The oracle dons the Witherheart Mask, which glows with a strange green mist. This mask is clearly magical, though seemingly only to predict the future as the oracle begins to speak their prophecy.
On mythology:
Cassiopeia has always been interested in the occult, to the point where she's done a double major involving Psychology and Classical Mythology. She's also incredibly curious about conspiracy theories, often going down lengthy rabbitholes, though part of her keeps a distance from it in that she's only reading a fictional story. With this gift she could very well bring them to life, and she's doing it all for the funsies.
On prophecies:
One has seen enough self-fulfilling prophecies in everyday life to know that people are very easily influenced by their own wills to stick to a path or stray from one completely. Though, it inevitably ends up the way it was predicted. If you were driving a car and trying not to hit a tree on the road, your focus is so solely on the tree that you veer towards it anyway. Cassiopeia is making use of this age-old hubris, this fallacy that "I'm not like them, I won't end up like this". She's not any better than this, of course she falls into this cycle too, but at least she's aware that it does happen.
On wordplay:
If she's going to use her arsenal of words learned from 4 years of being an Arts student, it's only fair to allow the listener some level of free will. Let them play their cards against what they perceive to be Apollo's blessing, when in reality it all relies on Cassiopeia's competence.
Exert your Mind and spend at least one Action. Select a Human target within 20 feet. Your target may be actively engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.
If the contested Outcome is positive, your target will be compelled to follow your command to the letter-- but not necessarily the spirit-- of the command until they have completed it or for your Contested Outcome in hours. You cannot issue another suggestion to the target until 10 minutes after they have completed the first command or 10 minutes after a failure.
The target is unaware that they are under supernatural influence and feel they are acting of their own free will. If you fail, they realize that you were attempting to influence them supernaturally with your command.
Your command can be an order to take an immediate Action and a conditional request. You cannot order a target to "do nothing," and they are free to take other Actions as they fulfill your request. Your command cannot be obviously self-destructive. The Effect ends if following your command would cause a target to cross one of their Limits in a way that would necessitate a Trauma roll.
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.
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Exert your Mind, 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 on a dark environment and you must have a personal item that the dead target had in life. You must use up Black Obsidian in order to activate this Effect.
Your target rises as an Animate being which is ghostlike and incorporeal, unable to physically interact with the real world, though they may pass through walls and make noise. 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.
Your risen ghost may "rest" inside the object, location, or person they are bound to and emerge whenever they wish.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
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.
Your eyes takes on a foggy white colour and your voice become ethereal
Spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach. For dead targets, you must possess their remains, even just a little bit of it.
The target can communicate in your language for the next hour.
Communicating with a being cannot directly damage your Mind or cause Injury. All rolls to resist Effects that rely on communicating with you are made at -1 Difficulty.
A rapier with the shiniest 4140 steel with a dual edge blade. It has an colorful aura based off of the character using them.
This Artifact can be used as a thrusting sword. It is roughly the same size as a thrusting sword and just as difficult to conceal.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Melee, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +4 Weapon Damage.
This item is a living thing. When targeted, it counts as a Living Creature in addition to its other target types. If destroyed or abandoned for more than two days, it dies and becomes unusable.
You also gain the following effects:
A kiss of the blade and Raphael awakens from the silent! The handle lights up when he speaks!
Exert your Mind and an Action. Select a Raphael within arm's reach which could fit inside a rolling luggage bag (50 liters).
Your target will become Animated indefinitely. You may choose to end the effect at will, as a Free Action. This Artifact can only maintain one animated object at a time.
Animated Objects have the following restrictions and capabilities:
When this power is used, they stab the enemy right through the skin and almost through the body if it wasn't for the hilt it would be straight through the body.
This Artifact can be used as a knife. It is roughly the same size as a knife but can be collapsed into Lighter and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
Attack by rolling (Dexterity or Brawn) + (Melee or Brawl), Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +4 Weapon Damage. The target's Armor is fully effective against this damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The user experiences what it feels like to be unheard or ignored. When walking with the lighter or knife out you make no noise, its almost too hard to hear the noises you make.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You and any clothes or equipment you are wearing are partially obscured from hearing. All attempts to detect you using hearing are rolled at a -3 dice penalty, and all attempts to detect you where hearing would assist are rolled at -1 penalty.
Entering Combat or being Injured does not cause the Effect to end early. Anyone you attack will immediately notice you; anyone else may re-roll to notice you each time you take a Combat action, at -1 Difficulty per Combat action you have taken. When the Effect ends, it is disabled for 1 hour.
The bottle tends to find its way back to me. Dunno why.
This Artifact cannot be broken. If this Artifact is lost and in no one else’s possession, it finds its way back to its true owner during the next Downtime.
By default, the creator of this Artifact is its true owner. The true owner may formally bequeath this Artifact onto another person within arm’s reach, after which they are its true owner. If the true owner dies or is destroyed, their ownership ends. If this Artifact has no true owner, anyone may spend one day attuning to it to become its true owner.
If this Artifact is in no one else’s possession, its true owner may Exert their Mind and spend two Actions to bring it to themselves.
Overturning the empty pill bottle, a single pill falls out. The target must ingest the pill only after telling the bottle's owner about what it is they need to forget. If they don't, the pill will choose - this usually leads to an episode of short term memory loss or the subject forgetting large swaths of their past. Thankfully, those cases are not always permanent.
Expend a point of Battery to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Your target must make a Trauma roll to reap the benefits of this Effect. They may choose to Resist the Effect and not make the roll. Over the course of one day, 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 + Influence at Difficulty 6.
Your target may Resist. 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 talk about this artifact, the person who used it on them, or whatever was cured for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.
