The Nine Cutting Fingers 臨 兵 闘 者 皆 陣 列 在 前

1
Requires Seasoned
The power to lock, unlock, or open things.
Used by Leon Vanderblight, Created by leonvanderblight.
(When activating this Effect, it is obvious you are interacting with the target. )

Leon begins to perform a series of odd hand gestures, each an occult ritual that those in the know may recognize before striking the target with his palm. Each palm strike creating a singular rune matched to a different shinto god that begins to rotate furiously as it blurs faster and faster with each strike until it forms a nine-fold circle and then plunges into the lock, which can then either be sealed, opened, or shattered by the energy within depending on the final gesture Leon executes. A palm strike to shatter, a gesture of Kai to seal, and a gesture of Mudra to open.

Leon had felt the pain of arcane bondage before. What it felt like to have your soul shackled and your body unable to listen to a single command. He had broken those shackles, mostly, and today he had learned what incredible things the universe held. How others could take your body and leave you trapped in another world by simple bindings that one could not even see. Leon would not have this, he would not have his body, his mind shackled by these profane others who had come from a dimension away to make him a slave again. Never again.

So he set out and studied at every Shinto shrine he could find. From every priest, he could meet to find a solution to find a Kami that would grant him the power to shatter these seals in exchange for the incredible divine offering he had been given for his victory, and his studies came to an unfortunate realization.

No single Kami could grant the power he needed, to shatter these holes leading to another world, to seal them forever so that he would never again need to fear the invasion of these extra-dimensional entities and he had but one offering to give, but his cause for once was just, and he went to the shrine dedicated to the pantheon of the Shinto gods. On his knees he begged as he presented the offering, knowing that it alone was not enough but that their world and so very much more was at stake, and so he implored. Their duty as Kami went beyond the petty struggle of Yokai and Kami, that they needed to unite and he would be their agent on this plane if that is what it took to recognize that the universe was more important than the squabbles of individual men and women. Divine, Yokai, or Mortal. It mattered not, they were in the face of an interdimensional threat. An army a million strong with their own gods baying for blood. Thus, the gods listened, and they accepted. Though they demanded they each be honored with a gesture before this power was used, together they would grant him the power to shatter, seal, or open these strange otherworldy things but they would need his offering in exchange. The world at stake or otherwise, bestowing a divine boon such as this without compensation would render them weaker in the coming conflict. Thus, Leon parted with his boon he received and returned to begin studying the gestures and through that study created the nine cutting fingers.

Returning

臨/Rin: Tensho Kodaijingu/ Amaterasu Omikami

兵/Pyō: Sho Hachiman Daijin

闘/Tō: Kasuga Daimyojin

者/Shā: Kamo Daimyojin

皆/Kai: Inari Daimyojin

陣/Jin: Sumiyoshi Daimyojin

列/Retsu: Tanyu Daimyojin

在/Zai: Nittenshi

前/Zen: Marishi-Ten (Marici -Skt.)


Exert your Mind and spend at least two Actions performing the following ritual: Performing the Nine cutting fingers gesture on the target to activate. Select a Alien Technology within arm's reach. This can be used on Alien technology. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.

You may lock, unlock, and/or open your target.

If you successfully operate a lock, you may choose to destroy it, rendering it inoperable.

  • Any door or restraint that is fastened or shut with a mechanism may be considered locked, at the GM's discretion. Can be used on control panels or other electronic locks, but not computer security systems.
  • If you operate a locking mechanism through this Effect which has some other secondary effect (such as the ignition on a car causing the car to start) you may cause that effect as well.
  • 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. You must actively and obviously be using Robotic arms to gain the benefits of this Effect.

All Stabilizations you attempt are considered Proper Stabilizations.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Gifted: You get +3 dice on any rolls related to medical care as long as Emergency Medical Care.
  • Sterile: Sanitary conditions no longer matter during medical care. Your patients will never suffer an infection or toxic shock during treatment, even if you are performing surgery in a sewer. You may preserve harvested body parts indefinitely.
  • Surgeon Extraordinaire: You may perform any mundane surgery without inflicting or worsening an Injury, and recovery time is reduced to an hour.

  • All stabilizations being proper stabilizations applies to stabilizations from other Effects such as Heal Wound.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your Brawn rating is increased by 2. 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).

You also gain the following effects:

  • Tough: You gain Armor equal to half your Brawn rating. This Armor cannot be penetrated or shredded and protects against falling Damage.

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

You gain the following benefits at all times.

