Short, but sharp claws grow from the widow's fingertips. Her martial arts are an original product of the Widow's relentless martial arts training and her fastly mutating body: the Iron Serpent is a physically demanding style focused on grappling, immobilization, and powerful, precise and disabling strikes. Inspired by the movements of constrictor snakes, this style emphasizes controlled, heavy actions that apply constant pressure, overwhelming opponents with both physical dominance and precision attacks to vulnerable areas. Unlike lighter, quicker martial arts, Iron Serpent relies on wearing down the opponent through relentless holds, chokes, and joint locks, while leveraging surprise strikes to blind spots when the enemy is immobilized.
Key Principles:
Constriction and Immobilization: Practitioners of Iron Serpent should excel in grappling techniques that focus on tightly controlling the opponent's body. Chokes, locks, and body-weight pins are designed to restrict the enemy’s movement and breathing, gradually sapping their energy.
Heavy, Controlled Movements: Every movement in Iron Serpent is deliberate, focusing on using body weight and leverage to apply maximum pressure with minimal energy loss. It relies on solid stances and grounded techniques, designed to prevent easy escapes and maintain constant pressure.
Opportunistic Strikes: Aim to exploit opponents that are restrained, controlled or surprised. Practitioners strike with precision and these strikes, whether punches, elbows, or kicks, target weak points such as joints, ribs, neck, or behind the head, using the enemy’s weakness to avoid retaliation and maximize damage.
Endure, Disable, Overpower: The Iron Serpent style requires great endurance, both physical and mental. It focuses on wearing down the opponent over time, applying slow, constant pressure or chiping but disabling strikes until they can no longer fight back. Practitioners must remain patient, waiting for the right moment to strike with overwhelming force.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are engaged in unarmed combat.
+2 dice to rolls for Attacking, Defending, and Clashing without a weapon. Unarmed attacks do +0 Weapon Damage (instead of -1).
You may Defend against melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks from any range and Clash with those in range of your Attacks. Attacking materials like steel or spikes will not Damage you unless it has an Effect that does so.
You also gain the following effects:
- Oct. 16, 2024, 3:16 a.m. - Improvement Cost: 3. Removed Drawback: Grabby, Base Parameters Changed.
Attacks that are recieved from underlings will seem brutal but the injuries are conveniently non-severe. The grunt will suffer a quick (and awesome) retaliation.
Peso's addiction leads him to be very aware of his own mortality. But thanks to him studying action movies he has mastered the art of the plot armor.
You gain the following benefits as long as the attacker isn't important enough to have a name.
You have 4 Armor, which reduces incoming Damage. Armor from multiple sources does not stack. This Armor cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.
Whenever your Armor reduces incoming Damage, you are immediately made aware of the source of the Damage. You may pinpoint their location for 30 seconds.
Any time your Armor prevents damage, your total Armor rating is temporarily decreased by 1. Whenever you go two Rounds without preventing any damage, it is restored back to its full value.
I feel like I don't need to explain the logic behind this one.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
As long as you are conscious, you are immune to falling Damage and may hover in place mid-air. Additionally, you may glide as you fall, traveling 35 feet horizontally for every 10 feet you fall. While gliding, you fall at a minimum speed of 10 feet per Round.
You may ascend into the air and fly using your wings. You require 5 feet of clear space on all sides to fly. You may add 50 feet to Movement you take while flying. If you take more than a Severity 4 Injury to your wings via a called shot or Battle Scar, you can only glide until they are healed.
You are subject to the following effects while gliding or flying:
The flesh around the wound will yearn for closure, warping and sculpting itself anew like smooth satin spar. The blood will clot and eventually scar, leaving behind tissue that appears like crystal glaze while the remainder of the injury heals.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Any Injury you receive heals quickly, reducing its Severity by one level every 6 hours. Any Injuries you receive while this Effect is active do not deteriorate over time. However, any Battle Scars caused by such an Injury will remain unless it is Properly Stabilized as normal.
You may Exert your Mind and spend an Action to reduce the Severity of one of your Injuries by 2. Does not affect Injuries suffered as an activation cost for Effects.
You are a being of The Abyss' will let loose from your chains, oozing black surfaces creeping along an otherwise human looking body. With your newfound force of will you summon blades from your gauntlets to do away with your foes.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You are permanently and visibly transformed: You passively float an inch off the ground, you are fit with dark horns and black blood. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living being when targeted..