Once per day per target, you may choose to use this Effect to stabilize the Mind of a target within arm's reach. Treatment takes 30 seconds but will not remove any Traumas. If you are successful, restore 2 Mind damage.
You may choose to use this Effect to temporarily relieve any number of the patient's Traumas (including mental Conditions). In this case, Treatment takes an Action and the effect lasts two hours. If the Patient is currently experiencing an episode, Difficulty is increased by 2.
Overturning the empty pill bottle, a single red pill falls out. Usually, this is a potent healing anomaly which can cure almost any injuries sustained by the ingester. Sometimes, it is a faulty copy, which causes sore growths around the space that was meant to be healed.
Expend a point of Battery and spend 1 minute. 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 give the target a faulty pill - it causes a cancerous growth around the wound, which creates a Soft Spot battle scar. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Charisma + Medicine 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.
Overturning the empty pill bottle, a single red pill falls out. Usually, this is a potent healing anomaly which can cure almost any long term injuries sustained by the ingester. Sometimes, it is a faulty copy, which causes an incredibly dangerous re-opening of the wound that was meant to be healed.
Expend a point of Battery and spend a minute. Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you inflict a sev 4 injury with a bleeder battlescar. Select up to four Battle Scars on your target to treat.
The treated Battle Scars heals as you finish activating this Effect. If used on a Battle Scar caused by an Unstabilized Injury, that Injury is Stabilized.
Your patient is required to not take another pill from this artifact for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.
The artifact holds at least one demon bound to obey the commands and will of the wielder and advance their interests. When used a demon crawl's its way out of the object, and leap out, looking for enemies.
The demon in this iteration looks like a small creature of shadow, about the proportions of a human 10-year-old, but stretched upwards to be thin and lanky with dark scales, blank white eyes, clawed fingers and thin leathery wings. When firing at range, they shoot dark blades that dissipate after impact.
The demon can speak, reporting on anything it sees, and apply a level of intelligence to understanding the world around it.
This artifact is made by summoning a demon, making a deal with it, and binding it to the object in a long ritual.
Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action.
Summon a single Sapient Bound shadow Imp at your location. They last until they are destroyed They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. This Artifact may have at most one active at a time.
The Scepter of Ang-Kapal is a gruesome device fashioned to look like a skeletal arm clutching a glass eye. When used, blood from the person holding is drawn into the eye where it swirls with dark energy. The eye turns to a nearby corpse and shudders, reviving the creature. The creature does not retain any of its memories or personality, but it is absolutely loyal to whoever is holding the scepter.
The Scepter of Ang Kepal has the unfortunate side effect of driving its owner mad.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach with at least half its skeletal structure remaining. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means. If you fail or Botch, you receive one Mind Damage and a new Trauma.
Your target rises as an Animate being. The raised creature is totally mindless, with no memory of its past life or hint of its old personality. They cannot communicate. They will follow any command you speak.
The creature lasts for eight hours 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 Charisma and Intellect are set to 1, but their Dexterity, Brawn and Perception are the same as they had in life. A raised creature cannot use any Effects.
Destroying one of your zombies requires a called shot to the head or heart. All other Injuries zombies suffer result in Battle Scars only, limiting their mobility and effectiveness in other ways.
Your revived targets deal 2 Weapon Damage with their unarmed attacks.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
If the Selkie's seal skin is worn close to the body, any contact with salt water will cause them to transform into a seal. While transformed, they have full access to their normal suite of Powers.
This Effect activates whenever you are submerged in salt water. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event.
You transform into small for two hours or until you choose to end the Effect. See the Extended System text for stats.
While transformed, you cannot use any equipment (including Artifacts and Consumables), and you cannot use your Active, Targeted, or Trap Powers. However, you can use your Passive Powers. Any equipment you are wearing transforms with you.
Injuries and Wound Level are carried over between forms. However, transforming can never kill you; you merely remain Incapacitated until your Injuries are sufficiently healed.
The Axe of Legend's blade has been imbued with the metal of the dark lord of rock and roll. It shreds chords and flesh. The rock god commanding it may recall it to their hand at will.
This Artifact can be used as a sword / axe. It is roughly the same size as a sword / axe and just as difficult to conceal.
Attack by rolling Brawn + Melee, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +4 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The Predatory Raiment has a cloak feature that allows its owner to hide themselves and their equipment with active camouflage. When viewed, they look like a slightly shifted and shimmering version of the surrounding environment.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are not at all wet and you are wearing this Artifact.
You and everything you are carrying is obscured in one of the following manners. You may Spend an Action to change the way in which you're concealed.
While this Effect is active, any Effect that would obscure you or your equipment specifically from other, additional senses fails automatically.
If someone discovers you, this Effect will not help you hide from them for the next minute. This Effect does not end early when you activate an obvious Effect, attack, or receive an Injury.
"The Coffin" can only be used to store things commonly found in coffins, such as bodies, clothes, jewelry, photos, weapons, coins, and similar.
This Artifact holds 5 times what it normally could inside of it. Objects stored inside are weightless. Unless you are storing something commonly found in coffins, this Artifact behaves as its mundane counterpart. This Effect cannot be used unless you are storing something commonly found in coffins.
Living things can be stored in this Artifact. They will have access to anything else inside and may attempt to break free, damaging or destroying the Artifact in the process.
If this Artifact is destroyed, things inside may get out, and it will cease to function until it is repaired.
When scanned or investigated without opening, the contents of this container appear normal and unremarkable.
On a Downtime, you may change this Artifact from one type of container to another. Maximum once per Downtime.
If anyone other than you opens the container, it appears empty. Others can still destroy it to get at the contents.