When pressed against themselves, the wielder feels a wave of despair and loss overtake them rather than actually piercing their flesh. Dragging the blade across their body fully invokes the transformation, twisting and changing their body into an agent of their own suffering.
The Arch-Vampire has an innate feeling of 'wrongness' to look at. Porcelain skin with veins of blackened blood, and an ambient aura of black-fire malice.
Broken Thorn is a manifestation of the one who brought it into being, the vampire Lorelei. The blade was formed after Lorelei was forced to experience warmth and acceptance again and again, even as her monstrous self. A home-cooked meal mixed with human blood without judgement, a vision of Melody's old friends around her on the hospital bed after having saved her, the loyal attentions of a feline servant, and seeing the carefree joy of a little girl so much like her.
The vampire tore the dreams she had in life from her heart, corrupted as they were from loneliness and suffering, and fused them with the power she received from the Contract.
No one would hurt her again. Never again.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. This Effect cannot be used unless you have drunk at least a pint of blood from a sapient being in the last hour.
You transform into an Arch-Vampire for 30 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are an Arch-Vampire, and you can use your equipment. Your Battle Scars, Injuries, and physical Liabilities are carried over between forms. Reverting from your Alternate Form cannot cause your existing Injuries to kill you. Instead, you remain Incapacitated.
While transformed, your Brawn is increased by 2 and your Dexterity is increased by 2. You do not suffer any Stress while transformed.
While transformed, instead of your normal clothes and equipment, you are equipped with: A red cloak, red gloves, dark metal armor plates (3 armor obvious), heeled black boots, the Broken Thorn, and, if held when activating this effect, the Tenebrae Magnus Gladius. The inner cloak is filled with knives in sheathes numbering 30 in total. (+2 armor for sheer volume of metal)
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see you draw your blade across your neck, splattering blackened blood across the floor, and transform with a swirl of black malice and a horrible noise into an even more monstrous form.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma: Broken Dreams - (Nightmares). If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
The suit begins to move faster, and the glow from the Defensive Focus begins to glow around the entire suit. As it moves and fights, pieces of it are teleported on and off as needed, being replaced with spares or fortified by Ware's EDT in real-time.
The suit senses the panic of the wearer, and asks a simple question:
Disable Limiters?
Y/N
After agreement is given, it plugs directly into the user's system in various places throughout the body, directly overriding and supplementing the signals from their brain. This process is... not pleasant. It could, however, be the difference between life and death.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend a Quick Action. 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.
You transform into a WareSuit in Overdrive Protocol Mode for 3 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are a WareSuit in Overdrive Protocol Mode, and you can use your equipment. Your Battle Scars, Injuries, and physical Liabilities are carried over between forms. Reverting from your Alternate Form cannot cause your existing Injuries to kill you. Instead, you remain Incapacitated.
While transformed, your Brawn is increased by 3 and your Dexterity is increased by 3. You do not suffer any Stress while transformed.
After this Effect ends, you cannot move quicker than a walk (15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
WareTech, when properly fitted, can expand the user's senses to show them electromagnetic fields and electric signals in their vicinity. This feature is generally disabled to save on processing power, but can be enabled at will as long as the user concentrates on it.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
Your senses are enhanced in the following way.
Any heightened senses require you to maintain Concentration to use, and do not apply to any passive Perception checks.
A mix of GPS and Leyline detection technology allows the artifact to find its owner wherever they are, via Ware's EDT technology. The user focuses their attention into the device implanted in them, and the item - wherever it is - gets disassembled by an almost imperceptible beam. It makes a stop in Ware's EDT room before another almost imperceptible beam makes the item materialize bottom up on the user.
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.
A holographic projection helps deal with any cameras that might be looking at the subject, while a "simple" perception filter helps fill in the finer details for anybody who is looking at them.
Inspired during her work reverse-engineering a T.O.P. Suit, Ware has realized the ability to hide what she's wearing while she's wearing it is even better than the ability to quickly make it disappear.
This Artifact can change its appearance. When not transformed, it is roughly the same size as a Exo-Skeleton and just as difficult to conceal.
Spend a Quick Action to activate. This Artifact changes its appearance into an Object within the category of Apparel. 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.
When used as identification and scanned, the scanner will act appropriately and bring up appropriate generic information. Further searches for the identity in the computer will turn up no results. This will not open security doors on its own.
