Marks caught a few villians in his day, and one thing they always seem to have in common is they never shut up.
He's learned how to conversationally 'push their buttons' and make them talk.
So far, the most reliable way has been to talk about himself, to instigate their inevitable sense of competition.
It takes constant conversation, so when Mark mentions his relavent truths, their target does too.
Preferably in the form of a back and forth gloating/determination sort of thing.
Examples:
"I'm Mark Collins, fighter of injustice, protector of the weak. I'm here to stop you! " (flexes in superhero pose)
"It's too late, Mark!" (laughs maniacally) "You'll never find the bombs in time!" (Shows him live feed of the city.) "Watch your public failure with me! The world will know my name! ZOXOB!"
"If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word."
Terry Pratchett
Exert your Mind (unless The target thinks they have the upper hand) and spend one minute to activate. Select a Sapient target within arm's reach. You must continuously interact with the individual in question in order to gather any information. At the end of your investigation, roll Brawn + Influence at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome. For any information you learn about your target, the corresponding information about you is shared with them.
Any information you gather is A spoken conversation and made publicly available. This also includes any information the target learns about you.
Ed holds an eyeball, whispers an incantation into it, places it into position, the iris of the eyeball turns a slightly glowing green and it is locked into place. From here Ed is able to see and hear from this eyeball as if they were his own senses. When he is using this power to see through these, his eyes glow green as they do with many of his different powers.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a Location within 10 feet. You must use up eyeballs in order to activate this Effect. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect.
You place a ward, which is fixed to its initial location. You can perceive with all your senses or activate investigative Effects through the ward as though you were standing at its location. You may have at most 3 wards running at once.
The ward requires Concentration to monitor, though it will remain active until you deactivate it. It can be detected with a roll and destroyed through mundane means.
Whenever something crosses into the observational range of the Ward, you and those you've allowed to tune in are alerted by a dinging sound similar to an egg timer.
Eric begins to cough releasing a custom-made toxin into the air that he has created within his body, this then begins to eat away at the targets body and mind returning all to rot as it works its way through the body, the toxin can be stopped by partaking of the plague lord's blessing and consuming venom
The creation of the original toxin is what caught the attention of the lord of Plague, and eric opened his mind and body to the Lord and was born anew,
Assimilate:
Gift 1 Inhuman Physiology : https://thecontractrpg.com/gift/18392/
Gift 2 Blast : https://thecontractrpg.com/gift/18393/
Quick guide:
Inhuman:
Enhancements:
distributed systems(no one part is needed for life),
toxic body(Take damage on being injected with/consuming body fluids)
Drawbacks:
Disfigured*2 for: disfigured (social rolls @ +1 difficulty) and limp (move speed reduced by half),
Maddening*2 for: Compulsion to spread the blessing, and harm the unblessed,
Misshapen(can't be mistaken for a normal human and can't always human equipment.)
Description: the body is covered in open weeping cysts, the veins of the infected turn black and bulge out of the body, the infected's mind warps to turn the affliction they are under into a kind of blessing that they desire to spread as far and wide as possible, when they are eliminated (killed), they explode sending bodily fluid and bone shrapnel out in a wide area around them
Blast: Radius 10ft, damage : outcome+2, and uses the infected's body instead of a normal roll, if it pierces armor add toxic body damage
Enhancements:
Detonation(damage spreads beyond initial radius),
Radiate (blast is centered on the caster),
Shredder (those hit have armor reduced by 2),
Triggered (on death)
Drawbacks:
Disturbing (the body bulging and bursting),
Fuel (one's own body),
Stand Firm (those hit by blast may roll body @7 as a free action and reduce taken damage by the Outcome)
Description: The body of the dead infected begins to bulge and inflate as pressure builds up within the body, after a few seconds the entire body bursts as the pressure reaches a point at which the weakened body can no longer contain it, causing toxic blood and bone shrapnel to go flying in every direction, centered on the body of the dead, after the explosion no parts of the infected's body is left behind.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Animate target within 200 feet. Roll Intellect + Crafts at Difficulty 6. Your target may resist by rolling Body at Difficulty 8.
If you succeed, the target is afflicted with a Condition that causes any number of the following symptoms:
The affliction is not treatable by modern medicine. It may be diagnosed by rolling Intellect + Science at Difficulty 9, and can be cured by Consuming an anti venom. Gifts or supernatural Effects and Powers which would cure or prevent this affliction do not cure or prevent it, but instead offer a clear diagnosis and provide information regarding the method of treatment without requiring a diagnosis roll.
Any Scars, Traumas, or Injuries caused by your symptoms cannot be healed until the underlying Condition is cured.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is coughing. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
If the Contested Outcome of your activation roll is 4 or higher, the activation cost of this Effect is refunded.
