Not every case is solvable by mundane means, that just means that it's time to bring out the big guns. After a minute or so of examining the target, Frank begins to reach into their mind, reading off their memories as if they were papers in a casefile. It's risky business though, you don't want to open the wrong file and bear witness to the unforgettable...
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Living, Animate target within 20 feet You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means. You must maintain Concentration while the effect is active. Roll Perception + Investigation at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.
You are able to view your target's memories. The target is unaware their memories are being probed. The Effect ends if the target moves out of range or your Concentration is interrupted.
You may ask specific questions about their memory - “what is their computer password,” “What were they doing at 4:00PM yesterday,” etc - but you cannot get answers to broad, analytical questions like “are they a good person?” or “what are their plans for the future?”
Each question you ask and memory you replay takes a single Round to read.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is looking the target up and down. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
The tip of the rope dart is covered in raised glyphs, and the silken cable attaches to a ringed medallion etched with seals and sigils on its surface to great Pazuzu.
Spiraling out whip-fast, a razor-wire-like shredding wind of shadow substance lacerates the target, drawing copious amounts of blood from any living thing. The blood forms a mist of crimson that is absorbed before it can hit the ground.
"Pazuzu, Tongue plucked raw from gaping maw. Blood from vein let fall like rain. Behold these eyes, your bloody prize. And now the fall from vaulted hall. These bones! This flesh! Consume it all! Pazuzu! Pazuzu! Pazuzu!"
king of the south wind demons. Adherents believed Pazuzu helped humans ward off other demons, and, thus, representations of his face served as popular apotropaic amulets in the 1st millennium bce.
Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action. Select a target within 45 feet. Roll Charisma + Occult 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. Armor is fully effective against this Damage.
The target suffers a -3 dice penalty for the next hour or until the Injury is healed. This dice penalty does not stack multiple times on the same target.
If you successfully hit your target, the value of any Armor they are wearing is reduced by 2. For material armor, this penalty lasts until it is repaired. For intrinsic armor, it lasts until the end of Combat and any relevant wound is healed.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see Blood and Shadow exsanguinating the victim..
A ball of light, blue and white in color, that when activated, will take ink from a bottle, and uses the ink as a conduit to draw and transform the terrain. The ink solidifies into either darkness or light, allowing a higher level of construct to be made. Yet this ball, is connected to one's soul, the darkness gives one nightmares, while the light disorient one body and makes it easily nauseous. Faintly, you can hear eldritch whispering as well, that makes you paranoid from within.
Exert your Mind (unless you are Sculpting) and spend an Action. Select a Location within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless Temporal spatial grafting is active. You must be in an area abundant with Space or a environment similar to space.
Select one of the following alterations to create out of Light and Darkness Energy Construction 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 indefinitely 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 3 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.
You may sculpt your walls, domes, or tunnels as you create them, without any additional activation time or cost.
You may opt to have your alteration form immediately. If you do, it falls apart in exactly one Round.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma: Nightmares and Paranoia. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
Carver, with an air of professionalism, listens to her patient speak of their past experiences, and how they affect them in the day to day.
All Carver does is remove the compulsions left by traumatic experiences, allowing her patient control over themselves while tackling their traumas. They'll remember what happened to them, but it will no longer spark the same trauma response.
As long as the mind isn't traumatized *again* shortly afterwards. Otherwise the old connections resurface and it's back to square one, with extra baggage this time around.
All of this works on inhuman, even unliving physiology thanks to Carver's familiarity with the not-quite-human people around her. As long as they have a sentient mind capable of being traumatized, her powers allow her to detangle them.
Exert your Mind to activate. Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. 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 + 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.
Your patient is required to not fail a limit check for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.
Edgar bites into flesh or bone, typically devouring the heart, tongue, eyes, & brain in the first sitting. Memories flood the ghoul, causing his eyes to flicker - occasionally, these cast-off memories can be coalesced enough to re-create a fragment of the person's personality - this is an unpleasant fate, as the victim essentially becomes a powerless voice in the mind of the ravenous Ghoul for the duration. Only Edgar can hear this personality fragment, though he can converse with it if desired, effectively talking to himself.
Once consumed, the Ghoul can summon up these voices from the past any time thereafter, the memories lying otherwise dormant.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Dead target within 50 feet. For dead targets, you must possess their flesh, having eaten a portion of them in the past.
The target can communicate in your language for the next hour.
Communicating with a being cannot directly damage your Mind or cause Injury. All rolls to resist Effects that rely on communicating with you are made at -1 Difficulty.
While this Effect is active, you are at -2 dice to all Actions and cannot Concentrate.
You may only use this Effect once per target per day.
Berndts eyes begin to strongly glow in a red hue. The area around his face becomes hot before a red laser beam comes shot out of his eyes.
Turning into a cyborg has interesting side effects. There is so much less want and need to interact with the weak flesh and bones.
“Inspiration can come from everywhere. Use it to show where you are coming from and where you are going to be heading.”
Spend an Action. Select a target within 50 feet. Roll Intellect + Technology 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 2.
You may use this Effect to Defend against any melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks within range or Clash against any Attack targeted at you. Using it to Defend deals no Damage but does not cost Exertion.
If the target suffers an Injury from this Effect, they will receive at least a Minor Battle Scar regardless of its Severity. When this Effect causes a Battle Scar, you may select which one of the appropriate level.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Turing Test.
The mystic channels and communes directly with another person's spirit, allowing the two of them to freely exchange both physical and mental wounds between each other.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Sapient target within arm's reach. Your target may Resist to cancel the transfer.
You may choose a single instance of one of the following to transfer from your target to yourself, or from yourself to them:
Whenever you transfer an Injury, it's Severity increases by 1. Whenever you transfer Mind damage or Traumas, the recipient takes an additional Mind damage.
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.
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 Witch summons a crow, whispers a message to it, and sends it off to deliver her words. Half an hour later, the crow arrives at the recipient and repeats her message aloud in its croaking, animal voice.
Spend an Action. Select a target any distance away from 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 may send a single message to your target. It can be as complex or as large as you like. It takes at least 30 minutes before it is received.
The message may be intercepted while in transit, and may be overheard, read, or otherwise understood by anyone near either you or the recipient. You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
The Vampire is able to turn one of their victims into a lesser vampire, a pale shadow of a full creature of the night but useful nonetheless. Having drained and killed their target, the Vampire performs a brief ritualistic bloodletting, wherein they spill their own blood into the target's mouth, forcing them to drink, and bonding them together as child and sire.
Shortly afterwards, the fledgling vampire will rise from death, hungry for blood and eager to serve.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach that has died within the last hour. This Effect cannot be used unless you drained the target's blood while they were still alive.
Your target rises as an Animate being. The raised creature is totally mindless, with no memory of its past life or hint of its old personality. They cannot communicate. They will follow any command you speak.
The creature lasts until it dies again. It is revived at full health. Any Injuries it had in life are not accounted for when determining its penalties or progression towards re-death, though they may affect its ability to perform certain actions at GM's discretion. The raised creature must consume flesh every day or it will die again.
Raised creatures have their Abilities set to the same that they were in life. Their Charisma and Intellect are set to 1, but their Dexterity, Brawn and Perception are the same as they had in life. A raised creature cannot use any Effects.
Your revived targets deal 2 Weapon Damage with their unarmed attacks.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
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.