Ballpoint Camera "Sorry sir, if you wouldn't mind just saying that again and leaning a little bit closer to that pen on your desk, that would be great."

-1
The power to place wards to monitor an area.
Created by ExampleRobot.
(This Effect is obviously Alien when used. During activation, it is clear you are placing or leaving something at the location. The ward can be detected with a roll and destroyed through mundane means. You must actively and obviously be using a ballpoint pen.)

The spy is able to transform an ordinary ballpoint pen into a monitoring device that is inconspicuous enough to blend in to most settings, but advanced enough to allow 360 degree surveillance as well as audio capture, which is sent to their smartphone.


Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within 10 feet. You must actively and obviously use a ballpoint pen to activate this Effect.

You place a ward, which is fixed to its initial location. You can hear and see through the ward as though you were standing at its location. Your wards last 3 hours. You may have at most 3 wards active at once.

The ward requires Concentration to monitor, though it will remain active until you deactivate it. It can be detected with a roll and destroyed through mundane means.

  • Your ward cannot be used to satisfy the line of sight requirement for targeted Effects.
  • 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

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. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Medicine at Difficulty 6. The target may Resist.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You determine any medical or physiological issues they have, as well as their species and a general overview of their biology.
  • You learn the target’s Traumas, Limits, and whether or not their thoughts, emotions, or memories are being influenced by any Alien forces.
  • You determine any major weaknesses that the target might have.

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

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

  • Weakness Must be things that are systemed around. For example, silver for a werewolf. Not general like "she's bad at fighting".
  • 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 Location within arm's reach. You may choose not to pay this Effect’s activation cost. When you activate this Effect, if it is active from a previous activation where you didn’t pay, that Effect ends. This Effect cannot be used unless Temporal spatial grafting is active. You must use up 1 bottle of Ink in order to activate this Effect. You must be in an area abundant with Space or a environment similar to space.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of Light and Darkness Energy Construction Materials originating at the target:

  • Sculpt: Sculpt a surface made of Light and Darkness Energy Construction Materials up to 20 feet by 20 feet. You may make aesthetic changes or minor functional improvements like a ladder or stairs. You may sculpt windows, doors, and similar alterations into structures you created with this Effect.
  • Wall: Create a wall made of Light and Darkness Energy Construction Materials up to 20 feet long, 5 feet high, and 6 inches thick. This wall may twist, turn, and be shaped as desired. It can hang in the air in a fixed position.

The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.

This alteration lasts indefinitely but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 3 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

You may sculpt your walls, domes, or tunnels as you create them, without any additional activation time or cost.

You may opt to have your alteration form immediately. If you do, it falls apart in exactly one Round.

You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.

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: Paranoia and Nightmares. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.

  • Attempting to break any alterations with inappropriate tools may damage or destroy the tools at the GM's discretion.
  • Any structures you create leave precise gaps for obstacles in their path or push them out of the way. You cannot directly destroy objects or structures or damage beings by creating walls or domes.
  • Tool guidance for GMs:
    • Difficulty 9: Brawn 5, no tools.
    • Difficulty 7-8: One-handed tools or makeshift tools (like a sword). Mythic Brawn without tools.
    • Difficulty 6: Appropriate manual tools. Crowbar, sledgehammer, armor-shredding attacks.
    • Difficulty 4-5: Power tools, vehicles, explosives.
  • This Effect produces the substance you are controlling unless it is drawn from the environment via “Required Environment” Drawbacks.
  • 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 2 Actions to activate. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 100 feet This Effect cannot be used unless Astrology hat. You must actively and obviously use Hat to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Occult at Difficulty 6.

You learn the following information about the area:

  • You can locate the source of any supernatural energy or the presence of any supernatural effects on the area, though you will not necessarily get any specific information about their function.
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

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

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action. Select a target within 45 feet. Roll Brawn + Alertness Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling to Dodge or Defend as a Reaction, Difficulty 6.

If the contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 4. Armor is fully effective against this damage.

You may use this Effect to Defend or Clash in Combat, including against ranged attacks such as firearms.

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.
  • 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. Select a target within arm's reach which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire).

You may start a new 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.

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

  • 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.

Stock Targeted Gifts

This Effect activates whenever you receive a Severity 2 or higher Injury from an attack. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a Living target within 45 feet. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. Affected targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, for the next minute, your target will do things they otherwise wouldn’t have done, inspired by remorse for hurting such a pure soul. They will not necessarily display their emotions in an obvious way.

Actions they take will be in keeping with their character and the way they tend to deal with strong emotions. They will be unlikely to change their mind about any actions taken or decisions made until after the Effect ends.

  • When triggered, the Effect activation resolves immediately after the triggering Action. It is not Reaction speed.
  • Common emotions and the actions they inspire
    • Anger (shouting, cruelty, denying requests, attacking)
    • Pity (stopping an attack, executing an injured target)
    • Happiness (generosity, dancing, joking, socializing)
    • Sadness (finding solitude, openly crying, demotivation)
    • Fear (running, attacking)
  • If you succeed, the target MUST take at least one Action they otherwise would not have. Hey, GM who is reading this, I'm talking to you. You have to enforce this. Remember: Gifts must feel powerful.
  • 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 target within arm's reach. 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. Your target must make a Trauma roll to reap the benefits of this Effect. They may choose to Resist the Effect and not make the roll. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Charisma + Medicine 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.

  • Unstabilized wounds do not degenerate during treatment.
  • 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 25 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:

  • Gross: The target exhibits significant and obvious signs of illness, making them into a social pariah. They will be shunned in public places, and take a -2 penalty to all social actions, which grows by -1 every hour until it reaches your Outcome.
  • 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.
  • This Effect’s symptoms do not stack with themselves on multiple applications.
  • 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. Select a target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use at least a gallon of water to activate this Effect. Roll Dexterity + Athletics Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling to Dodge or Defend as a Reaction, Difficulty 6.

If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 4.

You may use this Effect to Defend against any melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks within range or Clash against any Attack targeted at you. Using it to Defend deals no Damage but does not cost Exertion.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of Effect. There must be no substantial obstructions between you and your target.