The Cleric of Mothman waves their holy focus, tiny motes of light almost unnoticeably drifting towards her target.
The power of light and fire, bestowed upon little Moff by the Cult of Mothman; created through use of dust from Mothman's wings.
Exert your Mind (only for extinguishing a fire, no cost for starting one) and spend an Action. Select a target within 300 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire). You must actively and obviously use lamp to activate this Effect.
You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a fire in a residential fireplace at your target. Your fires require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning.
Lighting a target on fire deals 3 Damage each Round on your turn, starting in the Round after the one in which they caught fire. This Damage is reduced by Armor, but the target’s Armor rating will be depleted by any Damage dealt, destroying the Armor once it reaches 0.
You may extinguish flames as a Reaction. This does not extend to explosives.
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."
Possession of this Power grants the following Battle Scar: The Hunger - Cloth (and other things that moths eat).
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Like a Moth - You have an inexplicable attraction to light and fire. (Whenever you would come across a standalone light at least the size of a torch, roll Self-Control in order to resist following it, entranced by the pretty light. Fire/light created by this Gift do not trigger this maddening) and Ornithophobia - You fear those eyes in the sky, and for good reason! (Whenever you would encounter a bird, roll Self-Control or be forced into fight or flight).
A two-handed sledgehammer usable not only for combat, but primarily its functionality on smithing and item-crafting/upgrading. Approximately 1.5m long, the hammer looks like a modern industrial dwarven contramption powered by steam.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a non-Alien Weapon within arm's reach. Cannot be used to improve Armor.
Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 2 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +2 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice.
Nomie carefully lays down rocks and trinkets in a circle. Snacks go in the middle. One little head, four five ten. The gnomes convene, and the provider of snacktime picks the topic.
Off they run, one by one, each scurrying into nooks and crannies, under brush and foot. Each return carrying back a little trinket quite telling of what they've found.
Spend a minute. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 100 feet You must actively and obviously use sweets to activate this Effect. You cannot investigate the same target more than once per hour. At the end of your investigation, roll Charisma + Investigation at Difficulty 6.
You learn a single specific piece of information, chosen from the following list, about the area:
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
The mobster presents a reasoned, logical case to the target: there's a lot of dangerous folks out there, and only they can offer safety... for a price.
If they agree, they will pay the mobster a monthly fee for protection. If they stop making their payments... well, let's just say, the mobster can't be held responsible for any unsavory types that might pay them a visit.
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:
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.
The survivalist is adept at following an animal through any terrain. Once they find a recent track, they may focus their will to illuminate the trail of their target. Any part of the target's trail within eyeshot glows a bright, misty green. Even the trails made by vehicles the target was riding in are illuminated.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You may select a target at any range if you use up fresh tracks of the target. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Survival at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.
Any information you gather is revealed by illuminating the trail in a glowing light and made publicly available.
You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.
While addressing a crowd, the influencer may use coded language to send secret messages to a particular person in the crowd. These messages can't be noticed or understood by anyone but the intended target.
Spend an Action. Select a target any distance away from 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. This Effect cannot be used unless you are speaking to multiple people and the target is listening.
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 Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is your left hand making a fist. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
By slowing the hands of one of their watches, the time-traveler may interrupt and slow a target's movement through time. The target appears to be moving in slow motion for the duration.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. You must actively and obviously use a watch or clock to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Science at Difficulty 7.
If you succeed, the target will suffer a dice penalty equal to the Outcome for the next 2 Rounds. Dice pools may be reduced all the way down to 0 by this penalty. This breaks Concentration.
You may activate this Effect as a Reaction to contest any Action a valid target is taking, reducing their Outcome by your own. Your command has no impact beyond disrupting their Action.
Doc puts his hands on you and begins to mutter to himself in french. The effect is instant and horrible. You begin to remember all of the sins of your past, all the ways that you've wronged those who loved you. All of the terrible, evil things you've done on these contracts in order to survive. Doc seems to be in the grips of similar memories, tears running down his chin and dripping onto his hands that are pressed tightly against you. At the point where your mind feels like it's about to break, it's over. Just as quickly as it began. You feel your wounds begin to close.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. 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. Your target must make a Trauma roll to reap the benefits of this Effect. They may choose to Resist the Effect and not make the roll. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Charisma + Medicine at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, the Injury is reduced in Severity by your Outcome. If you reduce its Severity to 0, the Injury is fully healed. Otherwise, it is partially healed and will heal the rest of the way at its natural rate.
This counts as a successful Makeshift Stabilization if the Injury was not already Stabilized; any Battle Scars caused by the Injury will remain.