While in deep darkness, heat, cold, pressure, radiation, and other native hazards do not affect you. Dangerous local flora and fauna will not bother you unless you give them a reason.
You may make a +2 Weapon Damage Shadow Sword (cha + melee) and Shadow Sword (cha + athletics) attack without additional equipment.
You cannot be mistaken for a normal human. You cannot always use standard human clothes, equipment, vehicles, and facilities, and when you can, you suffer an increased Difficulty.
The Severity of any Injury caused by Radiant effects is increased by 2.
Freeman waves his hand, casting a scene of artificial night, striped with shafts of light from twin moons, and twisting and changing like a waking dream.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within 60 feet of you. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means.
You create a hemispherical dome of unnatural nighttime with full moonlight shadows and shifting paths originating at the chosen Location, with a radius of 60 feet, and lasting for 5 minutes. You are fully immune to the effects of your zone. The area inside your zone is affected in the following ways:
The toon shouts a catchphrase, strikes a pose, and then zips away at a high speed, leaving a cloud of dust behind. While moving, they look like a blur.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
Lasts 1 minute. Whenever you use your Movement, after all other calculations, the distance you may travel is doubled.
The Blademaster is so attuned to blades that they may manipulate any bladed object at a range simply by willing it. Observers see translucent spider-silk connecting the Blademaster's fingers to the blade, allowing them to puppet it.
You gain the following benefits as long as the target object has a cutting edge.
As long as you maintain Concentration, you can take Actions and interact with things that are within 75 feet without needing to physically touch them or be near them. Any rolls made for Actions taken in this way use a Mental Strength of 2 in place of your Brawn rating, a Mental Agility of 2 in place of your Dexterity, and otherwise use your own Attributes and Abilities.
Telekinetic actions have the following restrictions and behaviors:
The detective pulls out their magnifying glass and investigates the area, learning details about any nearby structures and picking up details on what sorts of beings have passed through and when.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 100 feet You must actively and obviously use a magnifying glass to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Investigation at Difficulty 6.
You learn the following information about the area:
You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.
The Vampire may channel their inner beast and take the form of an animal. It is said they may transform into either a wolf or a bat. If used too often, the Vampire risks losing themselves to their beast forever.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means. If you fail or Botch, you receive one Mind Damage and a new Trauma.
You transform into a vampire bat or a wolf until you transform into something else or choose to return to your original form. See the Extended System text for stats.
While transformed, you cannot use any equipment (including Artifacts and Consumables), and you do not have access to any of your Powers. Any equipment you are wearing transforms with you.
Injuries and Wound Level are carried over between forms. However, transforming can never kill you; you merely remain Incapacitated until your Injuries are sufficiently healed.
Possession of this Power grants the following Battle Scar: A disfigured face with bat-like ears.
The mystic can meld their aura with another, allowing them to superimpose their being, physical and mental, into a target. Observers witness the mystic fading and entering their target's body as wisps of smoke, leaving no trace of their own body behind.
While inside, they can control their target's actions. Affected targets have no memory of the experience.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend an Action. Select a Living or Sapient target within arm's reach. Roll Intellect + Occult at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you possess your target for the Contested Outcome in minutes. The target has no control over their body or actions, and they are functionally unconscious through the entire possession, retaining no memory other than any Traumas they might obtain.
You do not leave your original body behind when you possess a target. When a possession ends, your original body will reappear at the host body’s same location. You may spend an Action to end the possession early.
Stats: During the possession, you use the host body’s Body rating, but your own Mind rating. Any rolls you make use the host body’s Brawn, Dexterity, and Perception but your own Charisma, Intellect, and Abilities. You gain the effects of any physical Assets and Liabilities they have. You cannot read the target’s mind or memories.
Gifts: You have access to and can use any of your own Powers which are intrinsic to your biology or physical body. You cannot access any Powers or other supernatural effects which the target has, unless they are intrinsic to the target’s biology or physical body.
Death: If the host body is killed or destroyed while you are still possessing it, you will die along with it.
Eviction: If you attempt to force your host to take actions which would violate one of their Limits or their instinct for self-preservation, they may resist by rolling Mind. If their Outcome is higher than or equal to the contested Outcome, the possession ends and you are evicted from their body.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.