The Paranoid King

1
A consumable King of Clubs that lets you place wards to monitor an area.
Used by Ethan Waber "Master of Misdirection", Created by Kyota.
(During activation, it is clear you are placing or leaving something at the location. The ward can be detected with a roll and destroyed through mundane means. )

Filler


Spend an Action and use up this King of Clubs (unless you succeed on 1d10, Difficulty 7). Select a Location within 10 feet.

You place a ward, which is fixed to its initial location. You can hear and see through the ward as though you were standing at its location. You may have at most 1 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.

Your Ward records all activity it observes, regardless of whether or not you are actively monitoring it. This recording can be played back and referenced later.

  • Your ward's recording is maintained even if your Ward is destroyed.
  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • Any targets visible via your ward satisfy the line of sight requirement for targeted Effects.
  • 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.

Community Targeted Gifts

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. Your target must make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Intellect + 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.

  • Unstabilized wounds do not degenerate during treatment.
  • 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.

Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action. Select a Sapient being, human, Creature, or Dead target within 50 feet. Dead targets must have died within the past week, and you must have their remains in your possession.

The target can communicate in your language for the next 30 seconds.

You may only use this Effect once per target per day.

  • Communing with creatures does not grant them intellect but does allow you to converse with them.
  • The target of "human" refers to any target that speaks a human language.
  • 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 1 minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless the target does not use an Alien effect sourced from their body for a number of Rounds equal to the Severity of the Injury healed and you load a blood capsule (requires a quarter pint of mammal blood and a quarter pint of salt and iron mix, plus an hour of time at a workshop). Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Intellect + 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.

  • Unstabilized wounds do not degenerate during treatment.
  • 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 Location within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use Surfboard to activate this Effect.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of sand and water originating at the target:

  • Wall: Create a straight wall made of sand and water up to 20 feet long, 5 feet high, and 6 inches thick. This wall can also be used to create a bridge, ramp, or similar. It must be free-standing.

The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.

This alteration lasts indefinitely but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 3 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

  • Attempting to break any alterations with inappropriate tools may damage or destroy the tools at the GM's discretion.
  • Any structures you create leave precise gaps for obstacles in their path or push them out of the way. You cannot directly destroy objects or structures or damage beings by creating walls or domes.
  • Tool guidance for GMs:
    • Difficulty 9: Brawn 5, no tools.
    • Difficulty 7-8: One-handed tools or makeshift tools (like a sword). Mythic Brawn without tools.
    • Difficulty 6: Appropriate manual tools. Crowbar, sledgehammer, armor-shredding attacks.
    • Difficulty 4-5: Power tools, vehicles, explosives.
  • This Effect produces the substance you are controlling unless it is drawn from the environment via “Required Environment” Drawbacks.
  • 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 1 minute. Select a Computer within 20 feet. Does not work on Alien technology. Roll Intellect + Technology, with the Difficulty set by the GM depending on the security of the system you are hacking. Sapient targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you may issue a single command to the targeted system. This command must have a specific outcome or be a request for specific login credentials. The command you issue must be within the machine's current capabilities. For example, you cannot order a standard security camera to grow legs and walk around.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is staring at the target. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

After you finish activating this Effect, you cannot move quicker than a walk (max 15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour. Exhaustion’s penalty and duration stacks with multiple activations.

  • Exhaustion penalties and duration stack. If you activate this Effect or another Effect with Exhaustion, your penalty will worsen, and the duration is increased by one hour.
  • 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.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: perform a fire-breathing trick. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire). Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you take a Severity-4 Injury as the fire burns your throat. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.

You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a firepit's fire at your target. Extinguishing a fire does not cost Exertion. You may create or extinguish fires the size of a lighter or candle flame without Exerting your Mind. Your fires require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning.

Lighting a target on fire deals 4 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 shredded by any Damage dealt, destroying material Armor once it reaches 0.

You may extinguish flames as a Reaction. This does not extend to explosives.

  • Your fires may be extinguished with appropriate Actions and materials. Stop, drop, and rolling to extinguish requires spending an Action and making a Dexterity + Athletics roll, with an Outcome of 4 putting out the flames.
  • If the target is larger than your flame size, the Armor destruction creates a weak point instead of applying to the entire target.
  • 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 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 wouldn’t 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.

  • When triggered, the Effect activation resolves immediately after the triggering Action. It is not Reaction speed.
  • Common emotions and the actions they inspire
    • Anger (shouting, cruelty, denying requests, attacking)
    • Pity (stopping an attack, executing an injured target)
    • Happiness (generosity, dancing, joking, socializing)
    • Sadness (finding solitude, openly crying, demotivation)
    • Fear (running, attacking)
  • If you succeed, the target MUST take at least one Action they otherwise would not have. Hey, GM who is reading this, I'm talking to you. You have to enforce this. Remember: Gifts must feel powerful.
  • 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 Location within 10 feet. You must actively and obviously use a ballpoint pen to activate this Effect.

You place a ward, which is fixed to its initial location. You can hear and see through the ward as though you were standing at its location. Your wards last 3 hours. You may have at most 3 wards active 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.

  • Your ward cannot be used to satisfy the line of sight requirement for targeted Effects.
  • 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. Select a Living target within 45 feet. Roll Intellect + Occult at Difficulty 6. The target may roll Body, -2 dice at Difficulty 7, as a Free Action to resist.

If you succeed, the target receives a new Battle Scar of your choosing, limited by the contested Outcome:

  1. A Minor Battle Scar E.g. an aesthetic-only body modification (a disfigured face, a pig's tail), impacted hand or foot, or vocal changes that complicate communication
  2. A Major Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed hand or foot, an inability to speak, an impacted major sense, removal of a minor sense, impacted movement.
  3. A Severe Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed arm or leg, deafness, aesthetic changes that are nearly impossible to conceal.
  4. An Extreme Battle Scar E.g. removal/disabling both hands or both legs, blindness, a full-body deformation that leaves the target humanoid but makes it difficult to use clothes, vehicles, and equipment designed for humans.
Refer to the stock Battle Scars on the Character Sheet for specific systems.

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: Witchy Appearance. You have a long, warty nose and chin, wrinkled skin, and a hunch back. Social rolls are at +2 Difficulty, and your free movement is reduced by 10 feet.

Your alteration "heals" over the course of the next month, after which it is fully cured.

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Compulsion for payback. You must roll Self-Control to avoid using this Gift on anyone who wrongs you in a major way.

  • A given target can have a maximum of one Suspended Effect on them at a time. The selected triggering Action cannot be used to reveal information about the target (e.g. no "activate when they are a vampire"). It must be an Action they take, not a thought or something that happens to them.
  • Remember: A Contractor’s Body rating is reduced by 1 for each Battle Scar after their fourth.
  • You may opt to inflict a Battle Scar that is less severe than what your Outcome allows.
  • 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 Location within within arm's reach. All Sapient targets within 20 feet are affected. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is looking directly into the device with uncovered eyes. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.

If the contested Outcome is positive, the most recent 1 hour from your target’s memory is either replaced with new memories or forgotten entirely. This is recorded as a Condition. The level of detail and completeness of the alteration depends on your Outcome. If you fail, the target realizes that you are attempting to alter their memories.

The period is chosen either by time (i.e. “last Friday night”) or by reference to a specific event (i.e. “when the murder occurred”).

  • You do not gain mind-reading through this effect, so your ability to alter their memory is limited by your knowledge of what they might know.
  • The target's roll to realize their memories have been altered can be made a maximum of one time 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.