When activating this effect, a little finagling is required to get the prototype to actually work - but once it's active, the artifact uses prediction technology to put itself in the way of danger, and actively protects the wearer: Either moving them out of the way or blocking hits for them with the light shimmer that outlines the exo-skeleton under their clothes.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Roll Intellect + Crafts at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a barrier around yourself, which absorbs the next Outcome +4 Damage. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. This Artifact may only have 1 active barrier at a time.
The barrier will fall after two hours, or if it absorbs the full amount of Damage. When a barrier falls, you cannot use this Effect again for a minimum of 2 Rounds.
A thin disc of plasma materializes in the user's hand from the device's glove, which can then be thrown to splatter against its target. It seems to eat through anything it splatters against, and only the device wrapped around the hand protects the user's fingers from a similar fate.
The plasma thrower has its own power source which is used not just to create the plasma itself, but also as a beacon for Ware's Extra-Dimensional Translator device - allowing the rest of the artifact to be Translated to her personal space until it is called for again.
This Artifact produces ephemeral projectiles that can be used as a shuriken. It is roughly the same size as a shuriken but can be collapsed into a bracelet and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Athletics, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +0 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
When wearing the artifact, it connects through the base of your skull and glows slightly there when activating its defenses.
A small disc plugs into the brain stem of the user, similar in appearance (when plugged in) to a "data-jack" type device. It allows anything with the correct kind of plug (Anything Ware has created, or modified to work with it after the fact) to monitor brain activity, and upon removal seals up the area with anesthetic and surgical glue.
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:
A Neckerchief is a core part of a chef's kit. Allowing them to cool down from the sweat, providing a way to wipe away sweat, also being able to be used to wrap around wounds and injury, with it, though, one will also find there's another core component to it. Allowing one to wipe their mouths without staining their outfits! This neckerchief, specially designed, can do so much more though, increasing one natural health over time and allowing one to withstand many illnesses and foodborne disease!
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You get +4 dice to any Body resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:
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 wearing a human form crawl's its way out of the object, and leaps out, looking for enemies.
The demon in this iteration looks like a beautiful human with dark eyes, black hair, and dark nail polish. When not attempting to hide it, they trail little bits of shadowy smoke, and bend shadows and light around them oddly. They have thin leathery wings that peel out from their back when they take flight. When firing at range, claws from their hand break off becoming needle like knives in the air.
The demon can speak, reporting on anything it sees, and apply a level of intelligence to understanding the world around it. It will die defending anyone it is ordered to defend.
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 Human seeming Bound greater shadow deceiver 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 data gathered from Laz's age changes have now allowed a greater understanding of cellular reconstruction. Laz's device now secretes nanites constantly into the user's bloodstream through dermal absorption. Activation reads brainwave patterns to determine the envisioned form and adjusts smoothly, preventing the tearing, gore, and nudity of the previous system. Yes, bones still shift under the skin, and clothing is reconstructed but in a much less disturbing display. Further, the reconstruction need no longer be actively maintained. Once complete, it remains until changed. Releasing a form, however, does still cost the wearer an exhaustive amount of energy that must be recovered.
After the events of a previous Contract, Laz wanted to be anyone else. Eliza helped him work out how he can be. Now he finds himself doing business with another face
Exert your Mind and spend a minute.
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 cannot directly mimic an existing person. You may change the appearance of your outfit. A disguise cannot affect your Attributes or other stats.
You may roll Charisma + Crafts to attempt to make your disguise Beautiful. If your Outcome is 6 or higher, non-Effect Charisma rolls where your good looks could help are rolled at -2 Difficulty. If you fail or botch, you are ugly instead, and non-Effect Charisma rolls are made at +2 Difficulty.
After this Effect ends, you cannot move quicker than a walk (15 feet per Round) for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.
After attaching the frame to their torso, the user must activate and sync the arm's internal operative systems with the neurological activity responsible for their own limbs-- requiring extensive input from the mind, voice, and body. The golden circuitry running across the chassis ripple with energy during this process. While in use, its origami folds are able to stretch, bend, and morph to fit the user's desired movements.
The calibration sequence to connect the arm requires the user to move around their joints (shoulders, elbows, and wrists) and read aloud a pangram (ex: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog").
The systems powering and controlling the arm are an intricate mix of various power sources all synchronizing together. Specifically, they are the culmination of its creator taking influence from his peers, a spatial mage and technomancer, to achieve the final result of a fully functional additional limb.
