Thorium Core This design is too restrained! It can be improved.

1
A consumable glowing blue disk that lets you enhance your tools beyond mundane limits.
Created by shady.
( )

The mad scientist produces thorium cores that can be used to upgrade tools and other devices. The core supercharges the item, increasing its quality and rendering it indestructible for a period. However, once the core runs dry, the object is rendered less useful than it was before. The core crackles with blue electricity while active.


Spend 1 Action and use up this glowing blue disk. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. Cannot be used to improve Armor.

Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 2 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +2 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice. While it is upgraded, the item cannot be destroyed.

After the Effect ends, any upgraded targets suffer a -2 dice penalty until they are either repaired or upgraded again.

  • "Destroyed" in this context means "prevented from functioning for its primary purpose", so for instance, an upgraded land mine would still explode as normal if triggered, even though it cannot be "destroyed" and a car's windows may still be broken.
  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • Reminder: additional Weapon Damage granted by this Effect does not stack with any other bonus to Weapon Damage. Instead the largest bonus is used. The same is true for extra dice.
  • Extra dice from this Effect do not apply to Gift activation rolls.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Community Upgrade Gifts

This Artifact has been upgraded.

This Artifact receives 3 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +3 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice. While it is upgraded, the item cannot be destroyed.

  • "Destroyed" in this context means "prevented from functioning for its primary purpose", so for instance, an upgraded land mine would still explode as normal if triggered, even though it cannot be "destroyed" and a car's windows may still be broken.
  • Reminder: additional Weapon Damage granted by this Effect does not stack with any other bonus to Weapon Damage. Instead the largest bonus is used. The same is true for extra dice.
  • Extra dice from this Effect do not apply to Gift activation rolls.

Use up this sumi ink and spend a minute to activate. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. Cannot be used to improve Armor.

For the next hour, your target receives 2 extra dice to all actions taken with its intended use.

  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend a minute. Select a non-Alien things that travel the roads. From shoes, to 18 wheelers. within arm's reach. Cannot be used to improve Armor.

Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 2 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +2 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice. While it is upgraded, the item cannot be destroyed.

  • "Destroyed" in this context means "prevented from functioning for its primary purpose", so for instance, an upgraded land mine would still explode as normal if triggered, even though it cannot be "destroyed" and a car's windows may still be broken.
  • Reminder: additional Weapon Damage granted by this Effect does not stack with any other bonus to Weapon Damage. Instead the largest bonus is used. The same is true for extra dice.
  • Extra dice from this Effect do not apply to Gift activation rolls.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

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.

  • The Difficulty for the fabrication roll increases based on specificity. Something like a "shirt" would be Difficulty 5, whereas "Police uniform" would be Difficulty 9. The Outcome determines overall quality and how well the item fits the request.
  • You can fabricate a container of something so long as it contains a single type of thing (such as a tank of water) or it is designed to be packaged together (such as a first aid kit).

The Mark 6 is a innovation based off of the original XACTS Mark 1. While usage differs significantly from the original. Isolation of its effects has been put to use in multiple instances. While not working on living biological matter (believed to be due to the fact that living biological matters may be affected by quantum entanglement and to affect these matters means to be able to affect multiple versions and forms of them at the same time.) The Mark 6 works great when it comes to needing to eliminate waste or other inorganic matter such as plastic. The effects resemble natural decay/erosion. While through normal means plastic would just be grinded down to minuscule plastic bits, the mark 6 completely turns it into dust! its rather extraordinary.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a Non-Sapient Object within arm's reach no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). Roll a single d10, Difficulty 4. If you fail or botch, the Effect fails and you cannot activate it again for an hour. Roll Intellect + Technology Difficulty 6.

If your Outcome is 4 or higher, the target will be completely destroyed and can no longer function, though it may still be repaired. If your Outcome is less than 4, the target will be partially damaged, and any attempts to use it will suffer a dice penalty equal to your Outcome.

  • If this Effect fails due to the Unreliable check, you must still pay any associated activation costs.
  • The penalty from an object being damaged will stack with itself if a target is hit multiple times, but the object is destroyed when it reaches a total penalty of -4.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Stock Upgrade Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. You must use up $10,000 cash (or equivalent) in order to activate this Effect. Cannot be used to improve Armor.

Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 3 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +3 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice.

  • Reminder: additional Weapon Damage granted by this Effect does not stack with any other bonus to Weapon Damage. Instead the largest bonus is used. The same is true for extra dice.
  • Extra dice from this Effect do not apply to Gift activation rolls.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.