Legacy Power: Pick Brain

Fascinating to think that this quivering lump of meat contains everything that makes you, you.

A 1 Gift Read Memory Power used by Egas Freeman, created by ShadyTradesman.

Description

Dr. Freeman makes a circular incision around his patient's head and removes the top of their skull. He closes his eyes, places his fingertips directly on the patient's brain, and starts to massage the grey matter. He may then sift through the patient's memories at will. As he does so, little electric arcs crackle between his fingertips and the exposed brain. This procedure is incredibly invasive and thorough but may cause the death of the patient.

System

Select a Living, Animate target within Arm's Reach, Exert your Mind, spend 2 Rounds establishing a connection, and roll Intellect + Medicine Difficulty 6, which the target can contest by rolling to dodge or Defend (as for an attack with a thrown weapon) as a Reaction. You must maintain concentration as long as you are reading their memories. The target is aware that their thoughts are being probed but not of the source. If the target moves out of range or your concentration is interrupted, the effect ends.

This Power lets you ask specific questions about the target’s memory like “what is their computer password,” “What were they doing at 4:00PM yesterday?” “When was the last time they met so and so?”, And answers generally play back like a scene. This Power does not allow you to glean large synthesis answers like “Is she a good person?” “Is she planning on backstabbing us?” “Is she popular?”


Enhancements

  • Secret Thoughts (The target is not automatically aware that their thoughts are being read.)
  • Memory Miner (You may read memories that the target has forgotten.)
  • Conditionally Costless (This Effect does not require Exertion in certain circumstances. The condition should be balanced such that it has an activation cost the majority of the time you are able to use it.)
    • Condition - The target has an Intelligence of 2 or less.

Drawbacks

  • Critical Failure (Roll a single D10 when you activate this Effect. If you roll a 1, you critically fail in a way that is extraordinarily dangerous. Failure should cause at least a Severity-4 Injury, a Major Battle Scar, or an effect counter to its purpose.)
    • Critical Failure effect - The patients brain is destroyed by the procedure.
  • Conditional (This Effect is only available when a certain condition is met. This condition must be severe enough that this Gift is unusable the majority of the time.)
    • Condition - Must be touching the targets brain.
  • Easy to Resist (The target must either consent to be targeted or be unconscious, hypnotized, thoroughly drugged, in surgery or similarly incapacitated such that they could not or would not roll to resist this Power.)

Parameters

Cast Time: 2 ( 2 Rounds ) Range: 0 ( Arm's Reach )

Edit History

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Feb. 13, 2024, 1:53 a.m. - Adjustment Cost: 1. Text field change

Feb. 13, 2024, 1:08 a.m. - Adjustment Cost: 1. Text field change

July 5, 2023, 3:59 a.m. - Adjustment Cost: 1. Text field change

March 7, 2023, 8:47 p.m. - Adjustment Cost: 1. Text field change

Oct. 26, 2022, 6:13 p.m. - Upgrade Cost: 1. Upgraded from old powers system

- Aug. 10, 2021, 7:13 p.m. - New Cost: 1. Initial power creation

Revision purchased with:
Gift from House Games of yore spent on new power: Pick Brain