These include arm's handcrafted, moving folds (of which three are responsible for the core joint movement of a shoulder/elbow/wrist), the golden circuits that connect to the user's mind (branching into a sprawling, fractal pattern across the arm and acting as a signal booster/receiver for all the energy), and the internal technological programming (which are carefully integrated to run with the rest of the arm's systems).
The use of a pangram enables the internal systems to more easily find specific parts of the brain to connect to and the movement of the joints calibrate the arm's motions as well.
The arm's three primary folds, alongside the three sources of power (magic, technology, and clockwork-level crafting), serve as a double entendre inspiring the gift's final name.
Expend a point of Battery and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: activating and calibrating the arms with the user. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.
You gain an additional limb that functions as a standard human arm and hand. Lasts two hours.
Each additional limb you posses can take one Quick Action per Round without incurring a -2 dice penalty to your main Action. Any Battle Scars that affect or remove your additional limb will heal in a single week.
Your appendage is capable of bending and squishing in normally-impossible ways. It may fit through any gap that is not water-tight and retain its functionality.
Your extra appendage can stretch to reach an additional 30 feet.
Your extra appendage is not connected to your nervous or circulatory systems, and you will not take damage if it is hit by an attack or destroyed.
Your Extra Appendage counts as an object and can be hacked or targeted by any Powers that affect objects or machines. Injuries to your Extra Appendage cannot be healed by Powers that affect living things but may be repaired during Downtime.
As the activation ritual is performed, the origami wings unfold from the user's back and extend ten feet on all sides. Due to their modular structure-- being composed of countless amounts of paper sheets and feathers-- the wings are effectively immune to damage, as they repair themselves with replacement feathers the moment they are destroyed.
The calibration sequence to connect the wings to the user requires them to extend their arms to the side (reaching their wingspan) and read aloud a pangram (ex: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog").
The wings connect themselves to the user's inner Source or Mind to power their movements through the calibration sequence. Basically just imagine the wings the paper girl from Naruto uses (Konan).
Exert your Mind and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: activating and calibrating the wings with the user. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. This Effect remains active for two hours.
As long as you are conscious, you are immune to falling Damage. Additionally, you may glide as you fall, traveling 35 feet horizontally for every 10 feet you fall. While gliding, you fall at a minimum speed of 10 feet per Round.
You may ascend into the air and fly using your origami wings. You require 10 feet of clear space on all sides to fly. You may add 50 feet to Movement you take while flying.
You are subject to the following effects while gliding or flying:
The Four-Dimensional Scanner is able to reveal information not visible to the naked eye. You load a film roll into the bottom of the wand, stand in the center of the area you want to scan, then hold up the wand and release it. As the device is activated, the four arms open and begin to spin, and the scanner begins to float into the air. Holographic beams shoot out of the end of each arm and scan the entire area, piercing through structure and creature alike. Once the information has been gathered, the gyration will slowly cease as the wand floats back into the hand of the user. Upon contact, all of the revealed information is instantly downloaded directly to the user's brain. The spent roll of film will now show a large, inhuman eye that takes up the entire space open and then close.
Expend a point of Battery and spend a minute. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 500 feet You must use up Film Roll in order to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Investigation at Difficulty 6.
You learn the following information about the area:
You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.
Red eyes and horns form as the stone glows red. Abigal's fingers turn to dark claws as they grow into weapons meant to shed blood, ichor, or oil.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. Roll Dexterity + Melee Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling to Dodge or Defend as a Reaction, Difficulty 6.
If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 4. Armor is fully effective against this Damage.
Any Injury inflicted is considered unstabilized even if its Severity is less than 4. The equipment and roll required to Stabilize it is treated as though it is a minimum of Severity 6.
The target suffers a -3 dice penalty for the next hour or until the Injury is healed. This dice penalty does not stack multiple times on the same target.
If you successfully hit your target, the value of any Armor they are wearing is reduced by 2. For material armor, this penalty lasts until it is repaired. For intrinsic armor, it lasts until the end of Combat and any relevant wound is healed.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see Demonic Appernce is is made completely noticeable.
The bow is held like a smaller harp but has multiple colored strings that can be played for musical notes to fly into the air or to strike your enemies.
This Artifact can be used as a bow. It is roughly the same size as a bow and just as difficult to conceal.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Athletics, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +1 Weapon Damage. Attacks do not require a successful called shot to do damage.
