Apex Cryptid: The Primordial Shift
The moment you activate this power, a deep, guttural resonance hums through the air—like a chorus of ancient, forgotten beasts calling from the dark corners of the earth. Your body twists and stretches, bones popping and muscles coiling into unfamiliar shapes. Your skin ripples with patterns that seem to mimic the natural camouflage of apex predators long thought extinct. Scales, fur, or chitinous plates may shimmer across your form, shifting with every step as though the essence of cryptids from across the globe surges through your veins.
Your human instincts dull as primal instincts take hold. Words become foreign; the structure of language replaced by a heightened awareness of your surroundings. The scent of fear hangs like a thick mist, every sound sharpened into a potential threat or prey. Your hands become crude tools—talons, claws, or massive, rugged fingers that can grasp but never delicately control.
Stress dissolves as the primal mindset overtakes you. The noise of human worries is replaced with the singular clarity of survival and dominance. In this form, you are an echo of the unknown, the whispered terror of campfire stories given flesh.
Apex Cryptid → Amalgamation of Cryptids: The Unveiling
If the battle turns against you—if pain strikes deep and the cryptid essence within senses true danger—a terrifying metamorphosis unfolds.
Your body convulses, and the injuries that should cripple you instead fuel a grotesque evolution. Limbs elongate and twist, growing jagged with predatory adaptations stolen from creatures lost to time. Gills flare along your neck. Serrated fangs emerge where human teeth once sat. The eyes of countless predators open across your body, each gazing with predatory instinct.
For one breathless minute, you become the embodiment of earth’s cryptid lore—a walking nightmare of mismatched power. Movement becomes instinctive, effortless. Every step feels like a hunt, and every breath crackles with the potential of the predator’s pounce. The air itself seems to recoil, bending to your unnerving presence
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You transform into Apex Cryptid for 30 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are Apex Cryptid, and you can use your equipment. The Injuries and Battle Scars of your Alternate Form and your true form are tracked separately.
While transformed, your Attributes are the same. Your Stress is reduced by 2.
If you take Injuries totaling 4 Severity or higher while transformed, you recover all Injuries and change into Amaglamation Of Crytids Across the earth. All dice rolls are at -1 Difficulty for the next minute or until this Effect ends. Cooldown 1 day.
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.
Yvonnel uses a pencil or pen to create a line art sketch of a mundane object within her journal. Closing the journal and re-opening it to the same page as the sketch presents the exact mundane item she drew lying there atop its pages. When temporary items reach the end of their lifespan, the item in question disintegrates into powdered pencil lead or a small puddle of ink depending on the type of drawing implement used to create it.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend 1 minute to activate. You must actively and obviously use Journal to activate this Effect.
Choose an Object which could fit inside a Ziploc snack bag (up to 1 liter). It cannot be Alien and must be generic. You cannot create explosives. You may create firearms.
Roll Charisma + Crafts to fabricate your chosen Object. The Difficulty is assigned by the GM and depends on the specificity of your chosen Object. The created item lasts 2 hours.
You thrive off destruction and chaos, the vileness in your heart craves obliteration. How dare others have nice things? REKT. You channel this emotion into shooting the target item until it is destroyed. GET REKT. Nothing will stand in your way!
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Non-Sapient Object within arm's reach no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). You must actively and obviously use a handgun to activate this Effect. Roll Dexterity + Firearms Difficulty 6.
If your Outcome is 4 or higher, the target will be completely destroyed and can no longer function, though it may still be repaired. If your Outcome is less than 4, the target will be partially damaged, and any attempts to use it will suffer a dice penalty equal to your Outcome.
When activating this Effect, you may spend an extra minute and maintain Concentration. If you do, it has no Exertion cost, and you may destroy an object which has up to 3x larger dimensions, or up to 27x larger volume than the normal maximum size.
This cat can talk. Reaching into your mind to reach out with a narration of their needs.
After asking the cat where it comes from, it brushes the question aside and merely requests that you take it where it wants. When you inquires as to why, the cat merely states that it wants to have fun there.
Spend an Action. This Effect cannot be used unless the target has previously pet the cat.
You may send a single message to all targets which are within a specified range. It can be no more complicated than a multi-page letter or a long email.
You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is the cat waving their tail pretty slowly. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Compulsive liar.
Cleatus may be a bad cop, but he isn't a bad man. He doesn't enjoy leaping to violence as a first response despite his hollering, and after asking to have some time with the Dust Devil in the events following his encounter with the nation's fiercest bikers he discovered that he had been.. changed. It seemed taking the right approach and having your heart in the right place seems to have its benefits. Now buoyed by the winds that run through his hair as he hits the highway like the riders of old. Cleatus drives like the bat out of hell he was born to be. Tailwinds and aerodynamics are now a never properly understood memory. Though he does still hear the nattering whispers of the wind spirits he's now become attuned to, and as a result, he's beginning to feel like there's more to being American than the red, white, and blue, and his passengers will hear similar nattering whispers. Like intrusive thoughts compelling them to remember what's important, and to not allow anyone to take what's dear to them without a fight. You have to protect it. You can't allow them to take it again. Wait.. again?
You gain the following benefits as long as you are piloting any vehicle.
You receive +2 dice to any rolls to pilot a vehicle.
You also gain the following effects:
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 +4 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.
The Solider is accustomed to going long periods without food or water and can operate on very little sleep.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You may go five times longer than a normal human without food, water, sleep, and air. Any roll to resist an Effect dependent on any affected requirement is made at -1 Difficulty.
The Ninja is so attuned to the sounds of their surroundings, they may focus their mind to "see" using the subtle acoustic vibrations.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your senses are enhanced in the following way.
The aristocrat knows a ritual that allows them to rent the best version of any item. They set $10,000 worth of cash on fire and place the item to be upgraded in the fire as well. While in the flame, the item morphs into a high-end version of itself. After a while, it reverts.
Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. You must use up $10,000 cash (or equivalent) in order to activate this Effect. Cannot be used to improve Armor.
Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 3 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +3 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice.
The mutant has gained some control over their genetic instability, allowing them to trigger a mutation at will. When the need arises, their flesh warps and twists, and a new mutation manifests that is suited to whatever obstacle the mutant happens to be facing at the time.
Spend 30 minutes. You may only target yourself. The target can easily Resist.
You may add one augmentation to your target. Each augmentation counts as a Battle Scar and can have exactly one of the following Effects:
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
Your alteration "heals" over the course of the next month, after which it is fully cured.
The mutant has left humanity behind. They're are muted to the core, with glowing blue blood and a hunched posture that makes them more suited for running on all fours than using equipment and vehicles.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You are permanently and visibly transformed: you have blue, bioluminescent blood and a hunched posture adapted to running on all fours. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living Creature when targeted. Your Dexterity is increased by 1.
Your body is adapted to sprinting. You receive +3 dice on non-attack rolls related to sprinting.
Any Animate being that consumes or is injected with your bodily fluids receives a Severity-1 Injury. Every Round, they must roll Body Difficulty 9. If they fail, the Injury worsens by 1 Severity. If they succeed, the Injury stops worsening.
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.
You cannot ignore or decrease the effects of Stress for any Self-Control rolls you make.