Back-off Beam "you're a little too close for my liking"

2
The power to grievously injure a target.
Used by Wren, Created by MiniDemon.
(When activating this Effect, it is obvious you are attacking the target. You must actively and obviously be using up Quartz Crystals.)

Wren lifts up her hand; palm pointed at the target as a tunnel opens up in the middle of her hand. A neon purple glow is emitted from her mechanical hand as she charges up and shoots a translucent beam. She has to consume Quartz crystals as a fuel source to send the powerful blast at the target.


Spend an Action. Select a target within 45 feet. You must use up Quartz Crystals in order to activate this Effect. Roll Dexterity + Firearms 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.

If the target receives an Injury, they are knocked back 5 * Severity feet.

This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Community Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. 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. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Intellect + 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. Your patient is required to avoid acidic substances - not only those that cause damage, but also those in common food and beverages (pH equal or below 3.5) for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.

  • The patient is aware of the after-care requirement.
  • Unstabilized wounds do not degenerate during treatment.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

This classic book tells the story of the development of Income Tax from its beginning in 1799 to the present day and relates it to the social, economic and political history of the period.

There have been studies of Income Tax at various stages in its growth; studies of finance and taxation in general in which Income Tax has been closely concerned; studies too of some of the Chancellors of the Exchequer who have made significant contributions to the Income Tax system; but this is the first time an attempt has been made to encompass the whole 160 years or so of its life in one volume.

And a fascinating story it is too when set in perspective. The author shows how Income Tax was introduced to finance the Napoleonic Wars, how it was revived by Peel to pay for Free Trade, and how it underwrote Victorian prosperity and confidence. He then describes its immense expansion through two World Wars to its present position as a dominant feature of British finance. This book was first published in 1966.

Spend an Action. Select a Living target within 30 feet. Roll Intellect + Culture at Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, your target becomes drowsy for the next 3 Rounds, during which time they suffer an additional -2 dice Penalty to all Actions. At the end of their drowsiness, they fall asleep for Contested Outcome x 3 minutes.

Sleeping targets will not prematurely wake up on their own, but may still be woken up by sudden loud noises, being jarred or splashed with water, taking Damage, or similar rousing events. They will also awaken before dying of hunger, thirst, or suffocation. Drowsy targets always fall asleep, regardless of what happens while they are drowsy.

This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.

  • For targets where "sleep" does not make any sense in terms of flavor, they will power down, freeze, etc, whatever state they can be in which is analogous to sleep.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Select a Battle Scar on your target to treat.

The treated Battle Scar heals as you finish activating this Effect.

Healing a Battle Scar in this way leaves behind The original part is replaced with organic plant material on the target which cannot be healed.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Expend a point of Battery to activate. Select a Living or Animate 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 + Medicine 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.

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.

  • The treatment time may be broken up into multiple sessions if necessary.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Spend an Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Roll Intellect + Medicine at Difficulty 6. The target may roll Body, Difficulty 7, as a Free Action to resist.

If you succeed, the target receives a new Battle Scar of your choosing, limited by the contested Outcome:

  1. A Minor Battle Scar E.g. an aesthetic-only body modification (a disfigured face, a pig's tail), impacted hand or foot, or vocal changes that complicate communication
  2. A Major Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed hand or foot, an inability to speak, an impacted major sense, removal of a minor sense, impacted movement.
  3. A Severe Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed arm or leg, deafness, aesthetic changes that are nearly impossible to conceal.
  4. An Extreme Battle Scar E.g. removal/disabling both hands or both legs, blindness, a full-body deformation that leaves the target humanoid but makes it difficult to use clothes, vehicles, and equipment designed for humans.
Refer to the stock Battle Scars on the Character Sheet for specific systems.

This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.

Your alteration "heals" over the course of the next month, after which it is fully cured.

  • Remember: A Contractor’s Body rating is reduced by 1 for each Battle Scar after their fourth.
  • You may opt to inflict a Battle Scar that is less severe than what your Outcome allows.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: place a mirror such that it reflects the subject of your illusion. Select a target within 45 feet. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.

a reflection of something else in the area, which can be no larger than a person is generated at your target, and it will remain in place for the next minute or you choose to end it. It can be perceived by people through their sight. The illusion cannot be used as an attack. You may create a replica of a specific being or Object, though it is still limited by what you do or do not know about the subject.

Anyone who touches the illusion (or who would be able to perceive it significantly through a sense it cannot fool) realizes it is an illusion, and the entire effect will be ended for all targets.

The illusion will remain fixed to its initial target, and can only change locations if the initial target is mobile in some way. It may have moving parts and engage in simple, predetermined movements but cannot perform anything complex or interactive unless you maintain Concentration and “puppeteer” it.

  • while you can use an illusion to obscure something smaller, you cannot make anything directly invisible (you can’t make a tank look like a regular baseball, but you can hide it in an illusion of a giant baseball).
  • You may only puppeteer a single illusion at once.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Spend an Action. Select a Animate target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use bread or a fish to activate this Effect.

For the next 24 hours, your target does not require any food, water, or sleep. Any attempts to age your target fail. Any roll to resist an Effect dependent on any affected requirement is made at -1 Difficulty.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: perform a fire-breathing trick. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire). Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you take a Severity-4 Injury as the fire burns your throat. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.

You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a firepit's fire 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 4 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.

  • Your fires may be extinguished with appropriate Actions and materials. Stop, drop, and rolling to extinguish requires spending an Action and making a Dexterity + Athletics roll, with an Outcome of 4 putting out the flames.
  • If the target is larger than your flame size, the Armor destruction creates a weak point instead of applying to the entire target.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Spend an Action. Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use a melee weapon to activate this Effect. Roll Brawn + Melee at Difficulty 6. The target may roll Body, -2 dice at Difficulty 7, as a Free Action to resist.

If you succeed, the target receives a new Battle Scar of your choosing, limited by the contested Outcome:

  1. A Minor Battle Scar E.g. an aesthetic-only body modification (a disfigured face, a pig's tail), impacted hand or foot, or vocal changes that complicate communication
  2. A Major Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed hand or foot, an inability to speak, an impacted major sense, removal of a minor sense, impacted movement.
  3. A Severe Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed arm or leg, deafness, aesthetic changes that are nearly impossible to conceal.
  4. An Extreme Battle Scar E.g. removal/disabling both hands or both legs, blindness, a full-body deformation that leaves the target humanoid but makes it difficult to use clothes, vehicles, and equipment designed for humans.
Refer to the stock Battle Scars on the Character Sheet for specific systems.

All alterations you make must damage the target's knees.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.

  • Remember: A Contractor’s Body rating is reduced by 1 for each Battle Scar after their fourth.
  • You may opt to inflict a Battle Scar that is less severe than what your Outcome allows.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You must use up a donor body part matching the injured area in order to activate this Effect. Select a Battle Scar on your target to treat.

The treated Battle Scar heals as you finish activating this Effect. If used on a Battle Scar caused by an Unstabilized Injury, that Injury is Stabilized.

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.

Healing a Battle Scar in this way leaves behind a mismatched replacement on the target which cannot be healed.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.