A Ported Veteran Contractor played by BobDylan530 in NC Reborn
They are 35 years old, and often appears as Tall (6'2"), lean but muscular, and totally bald, including eyebrows. Generally wears a tuxedo but often wears sackcloth, and carries a sabre in a sheath at his side. Both Ellis and the sword have a glowing golden aura around them that illuminates both of them but not the area around them.
Ellis McGruber lives in NC Reborn, a setting .
3 Alertness
0 Animals
3 Athletics
0 Brawl
2 Crafts
2 Culture
2 Drive
0 Firearms
0 Influence
3 Investigation
0 Medicine
5 Melee
3 Occult
0 Performance
1 Science
0 Stealth
2 Survival
2 Technology
0 Thievery
2 Chemistry
6 Demolitions
Circumstances describe your situation.
Examples include enemies, wealth, notoriety, social status, contacts, fame, and imprisonment.
Because each Playgroup has its own setting, Circumstances record the Playgroup they were acquired in.
Conditions describe your state of being.
Examples of Conditions include curses, diseases, and impactful personality quirks.
Conditions are granted by Assets and Liabilities or by GMs based on the events of Contracts and Downtime activities like Moves, and Loose Ends.
Because Conditions may have GM-created systems, they also record the Playgroup they were acquired in.
Loose Ends will cause problems for you if you don't tie them up.
Examples of Loose Ends include enemies, debts, evidence, and promises.
All Loose Ends have a Cutoff that counts down each time you attend a Contract. When it hits zero, the Threat of your Loose End manifests, causing issues for your Contractor.
You cannot see the current values of your Loose Ends' Cutoffs, but you can take initiative and make Moves on your Downtimes to deal with them before time runs out.
Ellis can sculpt plastic explosives such that they appear to be nothing more that children's toys. These objects have a blue coloration or tint, and don't appear to be anything but the mundane object whose appearance they have taken.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a brick of plastic explosive within arm's reach.
The target becomes disguised with a new forged appearance of your choice, which must fit within the theme of children's toys. You may have up to 3 Forgeries active concurrently and may choose to end the effect at will as a Free Action.
The new appearance must be relatively generic, cannot mimic specific items (such as a particular painting, a certain person’s ID, etc), and must be of a similar size and weight to the targeted Object. The forged appearance will generally hold up to any mundane scrutiny, though exceptions can be made at GMs discretion.
Ellis has such a strong connection with his Bonded explosives that he can see through what would be their eyes, if they were people. Which they aren't. Bombs are just objects... At any rate, in order to see details around his frie...bomb, Ellis will have to devote his full attention to monitoring the ward, making him vulnerable. However, he will also be alerted should any beings touch the warded explosive (if he's not too distracted to notice the alert).
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a target within 10 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the bomb in question has undergone the Ritual of Bomb Bonding. You must actively and obviously use a bomb to activate this Effect.
You place a ward, which is fixed to a target Object that can be moved and repositioned. You can see through the ward as though you were standing at its location. You may have at most 8 wards running at once.
The ward requires Concentration to monitor, though it will remain active until you deactivate it. It can be detected with a roll and destroyed through mundane means.
You may declare a condition to watch for on an active Ward. If it occurs, you may roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 6, to notice it, even if you are not actively monitoring that ward.
You may activate another Effect through one of your Wards as if you were standing at its location. The Ward is destroyed afterward.
Ellis has his own personal realm of holding in which he can store explosives for future use.
In order to store a bomb, Ellis must first have performed the Ritual of Bomb Bonding with this particular explosive. This ritual lasts three minutes, and involves a complex geometric dance. During the ritual, the bomb will detonate and then immediately piece itself back together several times, imbuing a small fragment of Ellis' soul within it. No damage will be dealt to anything, but anything within a 3 meter radius that is flammable might appear slightly singed. Once a bomb is Bonded, it will remain that way until it is destroyed.
To store the bomb, Ellis places his hand on top of the Bonded explosive, upon which the explosive appears to detonate in a small area covering his hand. Re-summoning a bomb looks as if another small explosion occurred but in reverse.
Spend a Free Action to activate. This Effect cannot be used unless the bomb being stored has undergone the Ritual of Bomb Bonding.
You may withdraw an item from your stash, or add an item that is within arm’s reach to your stash. You may store bombs in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a briefcase (15 liters), and you may store up to 35 of them at a time.
Ellis has spent so much time working with explosives that he can distinctly remember how they smell, to the point where he can pinpoint the location of any explosives or volatile chemicals that are nearby simply by sniffing the air.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate.
You automatically detect all explosives / volatile chemicals within 50 feet of you for the next ten minutes. You have a clear sense of both the distance and direction towards any detected items. You get details of what each detected item is, as if you've glanced at each object.
Even while this Effect is not active, if any explosives / volatile chemicals come within 50 feet of you, you may roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 7 to detect them.
Through his faith in the Lord, Ellis is able to stretch bread and fish to extreme lengths, feeding a seemingly endless number of people from what appear to be meager supplies.
