When Inkz inks this sigil into flesh, time recoils—not halted, but denied its slow decay. The tattoo resembles a shifting ouroboros coiled around a sleeping eye, its curves etched with precise, ritualistic strokes. The lines shimmer faintly, not with magic, but with an eerie stillness—as if the skin itself has forgotten how to breathe, how to age, how to tire.
The bearer becomes a creature who walks outside the rules of mortality’s demands: no breath, no rest, no rot. Yet this stillness is not stagnation. The body can still flourish, create, and grow. Muscles can build, wounds can heal, life can form. But the creeping touch of entropy—wrinkles, exhaustion, expiration—cannot follow.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Animate target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use tattoo gun to activate this Effect.
For the next week, your target does not require any sleep or air. Any attempts to age your target fail. Any roll to resist an Effect dependent on any affected requirement is made at -1 Difficulty.
You may Exert your Mind and spend an Action to give a target within arm’s reach a Battle Scar. As long as they have this scar, they benefit from this Effect.
Extracting a bloody lump of meat from the tome and hurling it to a nearby location, it bubbles in place for a few seconds before expanding into a fleshy sphere covered in gnashing teeth, claws, matted hair, and curved horns.
Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action. Select a Location within 50 feet.
Select one of the following alterations to create out of flesh originating at the target:
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 one minute 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 end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
Dr. Freeman drives his orbitoclast into the eye socket of his patient, and, with two quick sweeping motions, severs the particular connections in the brain responsible for trauma.
This procedure is not without its risks.
Exert your Mind to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you injure the target's brain, causing a Severity 3 Injury and a neurological Battle Scar. Over the course of one minute, your patient must communicate with you and reveal at least one of their Traumas to you, including the details of those Traumas and the circumstances of how they were acquired. After the full treatment time has elapsed, roll Charisma + Medicine at Difficulty 6.
If your treatment is successful, you may remove one of the patient's revealed Traumas without incurring any Experience cost.
Your patient is required to not encounter a traumatic event (roll Trauma) for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.
You may attempt to treat an unwilling patient. They may choose to resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7. The nature of their Trauma will still be revealed to you if you treat them successfully, though they may not tell you directly.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see you perform a lobotomy.
Sycamore coughs up a small haze of orange and green that smells like woodsmoke. Their eyes water slightly from the sudden choked feeling, but heat comes in the same moment, enough to evaporate the tears into a colored haze of their own. If they could feel pain, it would certainly come here, but all pain has been replaced by "encouragement." Before the flames are directed, they run briefly along the deeper gashes and wrinkles in Syc's scarred flesh. They are the same orange and bright green as the haze, and seem to burn with conviction and a hint of malice if they get to burn bright enough.
Syc's preferred vape, Elfbars, were recently made illegal for marketing to children with flashy packaging and sweet flavors. Similar products got the same treatment, but that nicotine fix was important, dammit. They resulted to cigarettes, getting used to the burnt taste quicker than expected. This ability was discovered in a bout of "can't find my lighter!" frustration, throwing the cig onto the carpet and lighting it in the process. That carpet will never be the same, and is partially covered by another rug now. The way this gift manifested is likely also due to the last job Syc had ending in being blown up by another teammate, losing their leg and covering their left side with burn scars.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire). Roll a single d10, Difficulty 4. If you fail or botch, the Effect fails and you cannot activate it again for an hour.
You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a torch's flame at your target. Extinguishing a fire does not cost Exertion. You may create or extinguish fires the size of a lighter or candle flame without Exerting your Mind. Your fires require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning.
Lighting a target on fire deals 2 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.
You may spend a Free Action on your initiative move a fire as large as a torch's flame that is within 20 feet to another location within 20 feet. You may Exert your Mind to draw a line which a fire up to twice as large as a torch's flame cannot cross.
It's one thing to make a promise. It's something different to make a promise under God. With Jarrod having the power of God behind his words, those promises can become quite binding.
You may make an oath with a Sapient target. Communicate the oath's terms to the target, including the requirements and penalties for each participant. If all agree to the terms, you must Exert your Mind and all participants must placing a hand on a bible or cross, and saying "I solemnly swear" to seal the deal.
Record the oath as a Condition. If a party breaks the oath, the Condition ends and they suffer the oath's penalty.
