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.
The advanced technology within the Kara has been upgraded to allow dimensional compression of weapons, reducing them to a two-dimensional "placeholder" as needed. These items may be withdrawn from "flat space" in the blink of an eye, seeming to coalesce in the wielders hand when needed.
Spend a Quick Action.
You may withdraw an item from your stash, or add an item that is within arm’s reach to your stash. You may only stash targets which are in your possession, grappled, or otherwise controlled by you.
You may store Weapons in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a rolling luggage bag (50 liters), and you may store up to 7 things at a time.
You may choose to equip any equipment you withdraw at no additional cost.
the deer god takes her crackers and replace it with a comically large version of what she wants
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. You must actively and obviously use deer crackers to activate this Effect.
Choose an Object which could fit inside a regular backpack (up to 27 liters). It must be Non-Alien and generic. You cannot create explosives. You cannot create firearms.
Roll Brawn + Alertness to fabricate up to 5 copies of 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.
Kitty can open zir mind to 'hunt' for signs of the supernatural.
Exert your Mind and spend one minute. This Effect cannot be used unless it lasts for only 1 minute. You must actively and obviously use a prism to activate this Effect. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means.
You automatically detect all supernatural beings within 100 miles of you for the next hour. This includes any who come within range during the duration. You have a sense of how many valid targets are nearby, as well as their distance and direction.
Any supernatural beings detected while this Effect is active are “marked”. You will continue to detect them until the Effect ends, no matter how far away they move. You will also continue to detect them after the Effect ends, so long as they remain within 100 miles of you.
You learn basic information about why each detected being is being detected. For example, if you detect Criminals, you may learn how many crimes they have committed and what type.
You receive a recognisable aura signature for each being you detect.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see a great discomfort to all observers.
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 may only use this Effect once per day.
Bill places his corn on the cob in the ground, and from that cob the beast emerges. The corn shakes rapidly, as though it is going to hatch, before it starts to grow wildly. The cob expands to immense size, cracking down the middle to reveal a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. The husk stretches and reshapes itself, forming a shambling mound of legs and wings. Roots rise from the ground and tangle amongst the husk, contributing to the beast's body and limbs. The head is definitively formed by the cob, while the body is a constantly shifting and difficult to discern pile of roots and husk. Entirely, the beast is around the size of a horse, it's colours no different from the corn it was grown from. The beast is capable of launching its cob head at targets 50 feet away from it, the head quickly regrows afterwards (though, any damages done to the head remain even after the head regrows). When the beast is destroyed, it rots into the ground, its body reduced to an inedible black mold.
Bill discovered this gift the morning after his stay at The Vermillion Manor. While harvesting his freshly grown corn, he attempted to hold more than what he could carry, and accidentally dropped a singular ear of corn. He thought nothing of it, until the corn began to jitter on the dirt unnaturally. He backed away in fear, and watched as the once innocuous corn sprouted into a true monster. A monster that listened to his commands. A monster that belonged to him.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must use up A full corn on the cob, with husk intact in order to activate this Effect.
Summon the one and only Sapient The Corn Beast at your location. They last for two hours or until they are destroyed. They are controlled by you. You may have at most one minion active at a time.
If killed, you cannot re-summon your minion until after your next Contract.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
The Houdini dog becomes putty-like, and soft to the touch, but still looks like a puppy until you look really close or touch the puppy.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You transform into a putty puppy for the next minute. You may end the effect early and return to your normal form at will. Your structure must remain relatively contiguous. It is not necessarily obvious that your transformed state is an unusual phenomena or that it is acting with singular purpose.
While in this form, you can squeeze through any gap that a rodent could fit through.
Damage from standard attacks is halved, but Damage from AOE effects is increased by 1.
You cannot communicate, use equipment, or use Gifts while transformed. Your equipment does not transform with you beyond basic body coverings. Carrying capacity is unaffected.
The survivalist is an expert at wildlife survival in any natural environment. Even in the harshest climates, they have the capacity to find food, water, and shelter.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend 15 minutes. This Effect cannot be used unless you are in a wilderness environment.
Choose a specific type of food, water, or survival supply which could fit inside a regular backpack (up to 27 liters). It must be Non-Alien and generic. You cannot create explosives. You cannot create firearms.
Roll Perception + Survival to fabricate up to 5 copies of your chosen Object. The Difficulty is assigned by the GM and depends on the specificity of your chosen Object. Your created items no longer expire, and will last until they are destroyed.
By focusing, the Thief may shroud their hands in shadowy tendrils that seek nearby objects like static-charged hairs. They cast themselves across any surface the Thief touches, acting as anchors that allow the Thief to scale even the sheerest walls.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You may move easily and without a roll in any of the following situations. Lasts 2 hours.
The Necromancer stands over a corpse and makes a series of grandiose lifting gestures. The corpse rises from the ground as though suspended by invisible strings, barks a pained groan, and lands on its feet, now a full-fledged member of the living dead.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend an Action. You must use up corpse in order to activate this Effect.
Summon up to 3 Non-Sapient, Animate zombie at your location. They last for two hours or until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. You may have at most 3 minions active at a time.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
The aquamancer spends a minute soaking their wounds in at least a gallon of water. During this time, the injured area is obviously absorbing the liquid, and the flesh visibly knits back together.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. You must use up at least a gallon of water in order to activate this Effect. Choose a specific Injury on yourself that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Brawn + Survival 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.
The Witch wiggles her fingers at her broomstick, and it leaps from the ground with a whoosh of wind. She may then hop on and fly around. It’s so fun, she often finds herself cackling uncontrollably.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use a broom to activate this Effect. This Effect remains active for two hours.
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 mind. Your Free Movement is Mind x5 feet/Round, including vertically. You cannot Dash. When sprinting, roll Mind and add your rating in Mind plus 1 to the outcome, multiply by 5 to find your sprint speed. Your encumbrance limit is 10 lbs per point of Mind.
You are subject to the following effects while gliding or flying: