Inverted Stars Everything is despair, I can't keep going

1
The power to inflict mental trauma on a target.
Used by Annette Granger, Created by OphelianAshe.
(This Effect is obviously Alien when used. When activating this Effect, it is obvious you are interacting with the target. )

Annette touches a target and their eyes light up before the target experiences their mind shattering and becoming traumatized after experiencing multiple horrific thoughts filled with despair.

Gifted to Annette by The Fool, this gift was crafted from the inverted stars card and given as a reward for surviving the Sanctuary contract.


Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Sapient target within arm's reach. Roll Brawn + Alertness Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7. If they are incapacitated or unconscious, they fail automatically.

If the Contested Outcome is positive, your target will take 2 points of Mind Damage and gains two new Traumas of your choice. The Trauma should be general and not specifically mention you. You should not have to be involved to trigger the Trauma.

these Traumas cannot be removed by spending Experience and undergoing mundane therapy. Affected targets are aware that they are being attacked and can generally tell who did it.

You may only use this Effect 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

Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Computer within arm's reach. Does not work on Alien technology. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you experience a S-4 injury as the device explodes. Roll Intellect + Technology, with the Difficulty set by the GM depending on the security of the system you are hacking. Sapient targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you may issue a single command to the targeted system. This command must have a specific outcome or be a request for specific login credentials. The command you issue must be within the machine's current capabilities. For example, you cannot order a standard security camera to grow legs and walk around.

If your command does not require bypassing the security of the target (for example, typing on a computer that is unlocked), you do not need to Exert your Mind to activate this Effect, and activation only takes a single Action.

Your hack cannot be discovered by system administrators or firewall software for a number of hours equal to your Outcome on the initial roll.

  • 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.

A Brood Hatchery is whatever species the target initially was; however, they now have many enlarged pores, several scars and wounds, containing Claire's larvae that are all producing little eggs, each egg waiting for the right moment, the right time, as they all awaken, the eggs hatch and begin infesting the mind of the target, making it become a part of the hive mind, seeking to make more and more kin.

Spend an Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless your target is made incapable of resisting. Roll Perception + Alertness 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 any number of the following symptoms:

  • Assimilate: Over the next hour, the target transforms into a Brood Hatchery. If they are not cured within their Body score in hours, the change is permanent. The Conditions of being a Brood Hatchery are detailed in this Gift's Extended Description.
  • Wasting Away: The target’s body is being eaten away by the affliction. Immediately on being afflicted, and again for every hour that passes, they will obtain a new Major or Minor Battle Scar.
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 + Animals at Difficulty 9, and can be cured by removal of all parasitic larvae within the host. Gifts or supernatural Effects and Powers which would cure or prevent this affliction do not cure or prevent it, but instead offer a clear diagnosis and provide information regarding the method of treatment without requiring a diagnosis roll.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see Several dozen larvae crawl out of Claire's pores and attempt to cling onto the target and bore inside them.

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

This Effect ends if you are stunned, fall asleep, go unconscious, are incapacitated, die, or if your total Stress ever exceeds 5.

  • Assimilate: Changes can dramatically affect the target’s lifestyle, metabolism, appearance, urges, etc. Benefits from the transformation should be clearly outweighed by its drawbacks. The new form’s Conditions must be detailed in the Extended Description and are subject to Playgroup Leader Approval.
  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • 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.

“We are gonna be the best circus in town”.

Exert your Mind and spend eight hours. Select a Living target within arm's reach. The target can easily Resist.

You may add one augmentation to your target. Each augmentation counts as a Trauma and can have exactly one of the following Effects:

  • Specialized: You receive +2 dice to a particular non-combat, non-Effect Action.
  • Environmental Adaptation: You do not suffer harm from heat, cold, pressure, or lack of oxygen in a particular environment, provided that challenge normally exists in that environment.
  • Implanted Tool: You have access to the functionality of some common Device at all times. The selected Device can be no larger than a motorcycle helmet.
  • Armor: You have 2 Armor at all times. As always, Armor from multiple sources does not stack.
  • Pouch: Part of your body functions as a hidden pocket. It can hold no more than a briefcase (15 liters).
  • Zippy: Your Free Movement is increased by 10 feet.
  • Maws and Claws: Your unarmed attacks do +2 Weapon Damage instead of -1.

