**Description:** The "Body of the Ancient Cryptic" passively alters the user’s body, giving them a primal, beast-like appearance combined with ancient, mystical energies. These physical changes not only enhance their combat abilities but also make them appear more formidable and inhuman to those around them.
**Visible Changes:**
- **Beastly Claws:** The user's hands and fingers elongate slightly, ending in sharp, retractable claws. These claws appear to be made of a dark, obsidian-like material and can tear through most materials with ease.
- **Feral Eyes:** Their eyes take on a bestial quality, with slit-like pupils and a glowing, predatory hue—often amber, red, or another unnatural color. These eyes grant heightened vision, especially in darkness.
- **Rugged, Enhanced Physique:** The user’s muscles are denser, their bones more robust, and their posture slightly hunched, resembling a primal predator. This gives them enhanced strength and agility beyond normal human limits.
- **Roughened Skin:** Their skin takes on a tougher, almost hide-like texture, with patches of scales or hardened ridges in certain areas, providing natural armor.
- **Elongated Teeth:** The user’s teeth sharpen into fangs, giving them a fearsome grin and enabling them to bite with great force when necessary.
- **Beastial Presence:** A low growl or snarl might be heard from the user when they are angered or in danger. Their overall demeanor is predatory, making others instinctively sense danger in their presence.
These beastly transformations, combined with ancient, arcane markings and energies, make the user a terrifying force, blending primal strength with cryptic wisdom.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You are permanently and visibly transformed: perfect bodys. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living Creature when targeted. Your Brawn is increased by 1, your Perception is increased by 1, and your Charisma is increased by 1.
Your appendages can reach an additional 30 feet.
You may make a +2 Weapon Damage claws and fangs attack without additional equipment.
Whenever you enter Combat, roll Self-Control. If you fail, you cannot choose which targets to attack and cannot stop fighting until there are no targets remaining.
You cannot speak any coherent verbal language and must resort to other means of communication.
You cannot ignore or decrease the effects of Stress for any Self-Control rolls you make.
The Severity of any Injury caused by Sliver is increased by 2.
Buttons reaches into her bag and fishes out one of her handy dandy clown noses. She spends a moment carefully putting it on and making sure it's secured before stepping back and watching the magic work.
Exert your Mind and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach that has died within the last month. You must use up Clown Nose in order to activate this Effect.
Your target rises as an Animate being. They remember their past life and retain their same personality. They can communicate as they would have been able to in life. They may roll Mind, Difficulty 8, to resist any commands you give them.
The creature lasts for eight hours or 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.
Raised creatures have their Abilities set to the same that they were in life. Their Attributes are all the same as they were in life, except Dexterity, which is fixed at 1. Raised creatures have access to any Effects they had in life.
This Effect ends if you are stunned, fall asleep, go unconscious, are incapacitated, die, or if your total Stress ever exceeds 5.
You gain the following benefits at all times. You must actively and obviously be using Surgical Equipment to gain the benefits of this Effect.
All Stabilizations you attempt are considered Proper Stabilizations.
You also gain the following effects:
Mothman concentrates, and seems to almost vibrate. An unnerving hum emanates from his skin for several minutes as he increases in intensity. After a moment he jolts forward, shedding a seeming copy of himself out of his back.
Looking at or addressing it in range will trigger it, as the image looks up at them and smiles, its eyes glowing red before vanishing into thin air. The instant this happens, reality itself seems to shift to a darker, more ominous version. The targets mind knows this, and the panic is disorienting.
Exert your Mind and spend 30 seconds to trap a region of any shape that contains your current location and fits entirely within 60 feet of you. This trap lasts one hour or until triggered or disarmed. Choose a type of being that could trigger the trap.
The trap looks like an Afterimage of himself, seemingly waiting on something and looking very vulnerable.. Only those who have seen this trap before can identify it as a trap. Anyone who is aware of the trap may intuitively avoid, trigger, or destroy it.
Any being of the chosen type that enters the chosen region will trigger the trap.
You create a hemispherical dome of lengthening, ominous shadows. originating at the trap, with a radius of 60 feet, and lasting for 5 minutes. The area inside your zone is affected in the following ways:
Haerin has developed a mastery of the weapons with his soul and of the souls of others. Swords he wields glow a pitch black darkness as they are coated in the darkness of his soul
You gain the following benefits as long as you are engaged in combat with Swords.
+2 dice to all rolls with Swords. You may Defend against firearm attacks from any range using Swords.
You also gain the following effects:
When Gaspar is injured, more smoke from the bottle can slowly pull pieces of his body back together, regenerating wounds. This is slow, however, as the binding is still as tight as ever.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Any Injury you receive from a source other than ice and cold heals quickly, reducing its Severity by one level every 6 hours. Any Injuries you receive while this Effect is active automatically count as a successful Proper Stabilization and do not deteriorate further. Any Battle Scars caused by such an Injury will heal with the Injury.
You may choose to heal any Battle Scar on yourself that is not caused by an Injury. Recovery takes one day, and the Battle Scar affects you fully until that time.
Injuries you receive from ice and cold are increased in Severity by 1.
While addressing a crowd, the influencer may use coded language to send secret messages to a particular person in the crowd. These messages can't be noticed or understood by anyone but the intended target.
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. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is listening and you are speaking to multiple people.
You may send a single message to your target. It can be no more complicated than a multi-page letter or a long email.
The message 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 your left hand making a fist. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
The magician dons an unusual piece of clothing and immediately shifts their appearance to be completely different! However, they must reveal their true identity before they can cast any more spells.
Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions. You must actively and obviously use a piece of clothing you wouldn't normally wear to activate this Effect.
You become disguised in a manner of your choosing. The disguise lasts for two hours, or you may end it early at will.
The new appearance may have a different sex, age, and race to your own, and you may alter height by up to a foot and your weight by 50%. Your disguise cannot directly mimic an existing person. You may change the appearance of your outfit. A disguise cannot affect your Attributes or other stats.
This Effect ends if you take an Injury or are stunned or incapacitated.
While disguised, you cannot use any Activated or Targeted Powers.
The mobster knows a guy they can call for a hired goon, who arrives about a minute later. The goons are dumb as bricks, but tough nonetheless, perfect for sending a message when you need to keep your hands clean.
Exert your Mind and spend one minute. You must actively and obviously use a cell phone to activate this Effect.
Summon a single goon at your location. They will last until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. You may have at most 1 minion active at a time.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
The Thief examines an object closely for a minute to appraise its value. As their eyes dance across the subject, their pupils split vertically, and their irises fade to gold. If it is a particularly valuable item, the Thief may greedily lick their lips, revealing a forked tongue.
Within a minute, they have determined how materially valuable the object is and why.
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:
The Necromancer spits into the mouth of a recently deceased corpse. For the few minutes, the corpse's head comes back to life and speaks to the Necromancer.
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.