Dominic furiously shouts out the activation phrase Market Crash to his keyboard and it alights, activating several defensive protocols that emerge in the form of a shimmering light blue bubble of force that encapsulates him and the area in his immediate vicinity the barrier crackling and sparking with electricity as the battery unlocks the true potential of lithium. When struck lightning arcs off the barrier as it converts the energy of the attack into a devastating retaliatory bolt ensuring that Dominic is protected from the attack and that his assailant sorely regrets targeting the man who will one day dismantle the Illuminati! Though it does burn the battery out, Dominic needs to be careful about carrying a few replacements. The Deep State loves to strike when you are at your weakest and he couldn't afford to be caught without.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction. Select a Animate target within arm's reach. You must use up A laptop battery in order to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Technology at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a barrier around your target, which absorbs the next Outcome + 6 Damage. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. This Artifact may have up to 3 barriers active 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.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma: Deep State Agent: Must make a self control roll to trust someone with his life or with details about his real identity.. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
Nikki shreds into a series of chuggy power chords that climb into fast thrash metal. The sonic waves emanating from his guitar become visible, launching towards the target like a nuclear shockwave
Exert your Mind and spend three Actions performing the following ritual: playing guitar. Select a target within 45 feet. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. Roll Dexterity + Performance Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling to Dodge or Defend as a Reaction, Difficulty 6.
If the contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 8. Armor is reduced to 1/4, rounded down against this damage.
If the target receives an Injury, they are knocked back 5 * Severity feet.
The target suffers a -3 dice penalty for the next hour or until the Injury is healed. This dice penalty does not stack multiple times on the same target.
The oracle dons the Witherheart Mask, which glows with a strange green mist. This mask is clearly magical, though seemingly only to predict the future as the oracle begins to speak their prophecy.
On mythology:
Cassiopeia has always been interested in the occult, to the point where she's done a double major involving Psychology and Classical Mythology. She's also incredibly curious about conspiracy theories, often going down lengthy rabbitholes, though part of her keeps a distance from it in that she's only reading a fictional story. With this gift she could very well bring them to life, and she's doing it all for the funsies.
On prophecies:
One has seen enough self-fulfilling prophecies in everyday life to know that people are very easily influenced by their own wills to stick to a path or stray from one completely. Though, it inevitably ends up the way it was predicted. If you were driving a car and trying not to hit a tree on the road, your focus is so solely on the tree that you veer towards it anyway. Cassiopeia is making use of this age-old hubris, this fallacy that "I'm not like them, I won't end up like this". She's not any better than this, of course she falls into this cycle too, but at least she's aware that it does happen.
On wordplay:
If she's going to use her arsenal of words learned from 4 years of being an Arts student, it's only fair to allow the listener some level of free will. Let them play their cards against what they perceive to be Apollo's blessing, when in reality it all relies on Cassiopeia's competence.
Exert your Mind and spend at least one Action. Select a Human target within 20 feet. Your target may be actively engaged in Combat. 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 Contested 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.
The target is unaware that they are under supernatural influence and feel they are acting of their own free will. 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-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.
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.
I connect minds with my trusty rat Eduardo and command him to do my bidding. Our eyes glow the same color depending on actions.
Eduardo is my homie
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 must be relatively simple and within the target’s intellectual grasp. 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.
Observers of the gift will observe the iron giant approach the receiver, silently raising his hand, as a darkened blood commences to leak through the crevices of his gauntlet. The Giant will do a cross on the receiver, not really mattering its placement. The mark will feel warm, and progressively on the next few moments, the user will start feeling how hunger and thirst are no longer there, and neither is the need for air. The recipient will feel completely content and well fed. No starvation/dehydration symptoms are noticed from usual recipients.
Several spikes have grown between the gauntlet and the iron giant's skin. These spikes, upon activation of this gift, extend to puncture the hand of the Penitent, opening several offices that begin leaking small droplets of blood.
This blood becomes modified and deeply enriched by special glands located on the inside of the gauntlets as they leak through it. Upon bearing the bloody cross on the body of the receiver, he absorbs the nutrients of the enriched blood through the skin, nourishing the user for the entire day.
Spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach.
For the next 24 hours, your target does not require any food, water, or sleep.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
During a Downtime, Grace can banish traumas from her or another’s mind by singing the nursery rhymes she used to calm herself down in the past. Usually, it’s “Rain, Rain, Go Away”… sitting across from the target, holding their hands, the way she thought it should be. All that’s really required is spending time relaxing and listening.
It was getting difficult to deal with the torrents of trauma from the jobs, and Grace can’t exactly go and see a normal therapist. Happy thoughts are already in her toolkit.
Exert your Mind to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Over the course of one Downtime, your patient must communicate with you and reveal at least one of their Traumas to you, including the details of those Traumas and the circumstances of how they were acquired.
After the full treatment time has elapsed, you may If your treatment is successful, you may remove one of the patient's revealed Traumas without incurring any Experience cost.
Your patient is required to Treat the dead with respect, they can hear you; and while they might not care enough about you to take offense, Grace certainly cares enough about them to get offended in their place. for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.
The Necromancer spits into the mouth of a recently deceased corpse. For the few minutes, the corpse's head comes back to life and speaks to the Necromancer.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a 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 hour.
The doctor heals severe injuries in minutes using only standard medical supplies. Lacerations seal under the needle and thread, and reset bones can be used shortly after.
However, for the treatment to last, the patient must adhere to any aftercare regimen the doctor requires. Those who violate the doctor's orders suffer their injuries anew.
Exert your Mind and spend 15 minutes. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use basic medical supplies to 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 8.
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. You may specify a specific condition that the patient must adhere to. If they break this condition, the treatment is immediately reversed. Record this regimen as a Condition. Lasts until the end of their next Contract or 1 month for non-Contractors.
While transformed, the Werewolf can leap great distances, climbing structures and closing the gap to their prey.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location which is at most 60 feet away horizontally or 15 feet away vertically. This Effect cannot be used unless you are in werewolf form.
You jump to the chosen location. If jumping blind or landing precariously, must roll Dexterity + Athletics to land safely. You will never take fall Damage from successfully landing a jump made with this Effect.
You may opt to trade your free movement for a Super Leap if you are jumping less than 50 feet or if you are closing a gap to an opponent and spend your Action on an attack.
Once the werewolf tastes the blood of their prey, there's no escape. Those injured by the beast's claws and teeth are marked with its saliva. Their wounds smell strongly of blood, and it's only a matter of time before the werewolf returns with a vengeance to finish the kill.
This Effect activates whenever a target you have injured with your teeth or claws escapes the range of your unarmed attacks. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a target within arm's reach. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is alive and bleeds.
Your target is marked with a throbbing wound that smells strongly of blood. The mark can only be discovered with a deep medical inspection or Effect. Removal inflicts a Severity 1 Injury on the target.
You are aware of the marked target's direction and distance from you. This lasts for the next month, or until either the mark is removed, or you choose to end the Effect. You can have up to 1 mark active.
You receive +2 dice to any rolls made against a marked target.
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.