Minerva lets out a breath, kneeling down and closing her eyes. For a moment, she slides into the Dreamlands, and examines the records there, reading the most recent census. As time is malleable in the Dreamlands, it just happened.
Using the system text Alien:
Alien: Something that is not of this world or not common to this world.
Exert your Mind and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: kneeling down, and closing her eyes, meditating for a short moment. You must actively and obviously use silver fox pendant to activate this Effect. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means.
You automatically detect all Alien beings within 1 mile 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.
You receive a common name for each being you detect.
Bummer & Lazarus - a pair of mongrel stray dogs much beloved by the denizens of San Francisco who wandered the streets of that fair city at the same time as the illustrious Emperor Norton the First. With the long wait for a successor now over, the spirits of these noble canines may be summoned up once more by the current Emperor, arriving from any nearby dumpster, alleyway, or similar when called. They otherwise look like ordinary dogs in every way.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use Imperial Raiment to activate this Effect.
Summon a single Stray Dog at your location. They will last until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. You may have at most 2 minions active at a time.
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Animal Lover.
The gift appears to be a large backpack. One can put any object inside and loudly declares, while holding the backpack, "If only I had [food item]". Be sure that there are no other items in the backpack, because they will be consumed.
(Note that one cannot request a whole dish; for example, they can order plain macaroni, but not mac and cheese).
Open the backpack after five minutes to reveal the requested food item, whose output weight matches that of the input. The taste of the food will depend on the value of the object. Make sure it's exactly 5 minutes. Who knows what'll happen if it isn't.
Black goo will always seep out from the bottom of the backpack when in use.
On the backpack:
It's easy enough to mistake for any backpack at all, and Delphyrion has not put a label on it. They have lost quite a few beakers and pens to it whenever they mused about their next experiment, as they often reach epiphanies by saying, "If only I had [food item]". Perhaps that's why the artifact works this way.
On food quality:
For some reason the output quality directly ties to the price of food in Orlando. So, put a 5-cent pencil in the backpack, and you'll get a 5-cent quality potato fry.
Also, yeah, make sure it's 5 minutes exactly. This is a theoretical number; no one has tried to test its limits, hence its reference to Schrodinger.
(On a critical fail, one fails to retrieve the food in time and it is either underdeveloped or spoiled.)
On the black goo:
Delphyrion themself isn't sure what it is, nor do they ever remember to analyze it. It doesn't seem to leave any residue on the backpack itself, though it stains quite horribly on porous material including skin. With enough washes it should go away.
If consumed, call the Poison Control Center and pray.
(Also pray that you are not Dephyrion, the chemist who has had 0 interaction with any religion at all, and therefore still thinks priests can get pregnant.)
On Madness:
One gets uncontrollably angry at the sight or mention of any food that did not come out of the backpack. It feels as if one is running a state-of-the-art restaurant, yet people line up for the nearby McDonald's instead. Delphyrion feels this way towards content farms like 1-minute arts.
Expend a point of Battery and spend 1 minute. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you think the backpack has created the intended food item. In fact, it appears and smells more delightful than it should, to the point that you are urged to eat it right away no matter what. You will develop Vertigo upon eating the food as it turns out to be incredibly poisonous.
Choose an Object which could fit inside a regular backpack (up to 27 liters). It must be Non-Alien and generic. You cannot create explosives. You cannot create firearms.
Roll Intellect + Crafts to fabricate your chosen Object. The Difficulty is assigned by the GM and depends on the specificity of your chosen Object. The created item lasts 2 hours.
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: No Outside Food - upon sight or mention of food that you did not create, roll Self-Control to contain the urge to cannibalize yourself or the person who brought up the food. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
River's skin hardens into chitinous plates that protect him from harm. The plates are most obvious on his back, shoulders, and legs. The rest of his skin looks normal but is much tougher.
In beast mode, this may manifest in more dramatic ways. Growing armored plates, scales, etc.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Roll Brawn + Athletics 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. You 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.
Skin twists, blackened veins pulse, joints pop - too many joints on that finger, take one away.
Eyes too bright, too focused - deaden them.
Stare into them and you find your skin raising despite your common sense. Your gut screams danger, but your friend looks at you with a smile.
Too wide.
That to destroy earth's music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;
We indulge her children within us.
Spend a minute to activate.
You become disguised in a manner of your choosing. The disguise lasts for two hours, or you may end it early at will.
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.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see black veins pulse, and skin slacken and fold away.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
This Effect ends if you take an Injury or are stunned or incapacitated.
Dipping the brush with your blood and paint and drawing the visage of a samurai will summon a single mighty warrior from feudal japan
Take a Severity-1 Injury and spend one minute. You must use up blood, paint and paper in order to activate this Effect.
Summon a single samurai at your location. They will last until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. This Artifact may have at most 1 minion active at a time.
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.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
The detective squints, drawing on years of police experience to find any hidden drugs, weapons, or other illegal objects, no matter how well-hidden.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You automatically detect all illegal materials within 50 feet of you for the next hour. You have a clear sense of both the distance and direction towards any detected items. You do not learn any details about the detected items.
The toon shouts a catchphrase, strikes a pose, and then zips away at a high speed, leaving a cloud of dust behind. While moving, they look like a blur.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
Whenever you use your Movement, after all other calculations, the distance you may travel is doubled.
The vampire sucks a copious amount of blood from a human and replenishes their own cursed flesh.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend 1 minute. This Effect cannot be used unless you drink blood directly from a human until it injures them. Choose a specific Injury on yourself that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Brawn + Occult 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.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see you drink blood directly from the vein.
The aquamancer spends a minute soaking their wounds in at least a gallon of water. During this time, the injured area is obviously absorbing the liquid, and the flesh visibly knits back together.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. You must use up at least a gallon of water in order to activate this Effect. Choose a specific Injury on yourself that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Brawn + Survival 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.
The beastmaster closes their eyes and channels nature's bloody struggle for survival. When their eyes reopen, they catch the light and glow red like a dog's. While in this heightened state, they may sense heat signatures and triangulate the tiniest sound.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
Your senses are enhanced in the following way. Lasts for three hours.