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

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Delusions of Grandeur: As one of the world's greatest minds and greatest artists, you believe yourself to be the very best, superior to anyone else you meet. You must succeed a Self-Control roll in order to believe something or take an action which contradicts this delusion and Opportunist: You are always looking for opportunities to gain more status, power, fame, etc. Whenever there is the potential to receive a considerable amount of compensation or reward for your work, you must succeed a Self-Control roll in order to resist shamelessly pursuing the opportunity.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Brilliant Deduction: You may spend five minutes pondering an enigma, puzzle, or mystery, and roll Intellect at Difficulty 8. Success will reveal a clue or other tidbit that you have otherwise missed. Limit once per enigma.
  • Multithreaded: Instead of being unable to take Actions while maintaining Concentration, you may now take Actions at a -2 dice penalty. You may maintain Concentration from two different Effects, but you are unable to take Actions when doing so.
  • Never Forget: You have a perfect photographic memory, and can recall or recreate even complex and detailed things. If you forget something you had previously seen or noticed, you may ask the GM and they will remind you.
  • Prodigy: Whenever you witness someone get an Outcome of 6 or higher, or someone demonstrates an Ability with the intent of teaching you, you may Exert your Mind. If you do, rolls using that Ability use their rating instead of your own for the next day.
  • Sheer Willpower: You may Exert your Mind up to three times per Round, including multiple times for each roll.
  • Insufferable Know-It-All: Any social rolls you make are at +1 Difficulty, and if someone else can answer an informational question or solve a puzzle before you do, make a Trauma roll. The Difficulty of this Trauma roll cannot be reduced by any means.

  • Being Injured or interrupted in some way can still break your Concentration.
  • When you exert multiple times, if you have the Enhancement Push Through It, the lingering Outcome bonus is limited to +1.
  • 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: gaunt Skin stretched over massive amounts of muscle, bone, and nerves. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living being when targeted. Your Brawn is increased by 1, your Dexterity is increased by 1, your Perception is increased by 1, and your Charisma is increased by 1.

While in Forested Area, heat, cold, pressure, radiation, and other native hazards do not affect you. Dangerous local flora and fauna will not bother you unless you give them a reason.

You can squeeze through any cracks and passageways a cat would be able to.

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.

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

Vulpimancers come from the planet Vulpin, after years of being used as a waste disposal planet, Vulpin has become pitch black, cold, and full of pollution.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You are permanently and visibly transformed: fur, large claws, sharp teeth, no eyes, tail, digitigrade hind legs. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living Creature when targeted. Your Brawn is increased by 1 and your Dexterity is increased by 1.

Your body is adapted to Tracking. You receive +3 dice on non-attack rolls related to Tracking.

You are immune to damage from cold. If cold is a substantial component of other damage you would take (e.g. falling from a great distance into a vat of liquid nitrogen), that damage is reduced by 2 (in addition to Armor)

While in Underground Environments, heat, cold, pressure, radiation, and other native hazards do not affect you. Dangerous local flora and fauna will not bother you unless you give them a reason.

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.

You cannot speak any coherent verbal language and must resort to other means of communication.

You are incapable of fine object manipulation and can only hold or grasp things in a crude, clumsy way.

You cannot ignore or decrease the effects of Stress for any Self-Control rolls you make.

  • Even though you're targetable as a Creature, you still are also targetable as a Sapient being.
  • Attribute bonuses from multiple sources do not stack. Instead the highest bonus is used.

Stock Power Gifts

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 target must be able to understand you and must receive your communication for the suggestion to work.
  • Allowed Commands
    • Direct Order: The target must take an immediate action (e.g. “Sit down,” "run away," or "tell me your password.")
  • 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.

This Effect cannot be used unless you are making a deal to exchange money for protection.

You may make an oath with a physically-present, Sapient target. Communicate the oath's terms to the target, including the requirements and penalties for each participant. If all agree to the terms, you must Exert your Mind and all participants must shake hands to seal the deal.

Record the oath as a Condition. If a party breaks the oath, the Condition ends and they suffer the oath's penalty.

When crafting your oath, you may incorporate any of the following penalties:

  • You may suspend a targeted Offensive Power which will take effect when the oath is broken. The Power must be able to target all participants the oath indicates it could hit.
  • A Battle Scar up to Severe (deaf, missing limb)
  • The oath-breaker is physically marked as an oath-breaker, and any investigative effect will reveal the terms of the oath they broke.
  • A particular Trauma and a single Mind Damage
  • The oath-breaker goes unconscious for up to 24 hours
  • An Injury up to Severity-6 (cannot be reduced by any means)

The target cannot be compelled to agree via a direct threat of violence, another Effect, or another oath. If you would like to use clever wording to mislead the target, you must succeed a contested Intellect + (Culture or Influence) roll.

  • All Oaths must have at least two participants.
  • The target must be physically present to enter the oath.
  • The terms and penalties of the oath do not need to be equitable and do not need to affect all parties equally.
  • A single action cannot break multiple oaths. You cannot 'stack' oath penalties by having a target sign multiple identical oaths, or similar.
  • 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 a minute. Select a target Object within arm's reach. At the end of your investigation, roll Charisma + Culture at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You learn the object's highest material value and why it is worth so much.
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

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 an Action. Select a Non-Alien Creature within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is a terrestrial animal.

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.

  • Your commands must be directly communicated to your target in some way, though this does not require a shared language.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 combat with playing cards.

+2 dice to all rolls utilizing playing cards.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Point Control: Called Shots that you attempt only require a Contested Outcome of 2 for small targets and 4 for tiny targets.
  • Ricochet: You can make a thrown attack against a target behind cover so long as there is at least one exposed pathway to them.