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. You must actively and obviously use your instrument to activate this Effect. The area within 25 feet of you immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Roll Charisma + Performance at Difficulty 6. Targets inside the radius may attempt an appropriate Reaction at GM’s discretion. Finding a physical barrier to use as cover will cut total Damage taken in half (applies after Reaction roll but before Armor).

If the Outcome is positive, your blast hits everything within 25 feet of you with Damage equal to your Outcome + 4. If you botched the activation roll, you will also take full Damage from the blast, otherwise it will not hurt you.

You may only use this Effect 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.