Veiled Inquiry "They can't hide from me! Hehehehe!"

1
Requires Seasoned
The power to learn details about others.
Used by Doctor Andorn Peregrine, Created by Author.
(This Effect is not obviously Alien when used. During Effect activation, you are obviously interacting with the target. You must actively and obviously be using glasses.)

The Super Scientist readjusts his glasses as he subtly probes for information only he can determine through hunches and gut feelings.

"She folded her left thumb over her hand during the conversation. Like she isn't used to having hands at all. She's gotta be an alien in human skin."
"Or she's just left-handed."
"No, that's impossible."
"...Gonna elaborate?"
"No."


Spend one minute. Select a Sapient target within arm's reach. You must actively converse with the individual in question for one minute in order to gather any information. You must actively and obviously use glasses to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Intellect + Investigation at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • Determine if this target is Alien in origin or whether it has any Alien energy or outside influences. You receive information about the type of energy, including the name of the relevant Source pool or equivalent. You determine the effect of any active Alien energy detected, and you get an idea as to the sorts of ways that latent Alien energy may be channeled by the target.
  • You learn the target's name, nicknames, screen names, and aliases.

The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

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.

  • 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

Expend a point of Battery to activate. Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Over the course of one minute, 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.

Once per day per target, you may choose to use this Effect to stabilize the Mind of a target within arm's reach. Treatment takes 30 seconds but will not remove any Traumas. If you are successful, restore 2 Mind damage.

You may choose to use this Effect to temporarily relieve any number of the patient's Traumas (including mental Conditions). In this case, Treatment takes an Action and the effect lasts two hours. If the Patient is currently experiencing an episode, Difficulty is increased by 2.

  • The treatment time may be broken up into multiple sessions if necessary.
  • 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 a minute and use up this Amber liquid in a glass flask (unless you succeed on 1d10, Difficulty 7). Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Select a Battle Scar on your target to treat.

The treated Battle Scar heals as you finish activating this Effect. Your patient is required to dress & act like a cowboy/girl for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.

Healing a Battle Scar in this way leaves behind Pale Skin, slightly pointy teeth on the target which cannot be healed.

  • The patient is aware of this requirement.
  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • 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 Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Roll Brawn + Melee at Difficulty 6. The target may roll Body, -2 dice at Difficulty 7, as a Free Action to resist.

If you succeed, the target receives a new Battle Scar of your choosing, limited by the contested Outcome:

  1. A Minor Battle Scar E.g. an aesthetic-only body modification (a disfigured face, a pig's tail), impacted hand or foot, or vocal changes that complicate communication
  2. A Major Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed hand or foot, an inability to speak, an impacted major sense, removal of a minor sense, impacted movement.
  3. A Severe Battle Scar E.g. a disabled/removed arm or leg, deafness, aesthetic changes that are nearly impossible to conceal.
  4. An Extreme Battle Scar E.g. removal/disabling both hands or both legs, blindness, a full-body deformation that leaves the target humanoid but makes it difficult to use clothes, vehicles, and equipment designed for humans.
Refer to the stock Battle Scars on the Character Sheet for specific systems.

If the Contested Outcome of your activation roll is 4 or higher, the activation cost of this Effect is refunded.

All alterations you make must shorten limbs.

  • Remember: A Contractor’s Body rating is reduced by 1 for each Battle Scar after their fourth.
  • You may opt to inflict a Battle Scar that is less severe than what your Outcome allows.
  • 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 to activate. Select a Living target at any distance, provided you are able to communicate. 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 + Performance at Difficulty 6.

Your target may Resist. If your treatment is successful, you may replace one of the patient’s revealed Traumas with a new Trauma: Compulsion to buy merchandise.

Your patient is required to The repaired must pay a weekly subscription payment to the Yensid Corporate Guild, for an affixed price of $100 per week. for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.

You may heal a Trauma on any number of targets with a single activation of this Effect, but any Traumas which you treat are revealed to the entire group.

Once per day per target, you may choose to use this Effect to stabilize the Mind of a target 50 feet. Treatment takes 30 seconds but will not remove any Traumas. If you are successful, restore 2 Mind damage.

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Nightmares: Losing their job..

