A 12-Victory Seasoned Contractor played by BobDylan530 in Maelstrom
He is 48 years old, and often appears as a slim 5'8" man with pale skin and dark brown hair, wearing a white polo and jeans.
Bill Brenner lives in Maelstrom, a setting where videos of the supernatural go viral every day. His journal has 1 entry.
3 Alertness
0 Animals
3 Athletics
0 Brawl
1 Crafts
2 Culture
0 Drive
0 Firearms
3 Influence
4 Investigation
0 Medicine
2 Melee
0 Occult
3 Performance
0 Science
4 Stealth
0 Survival
4 Technology
3 Thievery
6 Subterfuge
Through the use of clever rhetoric, Bill is able hold a brief conversation with people and inspire a surge of emotion in them.
Exert your Mind and spend one minute to activate. Select a number of Living targets equal to your Charisma within arm's reach as well as a specific emotion. This Effect cannot be used unless you are engaged in conversation with your targets. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. Affected targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 8.
If you succeed, for the next hour, affected targets will do things they otherwise wouldn’t have done, inspired by the chosen emotion. They will not necessarily display their emotions in an obvious way.
Actions they take will be in keeping with their character and the way they tend to deal with strong emotions. They will be unlikely to change their mind about any actions taken or decisions made until after the Effect ends.
Both attacking someone and being attacked will end the Effect.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is the subject matter of the conversation relates to the emotion he is inspiring. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
Bill is able to transform an ordinary ballpoint pen into a monitoring device that is inconspicuous enough to blend in to most settings, but advanced enough to allow 360 degree surveillance as well as audio capture.
Bill can leave these spy pens behind in a location, and will be able to see through them as if he was standing at their location. The feed is also uploaded to an app on his phone which stores a recording of anything that it picked up.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a target within 10 feet. You must actively and obviously use a ballpoint pen to activate this Effect.
You place a ward, which is fixed to a target Object that can be moved and repositioned. You can hear and see through the ward as though you were standing at its location. You may have at most 3 wards running at once.
The ward requires Concentration to monitor, though it will remain active until you deactivate it. The ward can be discovered if someone knows what they are looking for, but is otherwise inconspicuous and cannot be identified as a ward.
Your Ward records all activity it observes, regardless of whether or not you are actively monitoring it. This recording can be played back and referenced later.
Bill keeps his important possessions stored in a pocket realm which he can access through the sleeve of his shirt.
Spend a Quick Action to activate. This Effect cannot be used unless you have sleeves through which to store/withdraw items.
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 Objects in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a ziploc snack bag (1 liter), and you may store up to 7 things at a time.
You may choose to equip any equipment you withdraw at no additional cost.
Bill is well trained and always has an eye out for even the smallest details.
You gain the following benefits at all times.
Your Perception rating is increased by 0. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Perception (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).
You also gain the following effects:
Through clever sleight of hand, or through a simple financial transaction, Bill places a coin on his target's person - could be a quarter, could be a penny, whatever he has on hand - and will be able to detect the how far away the coin is, as well as in which direction. It feels slightly warm to the touch, as if it had been sitting in a hot car earlier that day, and if anyone looks closely at it, the eyes of Mr. Lincoln (or Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and occasionally Kennedy) seem to follow them, like a painting in an episode of Scooby Doo.
Spend an Action to activate. Select a target within arm's reach.
Your target is marked with a small coin until it is removed or until you choose to end the Effect. The mark can be easily removed if it is discovered.
You are aware of the marked target's direction and distance from you. You can have up to 1 mark active.
This Gift's level is capped at 2 Gifts and cannot be increased further.
Bill is well practiced at reading people, and can use subtle clues from dialogue and body language to discern someone's desires, as well as whether or not their behavior is being influenced by a deal or contract they are subject to. He must be engaged in conversation with someone in order to pick up on these details, and someone paying close attention might notice him making an unusual amount of eye contact with his target.
Spend a minute to activate. Select a Sapient target within arm's reach. You must continuously interact with the individual in question in order to gather any information. At the end of your investigation, roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is somewhat excessive eye contact. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
Any information you gather is spoken aloud or heavily implied during your conversation and made publicly available.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
You have broken past the illusion of American materialism and are able, through a brief but intense focusing of your will while flipping through your passport, to entirely change your appearance, and even to replicate the appearance of others, with a degree of specificity which allows you to easily pass for local.
Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions to activate.
You become disguised in a manner of your choosing. The disguise lasts until you either activate a new disguise, or choose to end the effect.
The new appearance may have a different sex, age, and race to your own, and you may alter height by up to a foot and your weight by 50%. Your disguise may directly mimic the appearance of a specific individual. You may change the appearance of your outfit. A disguise cannot affect your Attributes or other stats.
You can "pass" in any culture or group without arousing suspicion as long as you look normal for that group and can communicate with those inside the group.
By flipping to a specific page near the back of his passport, Bill can temporarily phase his physical self into a small pocket realm contained within the passport. He cannot affect the real world while there, but is still able to perceive himself and his consciousness as existing, and may return to the location from which he vanished at any point (he will return automatically after a few minutes, as the pocket realm is unstable and cannot remain structurally sound much longer than that).
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect.
You phase out of reality for up to 10 minutes. During this time, you cannot perceive or affect the outside world but may take mental and self-targeting Actions. You cannot move. Nothing can interact with you in any way.
When you activate this Effect, you may limit its duration to a period of your choosing. If you are able, you may also end it as a Free Action on your initiative.
Bill is able to channel collective energy through his passport, using it to teleport him directly to a new location. His passport glows with a white light before blinking and whisking him away to another place.
Exert your Mind and spend 2 rounds to activate. Select a Location within your line of sight.
You are transported directly to the chosen Location. You must wait 1 full Round before activating this Effect again.
Bill can make his passport appear as any form of identification.
This Artifact can change its appearance. When not transformed, it is roughly the same size as a passport and just as difficult to conceal.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. This Artifact changes its appearance into an Object within the category of Forms of Identification. This lasts until you decide to end the Effect, which may be done as a Free Action.
The new object's appearance can mimic specific items (such as a particular painting, a certain person’s ID, etc), but must be of a similar size and weight to this Artifact.
The new appearance is illusory; it will hold up to scrutiny, but its composition is not altered and it gains no new functionality. Any attempt to use it for a function which it cannot perform (for instance, making bread look like a knife and then trying to stab someone) will cause the illusion to fail or allow a Perception check to see through the illusion, at the GM's discretion.
Alexa used to be a chip implanted inside the brain of Alexandra, a Contractor who died tragically during a Contract. Bill was along for that job, managed to salvage the chip before leaving town... and he has now implanted said chip within a smart watch, allowing the AI Alexa to evolve and grow.
Alexa has access to all the functionality of the 42 chip, and will sometimes help Bill out by utilizing it.
https://www.thecontractrpg.com/characters/view/c/1535/
To create your companion, use a similar procedure to creating a new Character. Instead of 150 Experience, you may spend no more than 64. You may not take Assets or Liabilities. Companion creatures have one Limit. You may spend any experience you earn on your companion's stats, if desired.
Regardless of your chosen Attributes and Abilities, the Actions available to any creature depend on the creature itself. For example, an elephant will not be able to make much use of the Stealth Ability.
Companion creatures cannot use tools or human technology.
Companions are capable of general communication skills and know one language. Your companion is controlled by you, though if you are separated, the GM may take some liberties to preserve drama and suspense.
Any roll to locate your companion (or vice-versa) is rolled at -2 Difficulty.
On Body:
Wallet:
Bag/Backpack:
Up My Sleeve:
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.