The doctor pulls the plunger of an empty syringe and it fills with a glowing, pale yellow liquid before he injects it into his patient. A similar liquid sprays from their pores and undulates around their body, temporarily inoculating them from physical harm.
Spend an Action. Select a Animate target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use Syringe to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Medicine 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. You may only have 1 active barrier at a time.
The barrier will fall after two hours, 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.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
Cassiopeia invites you to sit down with her favourite book and read together, with a video of a fireplace playing in the ambience. After reading a seemingly random sentence she stops and asks how you feel about it. Also, what was your childhood like?
On therapy:
Of all the things she's learned throughout her university days, it's that everyone needs therapy - she herself has gone to a session or two for reasons she won't disclose. Whether they've had a good childhood or not doesn't matter. Stress can get to anyone and it's much better if everyone willingly learns how to deal with it instead of shutting themselves away. She knows she realistically can't help every person on Earth but at least it'll save her the pain of watching yet another star blink out.
On books:
She's always loved books. She wants to share that love with everyone else too. Someone she once knew would always put on fireplace or rain ambience in the background, and she's been doing that ever since. It's a fond memory.
On psychology degrees:
People don't usually get jobs directly related to an undergraduate psych degree, and Cassiopeia wasn't dedicated enough to study any further. She's thought of being a therapist before, of course, but she wouldn't want to make that her entire life.
On the Witherheart Mask:
Cassiopeia originally intended for the gift to go on the Mask, but she realizes it's a bit disingenuous to let a magical item do all the work for you. This would've been the description had she used the Mask:
"You sit down in the fabled Cafe Cosmo, where all your worries shall fly away. The barista appears to be a masked figure who listens in silence, but it also feels like the problems you reveal are being... absorbed."
Exert your Mind to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You cannot target yourself. Over the course of one day, 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 + Influence 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.
You may choose to use this Effect to temporarily relieve any number of the patient's Traumas (including mental Conditions). In this case, Treatment takes an Action and the effect lasts two hours. If the Patient is currently experiencing an episode, Difficulty is increased by 2.
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.
Tony's mouth always seems to get him into trouble. His voice, already quite distinctive, becomes even louder and slightly echoing, lingering in the air and ears of those listening long after he stops speaking. There isn't any noticeable or flashy change to the surroundings, but a person affected just can't seem to ignore anything that Tony has to say. And Tony himself is more than happy to talk shit and make jokes all day.
Spend an Action to activate. Select a Animate target within 5 feet who can perceive you through Hearing. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.
If you succeed, the target 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 they cannot perceive you through Hearing for three Rounds, the Effect is broken. The Effect ends early if the target is Injured or enters Combat.
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.
You may end this effect prematurely as a Free Action.
This Gift's level is capped at 2 Gifts and cannot be increased further.
You must retain Concentration to keep up the effect; if your Concentration is interrupted, the effect will end.
Joey takes out his cross, holding it in his hand, behind him is a faint figure of some inconceivable figure. The being is clearly watching the deal as it has their arms crossed.
You must actively and obviously use Cross to activate this Effect.
You may make an oath with any number of physically-present, 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 Dapping up 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:
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.
You may revert a penalty for breaking one of your oaths on any participant other than yourself.
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.
It is obvious to your targets that the oath you are proposing will be supernaturally enforced.
The same terms and penalties must apply to every party in each deal.
Your thoughts twist around and bend in on themselves like a swarm of rodents around a decaying carcass, but it somehow benefits you.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your Intellect rating is increased by 0. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Intellect (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).
You also gain the following effects:
As long as the ninja is carrying a weapon, their self-defense is almost subconscious. Subtle twitches and lighting-fast feints and parries using sword and scabbard can buy the ninja precious seconds to enact an escape plan or make the kill.
You gain the following benefits at all times. You must actively and obviously be using a sword to gain the benefits of this Effect.
You have 4 Armor, which reduces incoming Damage. Armor from multiple sources does not stack. This Armor cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.
Whenever your Armor reduces incoming Damage, you are immediately made aware of the source of the Damage. You may pinpoint their location for 30 seconds.
Any time your Armor prevents Damage, your Armor rating is temporarily decreased by 2. Whenever it goes five Rounds without preventing any Damage, it is restored back to its full value.
Any successful musician knows the value of a good roadie. The musician calls for a roadie, and one will promptly arrive. The roadie doesn't talk much, and they aren't too bright, but they can sure haul gear.
After a couple hours of work, the roadie will retire to smoke and get some sleep.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
Summon a single Sapient roadie at your location. They last for two hours or until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. You may have at most one minion active at a time.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
The Thief has a stash in which they can store a few objects. It can be accessed through any burlap sack.
Spend a Quick Action. You must actively and obviously use a burlap sack to activate this Effect.
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 Objects 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.
The aquamancer is an adept swimmer and moves with agility in or out of the water.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You may move easily and without a roll in any of the following situations.
The mobster's been through tougher scrapes than this. A few cuts and bruises won't stop them.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your Stress from Injuries is reduced to 0. Does not reduce Stress from Mind Damage.