Spend an Action to activate. Select a target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use bread or a fish to activate this Effect.
For the next 24 hours, your target does not require any food, water, or sleep. Any attempts to age your target fail.
This Gift's level is capped at 2 Gifts and cannot be increased further.
Ellis' faith in the Lord has blessed him with the sustenance necessary to constantly continue his ministry. He can last for months without food, and has gone close to a month without water on occasion. No one has seen him sleep in years, and his features don't seem to suffer the effects of aging. However, he does frequently appear to be bathed in a halo of warm golden light.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You may go five times longer than a normal human without food, water, and sleep. You no longer age naturally, and supernatural attempts to age you fail.
Ellis has the power to create and ignite small lines of gunpowder at the tips of his fingers, as well as access to a small blowtorch from his index fingers. His hands appear constantly charred and sooty, with his pointer fingers glowing like soft embers.
The gunpowder created by this Gift will never be enough to create a full explosive, and will do at most 1 damage if it is ignited directly on someone's skin (and they don't just move out of the way or dust it off).
You gain the following benefits at all times.
You are permanently and visibly transformed: your hands constantly appear charred and sooty, and your pointer fingers glow softly like embers. You are considered to be a Sapient, Living being when targeted..
Your body provides you with the functionality of a blowtorch and small gunpowder fuses. If used to attack, these "tools" use the same stats as a small knife.
Ellis can withdraw a bonded bomb and cause it to detonate in a specific way, causing a violent detonation within a contained area.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a Location no further than 50 feet from you and in your line of sight. You must use up an explosive which has undergone the Ritual of Bomb Bonding in order to activate this Effect. The area within 10 feet of the chosen Location immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Roll Intellect + Technology 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 10 feet of the chosen Location with Damage equal to your Outcome + 4. Armor is reduced to 1/4, rounded up against this damage.
Due to his special affinity for explosives, Ellis is able to remotely impose his will on them, causing them to detonate (or theoretically, to disarm, but why would you ever want to STOP an explosion?). Any time he uses this to detonate an explosive, Ellis undergoes what seems like a sneeze, except that steam shoots out of his ears and his skin blazes the color of a hot fire, before rapidly cooling off back to a normal whiteish pink.
Exert your Mind and spend 15 minutes to activate. Select a Device within 300 feet. Does not work on Alien technology. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is an explosive device. 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. The hacking roll and their defensive roll are both 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.
Ellis has become one with the bomb, allowing himself to re-integrate his body back together when it has been disintegrated in an explosion, and can even save another person in this manner, providing he was able to reach them before the explosion went off. Anyone watching the area for ten seconds or so after the fact would see a sort of abstract impressionist painting of him, dots expanding apart and then reforming into a solid person.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. This Effect cannot be used unless you are within the radius of an active explosion.
You phase out of reality for 3 Rounds. During this time, you cannot perceive or affect the outside world or take any Actions. Nothing can interact with you in any way.
When you phase out, you may bring 1 other targets you are touching with you.
You leave an image of yourself in an abstract impressionist style exploding and then unexploding in slow motion behind at your location in the real world when you use this effect.
Ellis' brain is a finely tuned machine. He never forgets details, and is keenly aware when it is being fucked with.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your Intellect rating is increased by 1. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Intellect (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).
You also gain the following effects:
Ellis can withdraw a bonded bomb and cause it to detonate in a specific way, causing a bright flash of light and a loud pop which stuns anyone in a small radius.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a Location within 300 feet. You must use up an explosive which has undergone the Ritual of Bomb Bonding in order to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Technology at Difficulty 7.
If you succeed, all Animate targets within 20 feet of the chosen Location 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.
Ellis can withdraw a bonded bomb and cause it to detonate in a specific way, assaulting the minds of anyone in the radius and driving them to repent for their sins.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Choose a location within 300 feet. All Sapient targets within 300 feet within 20 feet of it are affected. You must use up an explosive which has undergone the Ritual of Bomb Bonding in order to activate this Effect. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 8. If they are incapacitated or unconscious, they fail automatically.
If they fail, affected targets will take 1 point of Mind damage and gain a Compulsion to punish themselves for sinful behavior as a Trauma. This trauma 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.
Ellis' time spent with the sword Esperachius has deepened his faith and helped him to rise above concerns of the flesh or the mind. He is no longer held back by injury or distraction of any kind, choosing instead to persevere and act in accordance with the Lord.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
Your Body and Mind Penalties are reduced to 0.
If you are Stunned, you may Exert your Mind to instead still take actions, but at a -2 penalty, for the duration of the Stun. If you are knocked out, drugged, or otherwise made unconscious, you may Exert your Mind to wake up.
Any dice penalty from being stunned, diseased, cold, hot, dizzy, sick, distracted, or similar circumstances is reduced to zero. Does not affect penalties from Effects you activated.