  • The patient is aware of this requirement.
  • The treatment time may be broken up into multiple sessions if necessary.
  • 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.

Minerva's powers begin to manifest fully with this. Almost subconsciously, the young girl can change the world around her. Occasionally small things change without her thinking about it. But when she focuses... she convinces the universe her playthings are real, and it accepts this, with reservations.

If they are treated roughly, however - damaged or stressed at all, by anyone - the universe remembers, and such illusions evaporate into smoke.

Minerva deals poorly with pain or stress, having lived a pampered life and having little experience to see her though them. Physical pain at all keeps bringing her mind back to that, and she's unable to assert her will properly. Stress does the same - as soon as she's distracted, she's unable to focus, unable to make her will come forth as easily as it normally does.

Finally...under the surface, in the depths of her mind, lurk darker thoughts. Her practice with altering the world comes into full manifestation when she panics and loses her composure, her fears seeping in.

Exert your Mind (unless you have no body damage and your mind damage is agitated or better) and spend an Action. Select a target within 45 feet. Choose an illusion to generate, which can be no larger than a person.

The chosen illusion is generated at your target, and it will remain in place for the next two hours or you choose to end it. It can be perceived by people through all of their senses. The illusion cannot be used as an attack. You may create a replica of a specific being or Object, though it is still limited by what you do or do not know about the subject.

Anyone who struggles against the illusion hard enough to break a window or who would be damaged by the illusion realizes it is an illusion, and the entire effect will be ended for all targets.

The illusion is not fixed to the initial target, and may move about at a maximum speed 30 feet per Round. It may have moving parts and engage in simple, predetermined movements but cannot perform anything complex or interactive unless you maintain Concentration and “puppeteer” it.

  • while you can use an illusion to obscure something smaller, you cannot make anything directly invisible (you can’t make a tank look like a regular baseball, but you can hide it in an illusion of a giant baseball).
  • You may only puppeteer a single illusion at once.
  • 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.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You may select a target at any range if you use up fresh tracks of the target. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Survival at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You may follow the target's trail, no matter where or how they have traveled, so long as the trail is less than a day old.

The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

Any information you gather is revealed by illuminating the trail in a glowing light and made publicly available.

  • Tracker You are not made instantly aware of where they have been in the past 24 hours; you must follow their trail. You may "happen upon" any trail they have made in the past 24 hours.
  • 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.

Take a Severity-1 Injury 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 a number of minutes equal to the Contested Outcome. 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 not 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. Otherwise, they may Exert their Mind to evict you from their body.

  • Access to equipment-based Gifts such as Signature Items depends entirely on whether you are holding the relevant object, and is not impacted by whether or not you are possessing a target.
  • 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 1 minute. Select a Living, Animate target within 20 feet You must maintain Concentration while the effect is active. Roll Intellect + 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 aware that their thoughts are being probed but not of the source of the probe. 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 takes as long as it takes to answer to read. When replaying a full memory, it is replayed in double time.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is your nose bleeding. 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.

  • 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 or Reaction. Select a Creature target within 20 feet. The target may Resist.

You possess your target and have control over their actions for the next hour. Your original body will be left behind, unconscious, in its same location. You may perceive through your original body's senses, at a -2 penalty to all Actions while doing so. If your original body is touched, you get a Perception check to notice. You may spend an Action to end the possession early.

Stats: Any Actions you take will use the possessed creature’s Brawn, Dexterity, and Perception, but use your own Charisma, Intellect, and Abilities.

Gifts: You do not have access to any Gifts while you are possessing your target.

Death: If the host suffers an Injury, or is destroyed or incapacitated, you are evicted back into your own body. If the possession ends and your original body was killed or destroyed, you will die.

Eviction: You cannot force your host to take Actions which would violate their instinct for self-preservation (which includes engaging in Combat for any purpose other than self-defense or natural hunting); any attempt to do so will sever the connection and send you back into your own body. If you are forced out of the target's body prematurely, you must make a Trauma roll.

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

  • 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.

Take a Severity-1 Injury 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.

  • The creature will die at the end of any 24 hour period gone without consuming their specified diet, and it is important that this growing desperation is reflected in how they are roleplayed.
  • 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.