While Luci communicates with her target (and in her own case, while she's projecting her thoughts and feelings onto the page), she draws a picture depicting the target's trauma and the circumstances behind its manifestation. Afterward, she rips the page out, crumbles it up into a little ball, and gives it to the target to eat.
It slips down into the user's stomach, melts into a bubbling mucus, and forces itself into their nervous system. The rogue energies force themselves directly up and into the target's brain, where they seek out the trauma they have been sicced on and forcefully pull it from the roots of grey matter. Not a pleasing experience in the slightest.
But to cap it off, the mucus coagulates in the target's stomach and begins to bubble violently until, inevitably, the target vomits the mucus back up. The inky black liquid- not too immediately dissimilar to the likeness of a roundworm, as it splatters onto the surface, takes a physical form related to the removed trauma and groans lowly as little appendages reach out and attempt to crawl back into the target's body.
When constantly meddling with what goes on outside of the base reality, there is always a likelihood that someone or something unfriendly may notice her. The Well is home to a variety of creatures, after all- many of which are either amalgamations, Eidolons, or revenants.
Amalgamations are typically just leftover spurts of energy that coagulated together and created something malformed. Most of the time, they are not that dangerous even if they are a little feral.
Revenants are members of the undead. And sometimes an undead spectre or wraith- in this case, someone who died in search of perfection- may crawl itself up just in time and worm its way into Luci's mind if she isn't careful with some of her powers, and they will attempt to live through her, acting out one of the vices that had killed them in the past.
Eidolons are typically not a concern for the complete opposite reason that Amalgamations aren't. They are control and creation deities that were here long before the universe existed and will be there long after. Simply put, whatever Luci might be up to will hardly ever register for them- like to what esteem an elephant might hold an ant.
To most people, The Well is a type of Hell, and that doesn't necessarily change for Luci, except for with the creation of this power, allowing her to purge rogue spectres or revenants from her mind and more safely maneuver the vast Oblivion. It has the unintended effect of also working against normal traumas.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Over the course of one minute, 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, roll Charisma + Crafts at Difficulty 6.
Your target may Resist. If your treatment is successful, you may remove one of the patient's revealed Traumas without incurring any Experience cost.
Once per day per target, you may choose to use this Effect to stabilize the Mind of a target within arm's reach. Treatment takes 30 seconds but will not remove any Traumas. If you are successful, restore 2 Mind damage.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see the target consume a piece of paper, and then a minute later, vomit up a thick black mucus. As it splats on the ground, it reaches up with several thin appendages and tries to crawl up and back into the target's mouth.
It has the consistency of motor oil. It's smell is intolerable, it's taste, unforgettable...but a dose of Murdock's patented "Snake Oil" will not just curl your toes...it will restore vim & vigor like you can't even imagine!
After the first does takes effect, a sip or so each day thereafter is recommended as a Constitutional. Don't worry: It's an Acquired taste: Soon, you won't be able to get enough of the stuff!
Snake Oil includes Amphetamines as a component, & causes the appropriate effects.
Spend 1 minute and use up this Snake Oil. Select a Living target within arm's reach. 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. Roll 7 dice at Difficulty 6, dice penalties do not apply.
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.
Spiraling runic shapes lift from the pages of History in Blood and surround the user's hands and arms. As soon as fingers are laid upon the flesh of a willing participant, it begins to roil and split. Runes are written across the target's skin, similar in nature to a particular cursed witch. The target can feel something crawling about their body, a coldness that rustles in the back of their mind, before their form is improved by the ritual.
Generally, these improvements are marked by a wound that never wants to close and must be bandaged. These wounds often take the form of runic symbols, strange and supernatural in origin, though their meanings are esoteric and unknown.
Lilith has spent a great amount of time researching various blood rituals of cultures all around the world. One book in particular has been a fantastic aid in developing her rituals. Fusing occult research and medical science, this copy of History in Blood holds a new appendix on Fleshcrafting, authored by the witch herself.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. 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. The target can easily Resist.
You may add one augmentation to your target. Each augmentation counts as a Battle Scar and can have exactly one of the following Effects:
By transplanting a body part from an Alien being, you can grant an intrinsic Effect from that part to the subject. Its power level should be limited to one Gift Point or less.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see Bloody Fleshcrafting.
Emily takes her marker, draws something small - a compass, a square, and a "G" - for "Graves."
Emily's right eye splits into three pupils, three irises. Like a bug.
She's watching, through it - and if you accept a gift from her - you can hear her, through it.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a target within 10 feet. You must use up a marker in order to activate this Effect. You must remain within 1000 feet of your ward to access its senses.
You place a ward, which is fixed to a target Object that can be moved and repositioned. You can perceive with all your senses or activate investigative Effects through the ward as though you were standing at its location. You may have at most 3 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.
You may declare a condition to watch for on an active Ward. If it occurs, you may roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 6, to notice it, even if you are not actively monitoring that ward.
You may communicate through your ward, though doing so will reveal its presence.
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.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
A golden Lotus pattern begins revolving in Amarjeet's eyes. After the Hack is completed, an identical pattern will be displayed somewhere on the UI of the affected device.