When crafting your oath, you may incorporate any of the following penalties:
The target cannot be compelled to agree via a direct threat of violence, another Effect, or another oath. If you would like to use clever wording to mislead the target, you must succeed a contested Intellect + (Culture or Influence) roll.
You may revert a penalty for breaking one of your oaths on any participant other than yourself.
The target may be at any range, but you must still be able to communicate the terms to them, and they must be able to placing a hand on a bible or cross, and saying "I solemnly swear".
The same terms and penalties must apply to every party in each deal.
All oaths you create last 12 hours maximum
Using one's soul... the soul orb pulls and yanks ones soul from the depths of hell itself. Though the soul is tortured and obviously in pain... For one that is evil, this is a fitting punishment.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip), spend one minute, and select a specific place, person, or item within arm’s reach. Select a Dead target within arm's reach with at least half its skeletal structure remaining. This Effect cannot be used unless Used within spatial time grafting and No one see's this effect. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you lost hand. You must use up Ink bottle in order to activate this Effect.
Your target rises as an Animate being. They remember their past life and retain their same personality. They can communicate as they would have been able to in life. They may roll Mind, Difficulty 8, to resist any commands you give them.
The creature lasts until it strays at least 80 feet from the chosen place, person, or item or until it dies again. It is revived at full health. Any Injuries it had in life are not accounted for when determining its penalties or progression towards re-death, though they may affect its ability to perform certain actions at GM's discretion.
Raised creatures have their Abilities set to the same that they were in life. Their Attributes are all the same as they were in life. Raised creatures have access to any Effects they had in life.
By slowing the hands of one of their watches, the time-traveler may interrupt and slow a target's movement through time. The target appears to be moving in slow motion for the duration.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. You must actively and obviously use a watch or clock to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Science at Difficulty 7.
If you succeed, the target will suffer a dice penalty equal to the Outcome for the next 2 Rounds. Dice pools may be reduced all the way down to 0 by this penalty. This breaks Concentration.
You may activate this Effect as a Reaction to contest any Action a valid target is taking, reducing their Outcome by your own. Your command has no impact beyond disrupting their Action.
The Skeleton Key slips easily into any keyhole and turns without a fuss.
Spend an Action.
You may lock, unlock, and/or open any number of doors, containers, knots, or locks within arm's reach of you. Cannot be used on Alien technology.
If you successfully operate a lock, you may choose to destroy it, rendering it inoperable.
The Future Soldier learned to create foam grenades in their own time period, and they still can, kinda. They look like glowing orange capsules with a rugged rubberized grip. When thrown, they burst into a splash of expanding neon orange foam. The foam hardens in seconds, severely hampering the movement of anyone unlucky enough to have been splashed. Those affected may use their hands or weapons to hack away at the foam and free themselves.
Occasionally, the fuses on these bootleg grenades fails, and they go off immediately.
Spend an Action and use up this small metallic grenade with pin (unless you succeed on 1d10, Difficulty 7). Make a thrown Attack at a Location within normal Attack range. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you are hit as it activates immediately at your present location. The target may roll to dodge or Defend, as normal for thrown Attacks. The Attack itself does not deal any Damage beyond the Effect.
If you succeed, all affected targets will be restricted at their location by a physical, tangible binding. They can still move their arms and use Effects, but are reduced to ¼ of their movement speed.
The binding around a target must be destroyed in order for them to break free. Breaking the binding requires a total amount of Damage equal to twice the original Contested Outcome. Damage from multiple attacks is cumulative and stacks linearly.
No terrestrial animal dares defy the will of the beastmaster. The beastmaster exerts their dominance over an animal by locking eyes and giving a primal cry. The creature immediately becomes docile and eager to please.
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.
The doctor heals severe injuries in minutes using only standard medical supplies. Lacerations seal under the needle and thread, and reset bones can be used shortly after.
However, for the treatment to last, the patient must adhere to any aftercare regimen the doctor requires. Those who violate the doctor's orders suffer their injuries anew.
Exert your Mind and spend 15 minutes. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use basic medical supplies to activate this Effect. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Intellect + Medicine at Difficulty 8.
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. You may specify a specific condition that the patient must adhere to. If they break this condition, the treatment is immediately reversed. Record this regimen as a Condition. Lasts until the end of their next Contract or 1 month for non-Contractors.