With a bit of time examining, touching, and tapping a building he uses his architectural knowledge to learn the layout of the area he's in. Mapping it mentally floor by floor both below and above him.
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In his time as a construction worker, he's built a couple of dozen homes, repaired roads, and helped out with even more projects for a contract. Taking this knowledge and expanding it he's started to gain an almost uncanny sense of how a building is made, what rooms it has, and the measurements of everything. He's experienced enough to know how it would look in a 3D sense, turning and rotating the model in his head like a computer program and mapping structural integrities as well.
Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 500 feet At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Crafts at Difficulty 6.
You learn the following information about the area:
You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.
The Scribe's Favor, when dipped in a bottle of metallic silver ink, will draw in the full bottle, turning its feather silver colored. Mike can then scribe a rune onto a device that becomes an integral part of its fit and finish, clearly visible but looking as though it belongs, and remaining for 24 hours before fading. While so marked, items are immensely stronger, as well as simply being better at their intended uses. Cars drive smoother and never run out of gas, pots or utensils are easier to cook with and seem to make better food. Tools work smoother and make repairs easier. Even Mike's "Attitude-Adjusting Wrench" seems to hit harder, especially on beasties with some special weakness.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 Action. Select a Device within arm's reach. Can be used on Alien technology. Cannot be used to improve Armor.
Lasts the next day. Your target receives 2 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +2 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice. While it is upgraded, the item cannot be destroyed.
Upgraded weapons count as any material your opponent might be particularly vulnerable to. Upgraded Armor cannot be circumvented by called shots. Upgraded Devices do not run out of fuel or energy.
Those who flee the nightmare are marked with an infernal soot stain. So long as they are marked, the nightmare knows where they are.
This Effect activates whenever someone runs in fear from you or your gifts. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a target within 20 feet. “Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event.
Your target is marked with a black soot stain. Your mark can be discovered if the target is inspected visually. 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 an hour, or until either the mark is removed, or you choose to end the Effect. You can have up to 3 marks active.
You receive +2 dice to any rolls made against a marked target.
For everyone except the target, there is no visual component to this gift. For the target, however, they will watch as reality begins to crack, the fissures emanating from the user (or the user's method of communication). The cracks encompass everything that the target is able to see, before quickly shattering, revealing a lively cosmos underneath the world. Looking around, the target will be able to identify that they are in an altered version of our familiar solar system. The planets are closer together, bridges that span miles of empty space connect distant celestial bodies, lights line every planet in the system, spaceships navigate through the depths, unfathomably large superstructures dot the horizon, and the stars shine brighter than they ever have before. In this sight, humanity's indomitable will and the true beauty of the cosmos are revealed to the target. The target spends hours here, watching an idealized version of the world revolve as the user's disembodied voice talks to them about their traumas. As the session comes to a close and the user makes the roll to determine the outcome of this therapy, the paths diverge.
If the roll succeeds:
The sun starts to grow, before combusting and bathing everything that the target can see in a white light. The target feels a comfortable warmth on their skin as they are briefly blinded. When their vision returns, the target will find themselves returned to where they were before the therapy began, feeling lighter. The warmth sticks with them for a while afterwards.
If the roll fails:
The sun runs cold, and the universe follows suit. Where once there was a bustling universe, there now sits a lifeless corpse. The target stays there for a moment, before the darkness becomes too overbearing to remain. The target opens their eyes, and finds themselves where they were, their traumas still plaguing them.
This gift was manifested through a combination of Andromeda's dream of a cosmos that's at her fingertips, and her desire to help the people around her. She imagines a world where everyone has achieved her dreams, hoping that her realized passion will have a positive impact on her friends.
Andromeda is aware of the vision that she gives the target, though she has not actually seen it herself.
Exert your Mind to activate. Select a Living target at any distance, provided you are able to communicate. 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 + Occult 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 transmit a message through your mind to another, your glands twitches from use, and glow a soft green.
The Telepathic Gland is an organ that is grown around the brain. All of Maguron's kind have them, but not all are awakened.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 300 feet of 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.
You open up a line of communication to your target, and may converse with them as long as one of you maintains Concentration
The conversation 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 the sides of your head quiver. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
When augmenting herself, Kat alternates between restful meditative poses similar to yoga, and slowly going through a series of motions similar to martial arts katas. A light gray fog spreads down her limbs, trailing her hands and feet as she does these motions. This focuses her intention and clears her mind until the capability takes shape within her.
When using the pouch aspect, a similar looking fog appears where an object touches her as she places it into storage in a non-physical echo of herself. The same fog appears when she reaches in to pull something back out.
