Weaponized Angst Cthulhu's Sleeping Pill

1
Requires Seasoned
This Artifact grants you the power to put a target to sleep.
Created by Riley.
(Anyone who witnesses you activate this Effect is very likely to be disturbed to see an echo of the user's past- or at least how it is presented to anyone nearby. The user may be able to control how this power interacts with their target, but the runoff that results from firing this weapon always has a random negative effect on those unseasoned in the supernatural world. Anyone that witnesses this power activation will very briefly gain a context-less supposition of the user based on the user's regrets and shames. For example, if the user once had to kill a child for whatever reason, normal passersby will gain an impression of that knowledge (typically a biased one against the user) and will tend to react negatively; usually with fear, outrage, or disappointment. You must use this Artifact obviously when activating this Effect.)

A manifestation of the user's regret and shame, per the Maddening on Umbra's Spite, is cultivated and weaponized. It pools from the hands and infests the next shot in the chamber of the gun. It wraps around, subsumes, and completely coats the round until it's barely recognizable- only as a silhouette.

The bullet becomes so changed that it will no longer be capable of dealing damage, but instead becomes a tranq round that paralyzes targets by temporarily stealing all energy from the target's physical form and rendering them unable to move.

After being hit, the target will hallucinate a brief flash of one of the user's regrets, shames, or most disappointing moments during the few moments of paralysis.


Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Living or Animate target within 300 feet. Roll Perception + Firearms at Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Body at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, your target becomes drowsy for the next 3 Rounds, during which time they suffer an additional -2 dice Penalty to all Actions. At the end of their drowsiness, they fall into a state of sleep paralysis for Outcome x 3 rounds. During this time, they remain fully conscious and aware of their surroundings but are incapable of taking any actions.

Sleeping targets will not prematurely wake up on their own, but may still be woken up by sudden loud noises, being jarred or splashed with water, taking Damage, or similar rousing events. They will also awaken before dying of hunger, thirst, or suffocation. Drowsy targets always fall asleep, regardless of what happens while they are drowsy.

You may determine the content of an affected target's dreams while they are asleep, but they must involve you in some way, and will reveal you as the source of their sleep as well as reveal secret information about yourself to them. By maintaining Concentration, you may enter their dreams and converse with them directly.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see an echo of the user's past- or at least how it is presented to anyone nearby. The user may be able to control how this power interacts with their target, but the runoff that results from firing this weapon always has a random negative effect on those unseasoned in the supernatural world. Anyone that witnesses this power activation will very briefly gain a context-less supposition of the user based on the user's regrets and shames. For example, if the user once had to kill a child for whatever reason, normal passersby will gain an impression of that knowledge (typically a biased one against the user) and will tend to react negatively; usually with fear, outrage, or disappointment.

You may only use this Effect once per day.

  • You do not physically enter a target's dreams; your body stays in place while you are Concentrating.
  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • The target is aware than the secret information about you which was revealed in their dream is true, even if the rest of the dream may be written off as just a dream.
  • For targets where "sleep" does not make any sense in terms of flavor, they will power down, freeze, etc, whatever state they can be in which is analogous to sleep.
  • 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 (unless you win a coin flip) and spend three Actions performing the following ritual: Must carve, paint, and speak a short runic word. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.

If the contested Outcome is positive, your target will be compelled to follow your command to the letter-- but not necessarily the spirit-- of the command until they have completed it or for your Outcome in hours. You cannot issue another suggestion to the target until 10 minutes after they have completed the first command or 10 minutes after a failure.

They will be unaware that they are under any sort of compulsion until the effect wears off, but they will appear obviously mind-controlled the entire time to anyone observing them. If you fail, they realize that you were attempting to influence them supernaturally with your command.

Your command can be an order to take an immediate Action and a conditional request. You cannot order a target to "do nothing," and they are free to take other Actions as they fulfill your request. Your command cannot be obviously self-endangering or self-destructive. The Effect ends if following your command would cause a target to cross one of their Limits in a way that would necessitate a Trauma roll.

  • The target must be able to understand you and must receive your communication for the suggestion to work.
  • Allowed Commands
    • Conditional Request: implants a triggered response or latent order. (e.g. "when you see your mom, give her a kiss" or "when I give the signal, strip naked and pretend you're possessed by the devil.")
    • Direct Order: The target must take an immediate action (e.g. “Sit down,” "run away," or "tell me your password.")
  • 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 to activate. Select a Location within 20 feet. Roll a single d10, Difficulty 4. If you fail or botch, the Effect fails and you cannot activate it again for an hour. Roll Brawn + Alertness at Difficulty 7.

If you succeed, all Animate targets within 20 feet of the chosen Location 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.

