**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.
Due to a genetic experiment involving the blood of an old god on himself, Jeff can now transform into a monstrous version of himself at the cost of almost no self control.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You transform into A horned muscular humanoid abomination for 3 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are A horned muscular humanoid abomination, and you can use your equipment. Your Battle Scars, Injuries, and physical Liabilities are carried over between forms. Reverting from your Alternate Form cannot cause your existing Injuries to kill you. Instead, you remain Incapacitated.
While transformed, your Brawn is increased by 2 and your Perception is increased by 2. You do not suffer any Stress while transformed.
Your alternate form is its own deadly weapon. Unarmed attacks made in your alternate form deal +3 Weapon Damage (instead of the typical -2).
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see the user of this gift will double over in agony as their bones double in density and length, it appears as though the muscle of the user quite literally bursts from their skin and horns inexplicably sprout from the users skull as their skin appears to slough off and their screams of agony turn into a grim deep voiced chuckle.
Your alternate form renders you unable to speak any human language and incapable of fine object manipulation. You can only hold or grasp objects in a crude, clumsy way.
After this Effect ends, you cannot move quicker than a walk (15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.
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 may only use this Effect once per day.
Frazier has had enough run-in’s, getting close and closer to death each and every time. But, as always and thanks to the supernatural nature of his work, he’s adapting. He won’t stay down.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
If you would take an Injury that would kill you, you don’t die. Instead, you survive in an Incapacitated state, though you appear dead to any means of detecting life. While incapacitated, you can take one Action per minute. Stress applies in full and cannot be reduced for any rolls demanded by the Action. This state lasts for the next hour, at which point you fully return to life. Unstabilized Injuries do not degrade while you are Incapacitated
If, while you are unconscious, your wound level rises above your rating in Body + your rating in Mind, or if you take an Injury with Severity greater than twice your rating in Mind, you die. After you return, the Injury that would have killed you, as well as any Injuries sustained while Incapacitated, are healed. Battle scars obtained during this time remain.
Where Athena learned, you didn't have the best equipment, or sometimes any equipment at all, so she had to learn how to diagnose a problem very quickly and accurately, aided by some chanting and maybe even by sipping on ground insects to help pull the information out of the air.
Along the way, she's able to figure out a few extra things out of her investigation.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Sapient target or a Creature within arm's reach. You may select a target at any range if you use up blood of the target. At the end of your investigation, roll Intellect + Medicine at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.
You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.
Booger’s humor is his shield literally. Whenever he cracks a joke, an invisible barrier forms around him, absorbing damage like a twisted laugh track to his suffering. As long as the jokes keep coming, so does the protection.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a barrier around yourself, which absorbs the next Outcome +4 Damage. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. You may only have 1 active barrier at a time.
The barrier will fall after two hours, 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 A joke about himself. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
After this Effect ends, you cannot move quicker than a walk (15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.
When Murdoch is on the Snake Oil, no one is faster
You gain the following benefits as long as you are under the influence of Snake Oil.
Your Dexterity rating is increased by 1. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Dexterity (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).
You also gain the following effects:
The beastmaster puts their nose to the ground and sniffs about the area. Their feral nostrils tell them what sorts of creatures live in the area, and who lays claim to each region.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 100 feet Can only be activated while you are in the wilderness. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Survival at Difficulty 6.
You learn the following information about the area:
You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.
The aquamancer spends a minute soaking their wounds in at least a gallon of water. During this time, the injured area is obviously absorbing the liquid, and the flesh visibly knits back together.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. You must use up at least a gallon of water in order to activate this Effect. Choose a specific Injury on yourself that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Brawn + Survival 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.
Be amazed as the magician wields a deck of simple playing cards with all the poise and precision of a ninja's shurikens. Fear not, for they will not hit you, unless they want to.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are engaged in combat with playing cards.
+2 dice to all rolls utilizing playing cards.
You also gain the following effects:
The Witch is a master herbalist and can cure any number of illnesses and diseases with her special potions. She goes into the wilderness to find the proper set of herbs. Once she has what she's looking for, she mixes them together and boils the concoction. Steam rises from the mixture, twisting into recognizable shapes such as animals and spirits. The whole process takes about fifteen minutes, after which the patient must drink the entire mixture. They are immediately cured.
The proper preparation varies from person to person, so a single batch cannot be used to treat multiple people.
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.
The Necromancer may exert their will on any undead creature, forcing it to act as they desire. The Necromancer's eyes turn completely black, and they speak a command to the creature in the language of the dead.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien, 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.