Heinlein wrote about other realities that may as well be fictional to us and called them Fictons. It's simpler to say than 'parallel universes' so now I call them that as well. My abilities come from a Ficton.
As explained by scientists in the Ficton I'm connected to, I have the same ability that some there do. Apparently I mentally manipulate Fermionic dark matter which connects me to their Ficton. This gives me visions from there when I focus on it. It also gives me 'super powers' like people there have.
I feel a kinship with someone there called KatAbra, both emotionally and in regards to powers. I discovered that I can learn to do anything she can do. Cat themed abilities, physical enhancement, and minor mystical abilities such as the ones I'll explain shortly. Potentially, I can learn to conceal myself from others, heal myself, erect mental defenses, that sort of thing. None of the flashy or manipulative stuff like elemental attacks, flying, or reading minds.
Improving my durability, speed, and hand to hand combat were simple enough. Environmental adaptation wasn't much tougher. Eventually I learned to manifest an echo of my physical body to use as limited storage (if you can sense magic it seems to be a shadow overlapping my body, vibrating in a pitch inaudible to normal ears). Most difficult to learn was making my mind manifest a functioning version of physical technology. While I'd like to find something more versatile to mimic than a cell phone, technology in our universe offers isn't as nice as what hero teams there use. If someone here has created a device similar to their communicators, I'd need to examine it and how it functions before mimicking it. Thankfully I don't need to know the inner workings, just the properties and how to use it.
My connection is only between here and that single Ficton, but each person who can do this connects to just one other Ficton, different for each of them. In the supers Ficton, people have connected to places that grant them things like fantasy magic, making Steampunk devices function, etc. Each of us gets something different, but we all get something somehow.
Exert your Mind and spend 30 minutes. You may only target yourself. The target can easily Resist.
You may add one augmentation to your target. Each augmentation counts as a Trauma and can have exactly one of the following Effects:
The augmentations you provide are not outwardly visible nor obvious.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
Your alteration "heals" over the course of the next month, after which it is fully cured.
The Future Soldier learned to create foam grenades in their own time period, and they still can, kinda. They look like glowing orange capsules with a rugged rubberized grip. When thrown, they burst into a splash of expanding neon orange foam. The foam hardens in seconds, severely hampering the movement of anyone unlucky enough to have been splashed. Those affected may use their hands or weapons to hack away at the foam and free themselves.
Occasionally, the fuses on these bootleg grenades fails, and they go off immediately.
Spend an Action and use up this small metallic grenade with pin (unless you succeed on 1d10, Difficulty 7). Make a thrown Attack at a Location within normal Attack range. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you are hit as it activates immediately at your present location. The target may roll to dodge or Defend, as normal for thrown Attacks. The Attack itself does not deal any Damage beyond the Effect.
If you succeed, all affected targets will be restricted at their location by a physical, tangible binding. They can still move their arms and use Effects, but are reduced to ¼ of their movement speed.
The binding around a target must be destroyed in order for them to break free. Breaking the binding requires a total amount of Damage equal to twice the original Contested Outcome. Damage from multiple attacks is cumulative and stacks linearly.
The musician assumes a powerful stance and strums a mighty power chord on their guitar. A blast of sound waves radiate outwards, destroying all who dare face the power chord directly.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use your instrument to activate this Effect. The area within 25 feet of you immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Roll Charisma + Performance at Difficulty 6. Targets inside the radius may attempt an appropriate Reaction at GM’s discretion. Finding a physical barrier to use as cover will cut total Damage taken in half (applies after Reaction roll but before Armor).
If the Outcome is positive, your blast hits everything within 25 feet of you with Damage equal to your Outcome + 4. If you botched the activation roll, you will also take full Damage from the blast, otherwise it will not hurt you.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
The aristocrat knows a ritual that allows them to rent the best version of any item. They set $10,000 worth of cash on fire and place the item to be upgraded in the fire as well. While in the flame, the item morphs into a high-end version of itself. After a while, it reverts.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. You must use up $10,000 cash (or equivalent) in order to activate this Effect. Cannot be used to improve Armor.
Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 3 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +3 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice.
The psychic can glean various important details about a person simply by engaging in a short conversation with them.
Spend one minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You must actively converse with the individual in question for one minute in order to gather any information. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Influence at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.
Any information you gather is spoken aloud in conversation and made publicly available.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.
The spy can twist the urban environment to their whims, erecting fences, walls, and barriers as needed. They whistle and gesture to where the wall should be, and the surrounding materials fly into place.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within 50 feet. You must be in an area abundant with man-made structures and materials.
Select one of the following alterations to create out of standard building materials originating at the target:
The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.
This alteration lasts one minute but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 6 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.