The augmentations you provide are not outwardly visible nor obvious.

You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.

  • Remember: A Contractor’s Body rating is reduced by 1 for each Battle Scar after their fourth.
  • You may not augment targets with pouches or implanted devices that are larger than they are.
  • Targets without Body ratings may have a maximum of 4 augmentations.
  • Example environments for adaptation: space, all saltwater, all fresh water, all water under 50 feet deep, all water deeper than 50 feet, the jungle, radioactive areas, a specific alien world, etc.
  • 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.

wedged between the bandage and the scar, a slight healing aura is exuded that allows the injured tissue to reform as a healed and similar composition to the original cell formation of the rest of the body. the damaged cells are thrown into the users olfactory system to be sneezed out, like a large glob you get when removing your sinuses. It is literally just the cycle of mitosis at a larger scale btw :3

Spend 1 minute and use up this Juice (unless you succeed on 1d10, Difficulty 7). Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Your target must also Exert their Mind to activate this Effect. Roll 7 dice at Difficulty 6, dice penalties do not apply.

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.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see The patient regurgitates all off damaged mass on their body as a giant glob of puss and dead cells.

After you finish activating this Effect, you cannot move quicker than a walk (max 15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour. Exhaustion’s penalty and duration stacks with multiple activations.

  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • Exhaustion penalties and duration stack. If you activate this Effect or another Effect with Exhaustion, your penalty will worsen, and the duration is increased by one hour.
  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • 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.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien Creature within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is a terrestrial animal.

For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow.

Your commands can be complex and multi-layered, though they must still be specific. You cannot make them obviously endanger themselves or violate their instinct for self-preservation. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.

  • Your commands must be directly communicated to your target in some way, though this does not require a shared language.
  • If targeting a Sapient target that counts as a Creature due to an Effect, you must succeed a contested Mind roll. You roll at Difficulty 6, and the target rolls at Difficulty 8.
  • Targets with Body ratings higher than 10 require a Charisma + Animals roll resisted by the target’s Body. Kaiju and environment-scale targets are immune.
  • 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 any distance away from you. You must have a specific target in mind, but you require only an intuitive understanding of them, such as their name, face, or Location. This Effect cannot be used unless you are speaking to multiple people and the target is listening.

You may send a single message to your target. It can be no more complicated than a multi-page letter or a long email.

The message will only be perceived by the intended recipient. 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 your left hand making a fist. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

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

  • Receiving a message does not force a target to pay attention to you, and they can feel free to ignore your message if they choose. Depending on the flavor of your Gift, they may or may not be able to return to it and read it later on.
  • Generally you cannot communicate with Contractors who are not in a Contract with you.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien, Non-Sapient, Animate target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is undead.

For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow.

Your commands must be relatively simple and within the target’s intellectual grasp. You cannot make them obviously endanger themselves or violate their instinct for self-preservation. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.

  • Your commands must be directly communicated to your target in some way, though this does not require a shared language.
  • If targeting a Sapient target that counts as a Creature due to an Effect, you must succeed a contested Mind roll. You roll at Difficulty 6, and the target rolls at Difficulty 8.
  • Targets with Body ratings higher than 10 require a Charisma + Animals roll resisted by the target’s Body. Kaiju and environment-scale targets are immune.
  • 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 Dead target within 50 feet. Dead targets must have died within the past week, and you must have their remains in your possession.

The target can communicate in your language for the next 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.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use your instrument to activate this Effect. The area within 25 feet of you immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Roll Charisma + Performance at Difficulty 6. Targets inside the radius may attempt an appropriate Reaction at GM’s discretion. Finding a physical barrier to use as cover will cut total Damage taken in half (applies after Reaction roll but before Armor).

If the Outcome is positive, your blast hits everything within 25 feet of you with Damage equal to your Outcome + 4. If you botched the activation roll, you will also take full Damage from the blast, otherwise it will not hurt you.

You may only use this Effect 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.