As long as Minerva wears her pendant, her thoughts are ordered. And with order comes safety.
Following Minerva's traumatization by a fellow contractor, the next month the young girl spent a good bit of the next month in her room. She stopped practicing everything else, just focusing on herself, and that feeling of helplessness that had come with it.
And one night, she dreamed. She remembered battling the nightmare monster, of the defenses she had forged. And she forged them again. Ordering her thoughts, marshaling them, she assembled her mind into a castle. A Castle of Light, a bright beacon in the darkness.
The castle is built to withstand a siege from the darkness. Even taking the field is a monumental task, requiring great effort by an assailant, more than most can bring to bare - and after an enemy has been cast out once, such a tactic won't work again.
Each step into the castle is a slog, a constant exhausting battle to take a wall, only to find another wall behind it that the defenders have retreated to and fortified themselves again.
From the highest point of the castle a bright light glows. When an enemy is repelled, enough of the shadows are left that she knows what they meant, and who sent them.
The castle stands at all times, a fortress for her mind and her dreams.
Of course, the walls of her castle are manned, and it is an effort for her to open the gates to anyone. It's safer that way.
You gain the following benefits at all times. You must actively and obviously be using silver fox pendant to gain the benefits of this Effect.
You get +1 dice to any Mind resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Guarded Bastions: You must succeed in a self-control roll to allow anyone (other than yourself) to use an effect on you.
You walk off broken bones and gushing wounds like scrapes and bruises. Even traumatic things take a while to affect you.
You've obviously taken devastating wounds before, but have learned to not let them slow you down. While the wounds stack up, you push harder and faster towards your objective, getting the job done at all costs.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your Stress from Injuries and Mind Damage is reduced to 0.
The souls of the forest cannot bare witness to the suffering of it's knight. They shall fight and withstand the pain, their wounds will heal as the forest does.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Any Injury you receive heals quickly, reducing its Severity by one level every 6 hours. 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.
All Injuries you receive are considered Properly Stabilized. You may also choose to heal any Battle Scar on yourself that may not have been caused by an Injury. Doing so takes one day, and the Battle Scar affects you fully until that time.
Once an Injury has been reduced in Severity by two levels, it no longer benefits from this effect and instead heals as normal.
The young girl let a savage, bird-like scream out of her wounded mouth, and she tosses what seems like a feather up in the air.
As the feather vanish from everyone sight, people surrounding her understands that the scream weren't just for show, they were a call, and indeed, the call is answered by a multitude of hoarse screeches.
They came out in the sun, from everyone blind spot simultaneously, with their bones visible, their translucid skin glowing of a faint hue of blue, visible only in little spots, while all the rest is covered in red feathers. No one knew their name, obviously, but she knew, and she called them, in their language, and they talked, in a symphony of clicks, screeches and growls.
Suddenly, the two creatures stopped talking, and slowly turned their head against the nearest enemy, lowering their hips, swaying their tail, analysing their prey, and finally, they jumped.
Exert your Mind and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: calling the spirits in their language. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.
Summon up to 3 Non-Sapient, Animate extinct spirit at your location. They last for two hours or until they 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.
Due to your training, you can fight incredibly well.
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:
This gift has no appearance.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your Brawn rating is increased by 1. 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).
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Self-Hatred (+1 difficulty to rolls that benefit the user, such as defending, dodging, using a First-Aid Kit, etc).
You also gain the following effects:
Perform the Five Point Technique via a series of quick pressure point hits on the targetโs chest. As you do, channel your chi and speak a condition involving the number five. If the target cannot stop you from performing the technique, their heart will take a direct hit when they fulfill the chosen condition.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Roll Dexterity + Brawl Difficulty 6. 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.
When you activate this Effect, instead of occurring immediately, you may choose to delay its effects until the target takes a particular Action. For example: "when they fire a gun" or "when they swim in deep water."
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.
Finally, the girls are fusing the way theyโve wanted to since they began Contracting, three and a half years ago. It took Graceโs left eye for them to try this, but the girls are now able to spend a week focusing their energy towards a Battle Scarred area and permanently replacing it with The Spiritโs ghostly flesh. The replaced chunks, eyes, arms, whatever may come, appear just as The Spiritโs: bluish and semi-transparent, but now function just as the respective physical flesh would.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Any Injury you receive heals quickly, reducing its Severity by one level every 6 hours. 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.
All Injuries you receive are considered Properly Stabilized. You may also choose to heal any Battle Scar on yourself that may not have been caused by an Injury. Doing so takes one day, and the Battle Scar affects you fully until that time.
Possession of this Power grants the following Battle Scar: any scars that heal this way leave the flesh in that area bluish and semi-transparent, causing you to be viewed as a freak by most people who see you.
Most severe injuries occur far from a facility that could treat them, and in the fetid muck of the battlefield even minor wounds may be a death sentence. Luckily the soldier is well-trained in the use of their standard-issue medical kit. They may stabilize even the most severe injuries with a little gauze and some no-anesthetic stitching. Furthermore, the treated wounds of their comrades never get infected.
You gain the following benefits at all times. You must actively and obviously be using a standard issue military medical kit to gain the benefits of this Effect.
All Stabilizations you attempt are considered Proper Stabilizations.
You also gain the following effects:
The creature's claws rip through the poor, defenseless doctor's coat, opening deep gashes in their gut. It bares its fangs to lunge for the killing blow, but the doctor looks up at the attacker. Their eyes filed not with utter terror at their imminent demise, only a look of disappointment and pity. Touched, the monster hesitates. . .
This Effect activates whenever you receive a Severity 2 or higher Injury from an attack. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a Living target within 45 feet. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. Affected targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, for the next minute, your target will do things they otherwise wouldnโt have done, inspired by remorse for hurting such a pure soul. 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.
The Vampire is able to turn one of their victims into a lesser vampire, a pale shadow of a full creature of the night but useful nonetheless. Having drained and killed their target, the Vampire performs a brief ritualistic bloodletting, wherein they spill their own blood into the target's mouth, forcing them to drink, and bonding them together as child and sire.
Shortly afterwards, the fledgling vampire will rise from death, hungry for blood and eager to serve.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach that has died within the last hour. This Effect cannot be used unless you drained the target's blood while they were still alive.
Your target rises as an Animate being. The raised creature is totally mindless, with no memory of its past life or hint of its old personality. They cannot communicate. They will follow any command you speak.
The creature lasts until it dies again. It is revived at full health. Any Injuries it had in life are not accounted for when determining its penalties or progression towards re-death, though they may affect its ability to perform certain actions at GM's discretion. The raised creature must consume flesh every day or it will die again.
Raised creatures have their Abilities set to the same that they were in life. Their Charisma and Intellect are set to 1, but their Dexterity, Brawn and Perception are the same as they had in life. A raised creature cannot use any Effects.
Your revived targets deal 2 Weapon Damage with their unarmed attacks.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.