Mind Sleuth "That's what you don't get bub: you already confessed."

3
Requires Seasoned
The power to peek into another's memories.
Used by Frank Russo, Created by Ozz.
(The target is unaware their memories are being probed. Activating this Effect is not obvious. The only sign you are using an Effect is looking the target up and down. )

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.

  • 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

The illusion takes the appearance of the private railway car of Ferdinand Foch, the Marshal of France during WW1, and is where the armistice was signed between the two sides. For a man tired of war, it was a fitting enough symbol.

You may make an oath with a physically-present, Sapient target. Communicate the oath's terms to the target, including the requirements and penalties for each participant. If all agree to the terms, you must take a Severity-1 Injury and all participants must Shake Hands 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 oath-breaker dies (if alive)
  • A Battle Scar up to Severe (deaf, missing limb)
  • The oath-breaker is physically marked as an oath-breaker, and any investigative effect will reveal the terms of the oath they broke.
  • A particular Trauma and a single Mind Damage
  • The oath-breaker goes unconscious for up to 24 hours
  • An Injury up to Severity-6 (cannot be reduced by any means)

The target 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 target, you must succeed a contested Intellect + (Culture or Influence) roll.

Whenever a participant breaks the oath, you are immediately made aware and may even witness the act as if standing nearby.

It is obvious to your target that the oath you are proposing will be supernaturally enforced.

  • All Oaths must have at least two participants.
  • The target must be physically present to enter the oath.
  • The terms and penalties of the oath do not need to be equitable and do not need to affect all parties equally.
  • 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 or Reaction. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means. Roll Intellect + 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. As long as it does not fall, the barrier regenerates back to full strength at the end of each Round of combat.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see tormented souls as cover.

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

  • If you use this Effect as a Reaction to dodge, you still need to make a roll to dodge. The Effect will occur regardless of the Outcome of this roll, but if you fail you will be hit by the relevant attack prior to the Effect occurring.
  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • 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 (only for extinguishing a fire, no cost for starting one) and spend an Action. Select a target within 300 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire).

You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a fire in a residential fireplace at your target. Your fires require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning.

Lighting a target on fire deals 3 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 depleted by any Damage dealt, destroying the Armor once it reaches 0.

You may extinguish flames as a Reaction. This does not extend to explosives.

When you activate this Effect, instead of occurring immediately, you may choose to delay its effects until the target takes a particular Action. For example: "when they fire a gun" or "when they swim in deep water."

Possession of this Artifact causes the following Battle Scar to manifest over the course of a day: The Hunger - Cloth (You eat shit that moths would usually eat like clothes, cotton, etc. and can only regain Mind once per day through eating that). If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Battle Scar heals over the course of the next day.

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: Like A Moth - You have an inexplicable attraction to light and fire. (Whenever you would come across a standalone light at least the size of a torch, roll Self-Control in order to resist following it, entranced by the pretty light. Fire/light created by this Gift do not trigger this maddening). If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.

  • A given target can have a maximum of one Suspended Effect on them at a time. The selected triggering Action cannot be used to reveal information about the target (e.g. no "activate when they are a vampire"). It must be an Action they take, not a thought or something that happens to them.
  • Someone may attempt to extinguish a fire that you started by spending an Action and rolling Dexterity + Athletics. An Outcome of 3 puts out the fire
  • 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 Creature within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless felines.

For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow.

Your commands must be relatively simple and within the target’s intellectual grasp. You can make them endanger themselves or otherwise go against their self-preservation instincts. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.

Sapient targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you use this Effect on the same Creature two days in a row, the effect lasts indefinitely.

  • Your commands must be directly communicated to your target in some way, though this does not require a shared language.
  • 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 at least two Actions performing the following ritual: Wobbling the orb to activate. You must actively and obviously use Glass orb to activate this Effect. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. The area within 10 feet of you immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Anyone in the area has 1 Round to attempt to escape. During the next Round, on your Initiative, roll Dexterity + Occult at Difficulty 6.

If the Outcome is positive, your blast hits everything within 10 feet of you with Damage equal to your Outcome + 2. Armor is reduced to 1/2, rounded up against this damage. If you botched the activation roll, you will also take full damage from the blast, otherwise it will not hurt you.

When you activate this Effect, instead of occurring immediately, you may choose to delay its effects until the target takes a particular Action. For example: "when they fire a gun" or "when they swim in deep water."

  • A given target can have a maximum of one Suspended Effect on them at a time. The selected triggering Action cannot be used to reveal information about the target (e.g. no "activate when they are a vampire"). It must be an Action they take, not a thought or something that happens to them.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend 15 minutes. Select a Living target within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless you can forage for herbs. You must actively and obviously use water, a container, and heat to activate this Effect.

You may cure any Non-Alien diseases, toxins, or poisons afflicting your target even if you have not diagnosed or fully understood it. You may cure diseases or poisons even if they are not treatable through modern medicine. During treatment, the malady you are treating does not progress or cause additional Damage or other effects.

Whenever you cure a disease, poison, or toxin, if it had inflicted any Damage, your target is healed for half that Damage.

  • Without some sort of diagnostic Effect, “fully diagnosing” a disease or poison will always require a roll of some sort, frequently Intellect + Medicine, but the specific roll and difficulty is at 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 Dead target within arm's reach. Dead targets must have died within the past week, and you must have their remains in your possession.

The target can communicate in your language for the next hour.

  • 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 and use up this smoke bomb.

You create a hemispherical dome of smoke originating at your Location, with a radius of 20 feet. and lasting for 5 minutes. The area inside your zone is affected in the following ways:

  • Suppressed Vision: The zone is fully blocked from view. Nothing within the zone may see anything or be seen from the outside. Any rolls that rely on sight fail automatically, and any rolls that benefit from sight are made at -3 dice.
The zone expands immediately to its full size from the chosen Location, but will be stopped from spreading in a particular direction by any barriers or cover, and can only fit through openings large enough to fit a grown adult. If a new opening appears while the Effect is still active, it will finish spreading in that direction.

  • The Effect does not follow you after you activate it.
  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • If you select a location at the edge of your range, you will be just outside the zone once the Effect is activated
  • 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 one minute. Select a Living target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target deserves it. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6. Your target may resist by rolling Body at Difficulty 7.

If you succeed, the target is afflicted with a Condition that causes one of the following symptoms:

  • Poisoned: The target gains a Severity-1 Injury which ignores Armor and doesn’t heal naturally. For every hour that passes, they receive a new identical Injury. If this new Injury would kill them, they roll 1d10 at Difficulty 6. Success cures the condition; otherwise, they will die.
Symptoms begin to appear immediately, and will remain and continue to worsen until the affliction is cured. The affliction is not contagious and will not spread to others.

The affliction is not treatable by modern medicine. It may be diagnosed by rolling Intellect + Occult at Difficulty 6, and can be cured by bathing fully in clear running water.

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

  • Successfully diagnosing an affliction also includes information about the treatment method.
  • The chosen method of treatment must be something that you could obtain in a small town given an afternoon.
  • Curing an affliction removes the Condition, but does not automatically heal any Injuries, Battle Scars, or Traumas which may have been caused by that condition.
  • 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 non-Sapient, Animate target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is undead.

For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow.

Your commands must be relatively simple and within the target’s intellectual grasp. You cannot make them obviously endanger themselves or violate their instinct for self-preservation. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.

Sapient targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

  • Your commands must be directly communicated to your target in some way, though this does not require a shared language.
  • 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.