Ellis' sword Esperachius is a blessed sword, and there is a deep connection between the two, making it hard for others to use it. Should it ever be stolen, lost, or misplaced, Ellis will feel a painful tugging in it's general direction, and will struggle to maintain his sanity until he is reunited with the sword.
This Artifact cannot be broken.
Anyone but this Artifact's creator must Exert their Mind to wear this artifact or activate any of its Effects.
This Artifact's creator is always aware of the direction and distance to this Artifact.
This Artifact's creator must have it with them to have restful sleep. They cannot regain Mind or Source while separated from this Artifact.
The Sword of the Lord protects Ellis from the corrupting rot of sin. While he retains Esperachius, he is immune to disease, both mundane and supernatural, and may beseech the Lord to rid him of poisons, both mundane and supernatural. As a sign of this protection, he is consumed with a soft golden glow, which blazes bright whenever he prays for healing.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You are immune to all non-Alien diseases, poisons, toxins, or drugs, even if modern medicine has no known treatment for them.
Ellis's miracles have expanded into the treatment and curing of poisons and diseases. To do so, however, he requires a ceremonial dedication (or often re-dedication) to the service of God. This takes fifteen minutes, during which Ellis and the patient pray together and Ellis performs some ritualistic bloodletting with Esperachius. The bloodletting wounds burn with holy, golden fire, attacking the sinful disease or poison and expelling it from the body.
Exert your Mind and spend 15 minutes to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Your target takes a Severity 1 Injury.
You may cure any any number of diseases or poisons afflicting your target even if you have not diagnosed or fully understood them. You may cure diseases or poisons even if they are not treatable through modern medicine. During treatment, the malady you are treating does not progress or cause additional damage or other effects.
Ellis wields a mighty sword, Esperachius, forged from the very nail used to hang Jesus upon the cross. This is a blessed sword, and the Lord's will channels through it. It will never fully strike a creature not damned or tainted by a demonic presence; the wielder will find it simply too heavy to swing, and non-demonic entities will find the blade relatively dull to the touch. However, against those enemies the Lord has condemned to die, Ellis may sally forth with divine speed and smite them down with a ferocious blow.
This Artifact can be used as a Sword/Axe. It is roughly at least twice as large as a Sword/Axe and cannot be concealed on your person or disassembled for storage Unless it is being used against a demon or other damned or tainted creature, this Artifact behaves as its mundane counterpart.
Attack by rolling Brawn + Melee, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal 1 Weapon Damage +5 Bonus Damage. The target's Armor is reduced to 1/4, rounded up against this damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The Lord protects you from evil. You are bathed in a glowing golden aura of Faith, marking you as one of the Lord's servants to any with knowledge of such things. Any attacks from Demons or creatures which are demonically tainted are slowed by your aura of Faith, often failing to reach you at all. Should one of their attacks make it through, the act of coming so close to a holy man hurts them just as much.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You have 5 Armor, which only reduces damage taken from attacks made by demons or demonic entities. Any armor piercing effects from attacks made by demons or demonic entities are ignored. Armor from multiple sources does not stack.
When you take damage from a source which is within 5 feet of you, your Armor deals 2 back to them.
The Lord has granted Ellis peace of mind, warding off attacks against his mental fortitude, and warning him of those who would tempt him down an evil path.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You get +2 dice to any Mind resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:
Ellis chants the psalms and thrusts Esperachius straight up into the air. The area around him becomes consecrated by the Lord and is bathed in a warm, golden light, expelling all abominations against the Lord and preventing them from attacking anyone remaining.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. Roll Charisma + Melee at Difficulty 6.
Create a repulsion field which extends out 45 feet from you in every direction, and lasts for the next minute. Any demonic or undead entities within the field cannot move any closer towards you. If they were within 45 feet from you when you activated the effect, they are immediately pushed back to the edge of the repulsion field.
You must maintain Concentration during this Effect.
You may spend an Action or Reaction and Roll Charisma + Melee at Difficulty 6. to use your repulsion field to Defend against all attacks made towards you during that round of Combat. This does not break your Concentration.
You must remain standing in the same location while this Effect is active. Moving to a new location will interrupt your Concentration and end the Effect.
Ellis whispers a quiet prayer to the Lord, holding Esperachius in his hand. For a while afterwards, both he and all nearby demonic beings become revealed to each other, each seeing the other as being surrounded in an aura of golden light.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate.
You automatically detect all demonic entities within 300 feet of you for the next minute. This includes any who come within range during the duration. You have a sense of how many valid targets are nearby and their direction, and you have a clear sense of both the distance and direction towards any detected beings. This information is accurate enough to use for aiming at them, at +1 Difficulty.
Even while this Effect is not active, if any demonic entities come within 300 feet of you, you may roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 7 to detect them.
Any demonic entities detected while the 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 300 feet of you.
All demonic entities who you can sense are equally able to sense you.
Trophies are special objects and equipment.
Examples of Trophies include healing potions, scrolls, sci-fi technology, or any supernatural item that was not created with The Contract's Gift system.
Because Trophies may have GM-created systems, they also record the Playgroup they were acquired in.