Eloquence: "Through words, actions, and established processes, Lawyers are able to effectively distort a target's thinking to a certain degree, making people feel very close to them or willing to trust them." [Charisma + Authority]
By structuring his words through deliberate, established processes, Nero is able to actively bend a target's will to be below his own, and force them to follow his exact orders. Any who succeed their resistance may realize that the authority Nero possesses is backed by something much deeper than pure strength of personality, however... and those especially aware may even notice the Black Emperor's visage line the officer's form when it happens.
Exert your Mind and spend at least one Action. Select a Human target within 20 feet. Your target cannot be engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Influence 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 their best understanding of the letter and 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.
Over time my people have learned how to harness our power of the bipeds to make them bow to our will.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a Living target within 45 feet as well as a specific emotion. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. Affected targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, for the next hour, your target 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.
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.
For a short moment, the handgun Smoldep wields glitches into a spectral neon grenade launcher as she rapid fires shots with glee, the murderous intent gleaming through her eyes. When the grenades go off, she revels in the literal bloodshed as comical amounts of blood and gore explode from the blast radius, the victims seeming like they’ve been hit by a mini-nuke. Smoldep cheerfully licks blood off her face.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location no further than 40 feet from you and in your line of sight. You must actively and obviously use a handgun to activate this Effect. The area within 25 feet of the chosen Location immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Roll Dexterity + Firearms 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 25 feet of the chosen Location with Damage equal to your Outcome + 4.
Any flammable Objects within the radius during the blast will catch fire, and any being who takes at least 4 Damage will catch fire. Starting the Round after they caught fire, flaming targets take 2 Damage per Round until the fire is extinguished.
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 it gorily overkill everything in sight as Smoldep grins.
Clusa can glean important information by a quick conversation
Exert your Mind and 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 + Investigation at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.
Green beams of light shoot from the users eyes, causing a reaction similar to sulfuric acid concentrated on the point where it hits. The consistent focus of the lasers can burn through many objects and melt through metals, given enough time.
Spend an Action. Select a target within 300 feet. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect. Roll Perception + Alertness 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 2. Armor is fully effective against this damage.
You may use this Effect to Defend or Clash in Combat, including against ranged attacks such as firearms.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
Observing the effects of the affliction up close, Nathan attaches a strip of yellow paper to the body of the afflicted as he incants a particular mantra in Mandarin.
As he does so, he builds the body of the talisman, drawing, preferably with cinnabar ink and a brush, from its head to its feet, before the malady is suppressed, the fu flaring to life momentarily, drying instantaneously.
The talisman is mainly composed of its head, gut and feet. Learning this particular effect from school under the Three Pure Ones, these fu begin with three hooks. The gut is the main soul and essence of the talisman, and that which determines its effectiveness and is formulated with several secret characters. The feet, lastly, are as varied as the stars in the sky, depending on the intention behind the talisman.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You must use up yellow paper in order to activate this Effect.
You may cure any Non-Alien diseases, toxins, or poisons afflicting your target so long as you have fully diagnosed or understood it. 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. Your patient is required to keep the talisman on them and unharmed (includes getting it wet) for the next month. If they violate this rule, your treatment is immediately reversed.
You may treat Alien maladies and curses. If there is some method to cure them, you learn what it is. If the malady does not provide its own means of curing it, it is cured.
While addressing a crowd, the influencer may use coded language to send secret messages to a particular person in the crowd. These messages can't be noticed or understood by anyone but the intended target.
Spend an Action. Select a target any distance away from you. You must have a specific target in mind, but you require only an intuitive understanding of them, such as their name, face, or Location. This Effect cannot be used unless you are speaking to multiple people and the target is listening.
You may send a single message to your target. It can be no more complicated than a multi-page letter or a long email.
The message will only be perceived by the intended recipient. You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is your left hand making a fist. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
The Psychic can speak directly into someone's mind, engaging in an entirely telepathic conversation. While they do, they take on a blank, vacant stare in the direction of their target, and appear to be muttering gibberish to themselves under their breath.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target any distance away from you. You must have a specific target in mind, but you require only an intuitive understanding of them, such as their name, face, or Location. This Effect cannot be used unless you can see your target.
You open up a line of communication to your target, and may converse with them as long as one of you maintains Concentration
The conversation will only be perceived by the intended recipient. You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.
The musician pours their heart and soul into their music, giving others some much needed perspective and solace and all around good vibes. This can be a temporary easing of the mind, but with prolonged music therapy it can even permanently cure psychic damage.
Exert your Mind to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You cannot target yourself. This Effect cannot be used unless you continuously play music for your target during the activation. Over the course of one Downtime, 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 + Performance 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.
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.
The Necromancer spits into the mouth of a recently deceased corpse. For the few minutes, the corpse's head comes back to life and speaks to the Necromancer.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Dead target within 50 feet. Dead targets must have died within the past week, and you must have their remains in your possession.
The target can communicate in your language for the next hour.
The aquamancer shifts into their elemental form and melds into a nearby collection of water, only to reform shortly out of a different source of water within line of sight.
Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions. Select a Location within your line of sight , and which is directly adjacent to water. You must be within arm's reach of water to activate this Effect.
You are transported directly to the chosen Location. You must wait an hour before activating this effect again.