Benedict spends a minute prepping his smoking pipe, and lighting it. Embracing the other in a polite conversation.
Exert your Mind and spend one minute to activate. You must actively and obviously use Smoking Pipe to activate this Effect.
You may understand and communicate to Creatures and humans as if you are fluent in a relevant language for the next hour.
This also includes understanding any recorded communications from the relevant targets, including writings, scent trails, etc.
Whenever you encounter a Language you could commune in with this Effect, you immediately understand which language it is, the dialect, region, and other details about it.
“If you use this Effect to spend an hour speaking with a native speaker of a human language you don't know, you may Exert your Mind and roll Intellect + Culture Difficulty 7. With Outcome 4 or higher, you permanently learn that language and accent.
While this Effect is active, you are at -2 dice to all Actions and cannot Concentrate.
At some point—somewhere between all the nights she spent curled next to Bapha's twitching tail and the mornings spent cleaning blood off her shoes—Vita started hearing the way monsters think. Not words, exactly, but wants. She doesn’t bark commands. She echoes them, speaks them in the secret tongue stitched into fur and scale. It was never a spell. It's just that the beasts listen now. And worse, they obey.
Bapha hasn’t noticed. Or maybe he has, and he’s pretending not to.
When Vita activates this effect, the creature’s body convulses—like it’s being yanked on invisible wires. Its limbs twitch violently. It tries to resist, but there’s no fight in its eyes anymore—just a blank glaze and eerie stillness. The world around her goes muffled, like someone turned down the volume of everything except the sound of wet breathing and bone creak. People watching know something unspeakable just happened. They can’t say what. But they know.
This isn’t training. It’s contamination. The longer Vita spends tethered to Bapha, the more the line between her and the creatures blurs. This Gift didn’t come from study or practice—it seeped in like mold in forgotten places. Now when she looks at a beast, it knows her. Not as prey, not as predator—something worse: kin.
And she doesn’t even realize it’s happening.
Every command is a breach. Every flick of her fingers etches new cracks in the divide between mortal will and feral instinct. One day, she might give a command she doesn’t mean to. And something ancient might answer back.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien Creature within 20 feet.
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.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see the creatures, body spasms as if it’s fighting for its life before it ultimately loses, said fight and its eyes glaze over anyone who witnesses has a sense that I have done something horrible to said creature and Is immediately off put by me.
Jeb flexes and roars before performing feats of extraordinary strength
You gain the following benefits as long as you are engaged in unarmed combat.
+2 dice to rolls for grappling and choking.
You may Defend against melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks from any range and Clash with those in range of your Attacks. Attacking materials like steel or spikes will not Damage you unless it has an Effect that does so.
You also gain the following effects:
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend one minute.
You transform into Rat for two hours or until you choose to end the Effect. See the Extended System text for stats.
While transformed, you cannot use any equipment (including Artifacts and Consumables), and you do not have access to any of your Powers. Any equipment you are wearing transforms with you.
Injuries and Wound Level are carried over between forms. However, transforming can never kill you; you merely remain Incapacitated until your Injuries are sufficiently healed.
May focused on her wound, and her bleeding stops. Over the course of a minute the flesh and bone shift and remake themselves, Rebuilding her form.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Battle Scar on yourself to treat.
The treated Battle Scar heals as you finish activating this Effect. If used on a Battle Scar caused by an Unstabilized Injury, that Injury is Stabilized.
The user's left eye lights and a what appears to be shadows move around it. Information is revealed to the user in the form of visions that only the user can be seen.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute to activate. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless A shadow must be touching the target. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Intellect + Investigation at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
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 Left eye slightly obscured by an unknown shadow. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
The mutant has grown a long, fuzzy tail resembling one found on a monkey or lemur. Odd as it may be, it certainly comes in handy, and it's got one hell of a grip. If removed, the tail regrows within a week.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You gain an additional limb that functions as a standard human arm and hand.
Each additional limb you posses can take one Quick Action per Round without incurring a -2 dice penalty to your main Action. Each additional appendage you have gives you +1 dice to make and resist Grapples (up to a maximum bonus of +4 dice).
Any Battle Scars that affect or remove your additional limb will heal in a single week.
You may dedicate your extra Quick Action to contest any attempt to escape your Grapples. If you do so, you roll your full dice pool to contest and retain your Action to do anything that does not target the subject of your Grapple.
Your Extra Appendage is incapable of fine object manipulation.
The Necromancer stands over a corpse and makes a series of grandiose lifting gestures. The corpse rises from the ground as though suspended by invisible strings, barks a pained groan, and lands on its feet, now a full-fledged member of the living dead.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend an Action. You must use up corpse in order to activate this Effect.
Summon up to 3 Non-Sapient, Animate zombie 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.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
The influencer is 100% tuned-in to any sort of chatter about themselves. Any time someone nearby so much as whispers about them, they know who they were and what they said.
This Effect activates whenever someone talks about you. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a target Location within 75 feet. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event.
You may perceive things through hearing as if you were standing at that Location for the next 30 minutes. You must maintain Concentration to keep up the effect. You cannot perceive anything at your physical location while the effect is active.
The Thief has a stash in which they can store a few objects. It can be accessed through any burlap sack.
Spend a Quick Action. You must actively and obviously use a burlap sack to activate this Effect.
You may withdraw an item from your stash, or add an item that is within arm’s reach to your stash. You may only stash targets which are in your possession, grappled, or otherwise controlled by you.
You may store Objects in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a briefcase (15 liters), and you may store up to 3 things at a time.
You may choose to equip any equipment you withdraw at no additional cost.
The detective has trained their eyes to notice the smallest of details.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your senses are enhanced in the following way.