You also gain the following effects:
Playing the instrument makes things appear, smell and hear like they are actually there such as Fireworks, flowers or musical notes.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. Choose an illusion to generate, which can be no larger than a person.
The chosen illusion is generated at your target, and it will remain in place for the next minute or you choose to end it. It can be perceived by people through their smell, hearing, and sight. The illusion cannot be used as an attack. You cannot make an exact replica of an existing Animate being or Object.
Anyone who touches the illusion (or who would be able to perceive it significantly through a sense it cannot fool) realizes it is an illusion and can choose to perceive it or not at will.
The illusion will remain fixed to its initial target, and can only change locations if the initial target is mobile in some way. It may have moving parts and engage in simple, predetermined movements but cannot perform anything complex or interactive unless you maintain Concentration and “puppeteer” it.
Drekhan plays his harp or does a fascinating dance to get the attention of the user. Wonderful colors flow around the user making them look attractive and irresistible.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. A number of Sapient, Living targets within 50 feet who can perceive you through no greater than your Charisma rating are affected. Audiences or mobs with a singular focus count as one target. Roll Charisma + Performance at Difficulty 6. All affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.
If you succeed, the targets will keep their full attention focused on you for Contested Outcome in minutes. They will automatically fail any rolls related to noticing anything other than you.
If you pass from their perception and they are unable to pursue you, the Effect ends. If they can follow you, they must do so for 2 Rounds or the Effect will end. The Effect will continue even if violence occurs nearby or if your target is Injured. It does end if the target takes Damage from a source other than you.
This does not affect the target’s opinion of you or their mood, and they may take any Actions while affected (including attacking), as long as that action centers on you. Fascinated targets cannot Concentrate.
Charred and triumphant, BETH☠️METAL's exploded tour bus returns to the land of the living once more. Still, neither of them seem to have returned unaltered.
Noli respicere post tergum in infernum.
This Artifact can be used as a spectral RV. It is roughly the same size as a spectral RV and just as difficult to conceal.
This spectral RV has soundproofing. Any roll to pilot this vehicle receives +2 dice.
You also gain the following effects:
Immersed in a place of death, the Black Coach takes a brief detour through the land of spirits. The earth opens, and you drive down into the sloping pit, emerging from the other side in a similar fashion shortly thereafter.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Location within your line of sight.
You are transported directly to the chosen Location. Anyone who is touching you as you Travel will be brought along with you. You must wait an hour before activating this effect again.
If you traverse any burial site for one minute, you may activate this Effect and travel to the edge of any other burial site that you’re aware of, regardless of range.
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 spy can do up their passport to take on the appearance of any valid form of identification they may need.
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.
When Winter Fang's glittering string is drawn, an ice arrow crystalizes nocked and ready to fire. These ice arrows melt quickly after piercing their foes, leaving deadly wounds instead of evidence.
This Artifact can be used as a bow. It is roughly at least twice as large as a bow and cannot be concealed on your person or disassembled for storage.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Athletics, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +3 Weapon Damage. Attacks do not require a successful called shot to do damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The "Reaper" Assault Helmet is the signature piece of the Future Soldier's arsenal. It has a sleek, design and is made of a mysterious matte-metallic alloy. The wearer's face is exposed normally, but when activated, a blue holographic visor flickers to life in front of the eyes. This HUD contains information about the soldier's ammunition and shield status, but more significantly can detect enemy combatants. Anyone nearby who is holding a weapon is painted with a red dot that follows them in real time. This allows the Future Soldier to fire at painted targets in the dark, detect ambushes lurking around corners, and grants an overall tactical advantage.
Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action.
You automatically detect all people wielding weapons within 300 feet of you for the next hour. This includes any who come within range during the duration. You have a sense of how many valid targets are nearby, as well as their distance and direction.
Companions gawk at the sheer size and quantity of the equipment the survivalist stores in the Bug-out Bag, but when they open it, they find only a standard set of survival gear. Only when the survivalist opens it is its true capacity revealed.
This Artifact holds 5 times what it normally could inside of it. Objects stored inside are weightless.
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.
If anyone other than you opens the container, it appears empty. Others can still destroy it to get at the contents.
The survivalist has depended on the Bug-out Bag for so long, they've formed a powerful bond with the pack. This bond renders the pack unbreakable, and grants the survivalist an understanding of what direction it's in at all times.
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.
This Artifact's true owner is always aware of the direction and distance to this Artifact.