Ad Hominem Go for the throat.

1
This Artifact allows you to inflict mental trauma on a target.
Used by Tescoh "Tez" Topping, Created by VelcroGnome.
(When activating this Effect, it is obvious you are interacting with the target. You must use this Artifact obviously when activating this Effect.)

*POP*. A tap echos slightly from the microphone as your finger ensures it's function. You take a deep breath, examine your adversary, and exclaim: "Your Jordans are FAKE!". An imperceptible bassline hurtles towards your foe and worms it's way into their psyche, crippling them emotionally.


Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 8. If they are incapacitated or unconscious, they fail automatically and their Outcome is 0.

If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes Mind damage equal to the Contested Outcome. If you deal at least 3 Mind damage, the target will gain a new Trauma selected by the GM. This Trauma may be removed by Effects or mundane therapy, as normal. Targets that receive a new Trauma are aware that you are interacting with them but they do not view it as an attack or view the resulting Trauma as malicious. If their Trauma is treated, they will be able to see the reality of the situation.

  • 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.

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Community Targeted Gifts

Spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien door, container, knot, or lock within arm's reach.

You may lock, unlock, and/or open your target.

  • Operating some locking mechanisms through this Effect may have a secondary effect, such as a turn-key ignition on an older or cheaper car causing it to start or stop. Note that the locking mechanism itself must satisfy the standard targeting requirements (including line of sight), not just the vehicle.
  • Any mechanism that requires a key, keycard, key fob, or combination may be considered locked, at the GM's discretion. This Effect may be used on doors and containers secured with control panels or other electronic locks, but not computer security systems at large.
  • 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 an Action. Select a Living target within 30 feet. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, your target becomes drowsy for the next 30 seconds, during which time they suffer an additional -2 dice Penalty to all Actions. At the end of their drowsiness, they fall asleep for 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.

You may determine the content of an affected target's dreams while they are asleep, but they must involve you in some way, and will reveal you as the source of their sleep as well as reveal secret information about yourself to them. By maintaining Concentration, you may enter their dreams and converse with them directly.

  • You do not physically enter a target's dreams; your body stays in place while you are Concentrating.
  • The target is aware than the secret information about you which was revealed in their dream is true, even if the rest of the dream may be written off as just a dream.
  • 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.

Reach into a target's mind and see either their greatest fear or their deepest desire, though you don't know which one. You can then sculpt an illusion catered to this

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. Choose an illusion to generate, which can be no larger than a person.

The chosen illusion is generated at your target, and it will remain in place for the next 3 Rounds or you choose to end it. It can be perceived by people through their taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight. The illusion cannot be used as an attack. You cannot make an exact replica of an existing Animate being or Object.

Anyone who struggles against the illusion hard enough to break a window or who would be damaged by the illusion (or who would be able to perceive it significantly through a sense it cannot fool) realizes it is an illusion and can choose to perceive it or not at will.

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.

This is an artifact made by the cult of Thelema in the early 1900s. It uses the power of their highest deity Nuit.
An heirloom, inherited by Jacob Sterns.

Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action. Select a Sapient or Creature target within 20 feet. Roll Brawn + Alertness Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7. If they are incapacitated or unconscious, they fail automatically.

If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target loses that much Source. Once their Source is depleted, excess Outcome is applied as Mind Damage. If you deal at least 3 Mind damage, the target gains a new Trauma of your choice. The Trauma should be general and not specifically mention you. You should not have to be involved to trigger the Trauma.

This Trauma may be removed by Effects or mundane therapy, as normal. Affected targets are aware that they are being attacked and can generally tell who did it.

  • Mundane animals have a Mind score of 1 or 2 at the GM’s discretion.
  • 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 an Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless Thumbs makes eye contact with the Target(s). Roll Charisma + Animals at Difficulty 6. Affected targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6 -3 dice.

If you succeed, for the next hour, your target will do things they otherwise wouldn’t have done, inspired by Calmness. They will not necessarily display their emotions in an obvious way.

Actions they take will be in keeping with their character and the way they tend to deal with strong emotions. They will be unlikely to change their mind about any actions taken or decisions made until after the Effect ends.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is longing stare. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

  • Common emotions and the actions they inspire
    • Anger (shouting, cruelty, denying requests, attacking)
    • Pity (stopping an attack, executing an injured target)
    • Happiness (generosity, dancing, joking, socializing)
    • Sadness (finding solitude, openly crying, demotivation)
    • Fear (running, attacking)
  • If you succeed, the target MUST take at least one Action they otherwise would not have. Hey, GM who is reading this, I'm talking to you. You have to enforce this. Remember: Gifts must feel powerful.
  • 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 a minute. Select a target Object within arm's reach. At the end of your investigation, roll Charisma + Culture at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You learn the object's highest material value and why it is worth so much.
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.

  • 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 an Action or Reaction. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is a living human. Roll a single d10, Difficulty 4. If you fail or botch, the Effect fails and you cannot activate it again for an hour. Roll Charisma + Occult 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.

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.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is you whispering a prayer under your breath. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

  • If this Effect fails due to the Unreliable check, you must still pay any associated activation costs.
  • Effects which circumvent Armor completely also circumvent your barrier.
  • 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 a minute and use up this unusually large egg (unless you succeed on 1d10, Difficulty 7). 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. If used on a Battle Scar caused by an Unstabilized Injury, that Injury is Stabilized.

Healing a Battle Scar in this way leaves behind an inhuman attribute such as fur, scales, or feathers on the target which cannot be healed.

  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • 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 15 minutes. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use basic medical supplies to activate this Effect. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Intellect + Medicine 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. 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.

  • 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.