Latent Instincts "People find it really hard to say no to me."

3
Requires Seasoned
You possess superhuman people skills.
Used by Minerva McAlaster, Created by Polymorph.
( )

Minerva begins subconsciously imposing her will on the world around her. Even without focusing, her as long as she's honest, her desire to be believed will make her be believed. Whenever she can hear something, read something... if it's not true, there's a soft... static, to it. She's learned what that means.

When she focuses... every word she says is just the word she has to say, and is taken in the most favourable manner. It's impossible to stay mad at her, or to deny her.

Anyone who sees her attacked feels a subtle reflexive instinct to protect and defend her, even if she isn't in the room. She's trying to learn to intensify that.


You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your Charisma rating is increased by 2. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Charisma (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).

You also gain the following effects:

  • Honest Eyes: Your word is accepted as honest so long as you are speaking the truth as you understand it. You can always tell if someone telling a lie without making a roll, though you may not know what they are concealing

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

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Community Power Gifts

Yvon stirs the spirit of the plant Animating it slightly as its mind gains the power to follow the green father's command.

Exert your Mind and an Action. Select a Plant within arm's reach which could fit inside a rolling luggage bag (50 liters). You must actively and obviously use a wooden staff to activate this Effect.

Your target will become Animated indefinitely. You may choose to end the effect at will, as a Free Action. You can maintain a max of 4 targets animated at once.

Animated Objects have the following restrictions and capabilities:

  • Awareness: Animated targets are capable of perceiving the world around them within reasonable limits. Animated objects can communicate information back to you by faint whispers made by leaves moving.
  • Movement: Animated targets can use an existing method of locomotion (wheels, etc); otherwise they can move across the ground at 15 feet per round, or hover up to a height of 7 feet in the air at 10 feet per round.
  • Combat: Animated objects cannot take offensive actions in combat.
  • Artifacts: Animating an Artifact does not grant the animated object access to any Effects built in to that Artifact.
  • Ability Use: If an action requires a roll, Animated objects have a dice pool of 7 when performing a task for which they were designed, and a dice pool of 4 for taking any other actions. You may maintain Concentration in order to let your animated objects take actions using your own dice pool instead.
  • Toughness: Animated targets are as easy to destroy as they were prior to being animated. If destroyed, the effect ends.
  • Following Orders: Animated objects are controlled by the GM, and will follow any commands you give them, as long as they don't require problem-solving.

  • Animated objects must communicate verbally, and they must be near enough for you to hear them in order to communicate.
  • A task for which an object was designed might include a broom sweeping, a gun shooting things, a car driving, a towel rubbing up on stuff, etc.
  • Animated objects may be more or less susceptible to certain attacks at GMs discretion. A scarecrow golem would be easily destroyed by a sword (or fire). An animated suit of armor may not fear bullets but could be smashed to bits with a hammer. A full bronze statue is largely indestructible but might have difficulty standing up if toppled.
  • If an indestructible object is animated, the animation ends in any event where the base object would have been destroyed.
  • 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 (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. Roll Brawn + Alertness at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you create a barrier around yourself, which absorbs the next Outcome Damage. Half the damage absorbed is reflected back at the attacker, which they can Defend against as normal. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor, and is treated like Armor by any effects such as Armor Penetration. You may only have 1 active barrier at a time.

You must maintain Concentration while using this Effect. The barrier will fall if you are interrupted, or if it absorbs the full amount of Damage. When a barrier falls, you cannot use this Effect again for a minimum of 2 Rounds.

  • If you use this Effect as a Reaction to dodge, you still need to make a roll to dodge. The Effect will occur regardless of the Outcome of this roll, but if you fail you will be hit by the relevant attack prior to the Effect occurring.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You can run at two times your normal movement speed.

If you move faster than your normal move speed, the world around you turns to a blur, and Perception rolls are made at -3 dice.

  • Any Encumbrance penalty to your movement still applies, but you do not suffer from any sort of exhaustion.
  • Damage from a collision depends on your speed at the time, as well as what you hit. GM's discretion, but generally moving faster than a car on the freeway and hitting a dense, solid object like a wall or a tree should be lethal. Mundane armor will not apply, but any supernatural forms of protection will.

Selma’s whispers are not simply words — they are connections to the delicate boundary between life and death. This Gift allows her to see people not as they appear, but as the sum of every flaw, every strain, every ticking clock inside them. It is not magic, nor science — it is a natural evolution of her vow to understand and one day perfect death itself.
Every sickness, every scar, every inevitable breakdown of flesh: now a familiar hymn sung directly into her mind.

(In the space between heartbeats, Selma leans closer — no words spoken aloud. Instead, something unseen hums in the air around her, drawing out the fragile, hidden truths tucked beneath skin and bone. Every illness, every weakness, every slow-brewing death — whispered into her mind like a prayer.)

Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. At the end of your investigation, roll Intellect + Medicine at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You determine any medical or physiological issues they have, as well as their species and a general overview of their biology.
  • You learn a hidden desire of the target. Roll Outcome determines the relevancy / secret-ness of the desire.

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.

You gain the following benefits as long as engaged in combat with firearms.

+2 dice to all firearms rolls.

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.
  • Finesse: When Attacking a single being, you may limit the Severity of any Injury you inflict or determine a maximum Wound Level, including Incapacitated. You may also choose to make this Injury properly or improperly stabilized, or to keep it unstabilized.

Stock Power Gifts

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.

Spend a Quick Action. You must actively and obviously use a scarf, sheet, or handkerchief 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.

  • "Equip" refers to drawing a gun, putting on a piece of armor, etc. You may store or withdraw a maximum of 6 items in a given Round. Reminder: you may perform up to two Quick Actions for -2 dice each or 3 if you use up your Action, unless a different Effect grants you additional Quick Actions.
  • Containers which hold multiple things may count as a single item so long as the things within are generally packaged together. For instance, you may stash a clip full of bullets, a medical kit full of medical supplies, or a box of crackers, but you cannot stash a backpack full of miscellaneous equipment.
  • You may only attempt to store Objects which are free-standing and disconnected from other things. The use of this Effect will not allow you to sever any connections holding an Object in place.
  • The Maximum Object Size parameter is intended to roughly capture the weight / size restriction of items and isn’t intended to restrict shape. GM discretion is advised. A human being is level 4 in the Maximum Object Size parameter.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your Dexterity rating is increased by 1. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Dexterity (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).

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

Spend an Action. Select a Animate target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use bread or a fish to activate this Effect.

For the next 24 hours, your target does not require any food, water, or sleep. Any attempts to age your target fail. Any roll to resist an Effect dependent on any affected requirement is made at -1 Difficulty.

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

  • 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 target Location within 75 feet.

You may perceive things as if you were standing at that Location. The effect lasts indefinitely but you must maintain Concentration to keep it up. You cannot perceive anything at your physical location while the effect is active.

You create a visible manifestation at the Location where your senses are projected which looks like a ghostly image of yourself meditating.

  • This does not satisfy the Line of Sight requirement for targeted Effects.