  • If this Effect fails due to the Unreliable check, you must still pay any associated activation costs.
  • If a character has a dice pool reduced to 0, they cannot attempt that action.
  • If a character Exerts their Mind to ignore penalty, it also ignores penalty from this Effect.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. Roll Perception + Legerdemain at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you create a Barrier around your target, which absorbs the next Outcome + 2 Damage. 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. As long as it does not fall, the barrier regenerates back to full strength at the end of each Round of combat.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

You must use up Tufft of Werewolf fur in order to activate this Effect.

You may make an oath with any number of Sapient targets. Communicate the oath's terms to the targets, including the requirements and penalties for each participant. If all agree to the terms, you must Exert your Mind and all participants must sign the contract. 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:

  • A Battle Scar up to Severe (deaf, missing limb)
  • The oath-breaker is physically marked as an oath-breaker, and any investigative effect will reveal the terms of the oath they broke.
  • A particular Trauma and a single Mind Damage
  • The oath-breaker goes unconscious for up to 24 hours
  • An Injury up to Severity-6 (cannot be reduced by any means)

The targets 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 targets, you must succeed a contested Intellect + (Culture or Influence) roll.

When crafting your oath, you may opt to enforce compliance. If you do, any participant that wishes to break the deal must take 3 Mind damage and succeed a Self-Control roll. They may attempt once per day.

The targets may be at any range, but you must still be able to communicate the terms to them, and they must be able to sign the contract..

Whenever a participant breaks the oath, you are immediately made aware and may even witness the act as if standing nearby.

It is obvious to your targets that the oath you are proposing will be supernaturally enforced.

  • All Oaths must have at least two participants.
  • The terms and penalties of the oath do not need to be equitable and do not need to affect all parties equally.
  • A single action cannot break multiple oaths. You cannot 'stack' oath penalties by having a target sign multiple identical oaths, or similar.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Spend an Action to activate. Select a target within arm's reach. Roll Intellect + Science at Difficulty 6. The target] may contest by Defending or Dodging.

If you succeed, your target will be restricted at their location by a physical, tangible binding. They can still move their arms and use Effects, but cannot move to a new location.

Restricted targets may escape their binding by spending an Action and taking a Severity-1 Injury.

This Gift's level is capped at 2 Gifts and cannot be increased further.

  • For entities whose movement could be considered an attack (e.g. a kaiju), the GM may rule that they are merely slowed instead of fully restricted.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: open up the app on your cell phone, make your selection, and prepare to film. Select a target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use cell phone camera to activate this Effect. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. Choose an illusion to generate, which can be no larger than a person.

The chosen illusion is generated at your target, and it will remain in place as long as you maintain Concentration or you choose to end it. It can be perceived by people through their hearing, smell, and sight. The illusion cannot be used as an attack. You may create a replica of a specific being or Object, though it is still limited by what you do or do not know about the subject.

Anyone who touches the illusion (or who would be able to perceive it significantly through a sense it cannot fool) realizes it is an illusion and can choose to perceive it or not at will.

The illusion will remain fixed to its initial target, and can only change locations if the initial target is mobile in some way. It may have moving parts and engage in simple, predetermined movements but cannot perform anything complex or interactive unless you maintain Concentration and “puppeteer” it.

  • You must retain Concentration to keep up the effect; if your Concentration is interrupted, the effect will end.
  • while you can use an illusion to obscure something smaller, you cannot make anything directly invisible (you can’t make a tank look like a regular baseball, but you can hide it in an illusion of a giant baseball).
  • You may only puppeteer a single illusion at once.
  • 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 arm's reach. 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.

If your command does not require bypassing the security of the target (for example, typing on a computer that is unlocked), you do not need to Exert your Mind to activate this Effect, and activation only takes a single Action.

Your Hack cannot be reversed through mundane means for a number of hours equal to your Outcome.

Every hack you make leaves behind a flickering image of a ghost in the system as a personal "calling card" that informs anyone who uses the system that the hack occurred.

  • 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 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 the target is listening and you are speaking to multiple people.

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's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.

  • Receiving a message does not force a target to pay attention to you, and they can feel free to ignore your message if they choose. Depending on the flavor of your Gift, they may or may not be able to return to it and read it later on.
  • Generally you cannot communicate with Contractors who are not in a Contract with you.
  • 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 Dead target within arm's reach. 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 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.

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:

  • You may suspend a targeted Offensive Power which will take effect when the oath is broken. The Power must be able to target all participants the oath indicates it could hit.
  • A Battle Scar up to Severe (deaf, missing limb)
  • The oath-breaker is physically marked as an oath-breaker, and any investigative effect will reveal the terms of the oath they broke.
  • A particular Trauma and a single Mind Damage
  • The oath-breaker goes unconscious for up to 24 hours
  • An Injury up to Severity-6 (cannot be reduced by any means)

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.

  • All Oaths must have at least two participants.
  • The target must be physically present to enter the oath.
  • The terms and penalties of the oath do not need to be equitable and do not need to affect all parties equally.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.