You place the windup key to the back of a toy, or similarly human representing golem. Twist for a minute until your hand begins to hurt. The toy will animate and grow in size to a friendly helper of the one holding the windup key.
This artifact relies on the cultural idea of toys, and the cultural idea of wind up toys, especially in the minds of children. The basic idea of these wind up toys is that you wind them up, then let them go and they move around doing toy things, seeming almost alive. This artifact takes that idea, and merges it with a few other ideas of ways to create useful servants to make an artifact capable of making useful friendly minions.
The ritual to create this artifact relies on a ritual involving
- A variety of children's toys which are popular in the shared imagination
- A collection of stories and myths about the Hebrew golumn
- Mary Shelly's frankenstein
- Carefully shaping the pattern of a wind up key while reading various relevant parts of these stories
Exert your Mind and spend one minute.
Summon a single enlarged animated toy at your location. They will last until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. This Artifact may have at most 2 minions active at a time.
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.
Whenever Darius is getting attacked, Kurma will pop out of his card and block whatever attack may have hit Darius.
This Effect activates whenever Darius is attacked. It does not require an Action or Exertion.
Summon a single Kurma the Tortoise at your location. They will last for two hours, or until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM and will not necessarily obey your commands. You may have at most 1 minion active at a time.
Rollie begins praying to the gods and, while they do so, their injuries are slowly healed.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Choose a specific Injury on yourself that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Brawn + Occult 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.
Book flips open and the pages shift and create a map
Exert your Mind and spend one minute. 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.
You automatically detect all Spirts and Violent Criminals and Undead within 300 feet of you for the next hour. This includes any who come within range during the duration. You have a sense of how many valid targets are nearby, as well as their distance and direction.
If no Spirts and Violent Criminals or Undead targets are within 300 feet of you, and then one enters range, you automatically detect it, even if this Effect is not active.
Even if there are no Spirts and Violent Criminals or Undead within 300 feet of you, you become aware of the direction the closest one is in, as well as a rough sense of its distance from you.
While this Effect is active, you are at -2 dice to all Actions and cannot Concentrate.
Jessica conjures a barrier forged from crystalline light, channeled through a lattice of microscopic high-frequency hologram emitters embedded in her skin. Upon being summoned, the structure forms in an instant—razor-thin, prismatic panes that shimmer with layered hues of deep blues, electric violets, and shifting tones not found in any spectrum chart, slowly becoming completely translucent until attacked or interfered with. As the field stabilizes, the light bends and refracts through engineered facets, creating a dynamic wall that dazzles the eye while concealing her movements behind a veil of kaleidoscopic distortion. The effect is mesmerizing, a fusion of precision technology and impossible energy—elegant, beautiful, and unnervingly perfect. It's not just a shield; it’s a statement of control, an engineered phenomenon that hints Jessica has learned not just to bend light, but to command the laws behind it.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Roll Intellect + Science at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a Barrier extending out 15 feet from yourself, which absorbs 2 times the next (Outcome +2) Damage. Only applies to attacks which originated outside the 15 foot radius, and protects anyone who is within that radius. You may choose to create a bubble barrier. If you do, no physical objects or entities can pass into your bubble until the barrier is broken, but you and the barrier cannot move. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. 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.
Any target that is or was under the protection of your Barrier in a given Round cannot take an Injury greater than Severity 6 that Round.
Sable hugs her toy close to her chest, their heart beats aligning as the stuffed animal morphs into a terrifying cat-like creature (a kot bayun). The once still button eyes are now black beads of malice, and its claws pierce like iron blades. The creature hums melodically, but quietly, as it protects its owner.
(her name is Chamomile)
This Effect activates whenever Sable suffers a Severity 2 or higher injury. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event.
Summon the one and only Sapient Kot Bayun at your location. They last for two hours or until they are destroyed. They are controlled by you. This Artifact may have at most one active at a time.
If killed, you cannot re-summon your minion until after your next Contract.
The magician dons an unusual piece of clothing and immediately shifts their appearance to be completely different! However, they must reveal their true identity before they can cast any more spells.
Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions. You must actively and obviously use a piece of clothing you wouldn't normally wear to activate this Effect.
You become disguised in a manner of your choosing. The disguise lasts for two hours, or you may end it early at will.
The new appearance may have a different sex, age, and race to your own, and you may alter height by up to a foot and your weight by 50%. Your disguise cannot directly mimic an existing person. You may change the appearance of your outfit. A disguise cannot affect your Attributes or other stats.
You may roll Charisma + Crafts to attempt to make your disguise Beautiful. If your Outcome is 6 or higher, non-Effect Charisma rolls where your good looks could help are rolled at -2 Difficulty. If you fail or botch, you are ugly instead, and non-Effect Charisma rolls are made at +2 Difficulty.
This Effect ends if you take an Injury or are stunned or incapacitated.
While disguised, you cannot use any Activated or Targeted Powers.
The time-traveler spins the second hand on one of their watches and speeds up until they are a blur.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use a watch to activate this Effect.
Lasts 1 minute. Whenever you use your Movement, after all other calculations, the distance you may travel is doubled.
Outside of Combat, any non-Gift, non-movement Actions you attempt take drastically less time to complete, as long as your personal speed is a factor in the Action. Total time reduction is determined by the GM and capped at 90% (executing the Action takes no less than 1/10th the normal time).
The Necromancer temporarily assumes the form of their own corpse, complete with maggots, spilled entrails, and exposed bone. They cannot move while transformed, but their empty eye sockets see as well as ever.
Exert your Mind and Spend an Action.
You transform into your own corpse for one minute. While transformed, you may control the functioning of the object you have transformed into. You can perceive your surroundings as normal. You can be targeted as a Non-Living, Sapient Object.
If you are damaged while transformed, the damage is realized when you return to normal. If you are damaged before you transform, your inanimate form will appear partially damaged.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
The magician reaches into their hat and focuses. Inside, light wells and flows like a viscous liquid. Then, they withdraws the item of their choosing.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. You must actively and obviously use a top hat to activate this Effect.
Choose an Object which could fit inside a regular backpack (up to 27 liters). It must be Non-Alien and generic. You cannot create explosives. You may create firearms.
Roll Perception + Occult to fabricate your chosen Object. The Difficulty is assigned by the GM and depends on the specificity of your chosen Object. The created item lasts 2 hours.
The aquamancer has internal reserves of water that they may call upon when needed, and it will gush out of the pores in their skin wherever it is directed.
Spend a Quick Action.
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 units of water 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.