The Lotus III implant has been upgraded. Sophisticated decryption & code-breaking software is pre-loaded into the implant, optimized to synchronize with the end-user's conscious attempts to crack security systems. Capable of defeating the most sophisticated systems in moments, use of this feature causes the user's eyes to display the familiar Lotus Logo as a revolving pattern on the iris. Additionally, in what we consider to be a win for our marketing team, any device compromised by our software will display our Lotus Logo in system - all the better to alert potential clients of system vulnerabilities.
Operating the system linkage on a regular basis has been proven to damage the optic nerves: always use caution when operating prototype cybernetics.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 Action. Select a Computer within 300 feet. Can be used on Alien technology. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you go Blind. Roll Perception + 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 Lotus Logo in the system as a personal "calling card" that informs anyone who uses the system that the hack occurred.
Sally flings away the metal, imbuing it with a simple, quick, and powerful spell: seek, bind and crush. The metal stretches, wraps, and begins to crush wherever it locks until the spell wears off, then it falls to the ground in its original shape. In addition to crushing, different metals do different damages. Gold burns with the light of the sun, tin crackles with electricity.
Sally had a month. A single month to come up with some scrap of original magic. Not quite the… best of circumstances to say the least. So she opens the notes for her Sympathetic Manipulation ability, and studies. Pulling out the bits on binding roaming spirits to her will, and remixed, binding her will directly to the items through the fragments of the spell and the newest tool in her kit: alchemy.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 50 feet. You must use up at least five grams of a pure alchemical metal (lead, tin, iron, gold, copper, quicksilver, or silver) in order to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Athletics 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 4.
You may use this Effect to Defend against any melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks within range or Clash against any Attack targeted at you. Using it to Defend deals no Damage but does not cost Exertion.
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.
Instead of dealing Damage all at once, the Injury caused by this Power starts at Severity 1 and worsens at the rate of one level per Round until it reaches the Severity it would have otherwise been.
The spy is able to transform an ordinary ballpoint pen into a monitoring device that is inconspicuous enough to blend in to most settings, but advanced enough to allow 360 degree surveillance as well as audio capture, which is sent to their smartphone.
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.
All it takes is a flick of your hair and a bat of your eyelashes, and you’ve got their attention.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. A number of Sapient, Living targets within 50 feet who can perceive you through no greater than your Charisma rating are affected. Audiences or mobs with a singular focus count as one target. Roll Charisma + Performance at Difficulty 6. All affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.
If you succeed, the targets will keep their full attention focused on you for Contested Outcome in Rounds. They will automatically fail any rolls related to noticing anything other than you.
If you pass from their perception and they are unable to pursue you, the Effect ends. If they can follow you, they must do so for 2 Rounds or the Effect will end. The Effect ends early if the target is Injured or violence occurs nearby.
This does not affect the target’s opinion of you or their mood, and they may take any Actions while affected (including attacking), as long as that action centers on you. Fascinated targets cannot Concentrate.
The pyro points a laser pointer towards a target, and a cat-sized-and-shaped fire springs into life, very clearly attracted to the laser. This flame cat can also be shaped from existing fires. While the pointer is active it remains in the shape of a cat, pouncing towards the little red dot. When the laser pointer is not active, the flames return to normal.
Thank you to the original creator of this Gift, Frakcherd https://www.thecontractrpg.com/profile/view/603/
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire). You must actively and obviously use a laser pointer to activate this Effect.
You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a fire in a residential fireplace 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 3 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.
You may spend a Free Action on your initiative move a fire as large as a fire in a residential fireplace that is within 20 feet to another location within 20 feet. You may Exert your Mind to draw a line which a fire up to twice as large as a fire in a residential fireplace cannot cross.
The Vampire is able to turn one of their victims into a lesser vampire, a pale shadow of a full creature of the night but useful nonetheless. Having drained and killed their target, the Vampire performs a brief ritualistic bloodletting, wherein they spill their own blood into the target's mouth, forcing them to drink, and bonding them together as child and sire.
Shortly afterwards, the fledgling vampire will rise from death, hungry for blood and eager to serve.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach that has died within the last hour. This Effect cannot be used unless you drained the target's blood while they were still alive.
Your target rises as an Animate being. The raised creature is totally mindless, with no memory of its past life or hint of its old personality. They cannot communicate. They will follow any command you speak.
The creature lasts until it dies again. It is revived at full health. Any Injuries it had in life are not accounted for when determining its penalties or progression towards re-death, though they may affect its ability to perform certain actions at GM's discretion. The raised creature must consume flesh every day or it will die again.
Raised creatures have their Abilities set to the same that they were in life. Their Charisma and Intellect are set to 1, but their Dexterity, Brawn and Perception are the same as they had in life. A raised creature cannot use any Effects.
Your revived targets deal 2 Weapon Damage with their unarmed attacks.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
Dazzle Glasses are advanced "black-tech" espionage gear. They can be styled as any sort sunglasses. When the wearer is recorded, they will quickly flash a non-visible laser into the recording device, destroying it after only a moment of footage is taken.
This Effect activates whenever you are recorded. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a Non-Sapient Object within 20 feet no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event. Roll Perception + Culture Difficulty 6.
If your Outcome is 4 or higher, the target will be completely destroyed and can no longer function, though it may still be repaired. If your Outcome is less than 4, the target will be partially damaged, and any attempts to use it will suffer a dice penalty equal to your Outcome.