Cortical Stacks Immortality for the rest of us.

4
Requires Seasoned
This Artifact grants you grants you the ability to come back to life.
Used by Dominic West, Created by leonvanderblight.
(While "dead," you in an Incapacitated state, though you appear dead to any means of detecting life. You must wear or wield this Artifact plainly to receive these benefits. While you are receiving any benefits from this Effect, this Artifact is obviously Alien and cannot be concealed under your clothes or similar.)

Not foolproof yet, but the silvery metal implant is placed along the back of the neck and runs up toward the base of the skull. Encoding data constantly from the brain via its connection, the implant is ready at all times to provide all data required to recreate the user. So long as the implant is taken to a suitable computing device, it can process the information and, using Dominic's patented energy into matter technology, create a new body for the subject on the spot. Though it does leave the question unanswered as to whether or not it's the same person or an entirely new person created in the image of the person who came before.


You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.

If you would take an Injury that would kill you, you don’t die. Your body disappears and you leave The cortical stack at the base of the back of their neck. In order to bring you back, someone must perform a simple ritual using it during a Downtime. You return fully healed of all Injuries.


Community Artifact Crafting Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend one minute.

You and everything you are carrying is obscured in one of the following manners. Lasts 30 minutes.

  • Hearing: You are completely obscured from hearing. You produce no sounds while this Effect is active. All attempts to detect you via hearing fail. Attempts via other senses where hearing would assist are rolled at -2 dice.
  • Sight:You are partially obscured from being noticed by sight. All attempts to detect you using sight are rolled at a -3 dice penalty, and all attempts to detect you where sight would assist are rolled at -1 penalty. Anyone who detects you cannot determine any visual details about you beyond your general shape.
  • Smell and taste: You are completely obscured from smell and taste. You do not leave scent trails while this Effect is active. All attempts to detect you via smell or taste fail. Attempts via other senses where smell or taste would assist are rolled at -2 dice.

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. Activating a targeted or obvious Effect, attacking, or being Injured ends the Effect. When the Effect ends, it is disabled for one minute.

This Gift does not affect your clothes or equipment.

  • GMs should use their discretion when determining the exact impacts of this Effect, particularly in conjunction with environmental factors. Standing still against a complex background may render you impossible to detect, and footprints in snow may make it easy. A chance to detect you is not guaranteed.

Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions. If you are at the Battlegrounds Monument, you may choose a target Location within your line of sight; otherwise, your target may only be the Battlegrounds Monument. 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 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 a place with a significant amount of paper (such as a library or paper factory) for one minute, you may activate this Effect and travel to the edge of any other a place with a significant amount of paper (such as a library or paper factory) that you’re aware of, regardless of range.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see the user slicing into several sheets of themselves, which tear apart upon their disappearance.

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.

  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • Exhaustion penalties and duration stack. If you activate this Effect or another Effect with Exhaustion, your penalty will worsen, and the duration is increased by one hour.
  • 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.

Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action. Select a Location no further than 40 feet from you and in your line of sight. Roll a single d10, Difficulty 4. If you fail or botch, the Effect fails and you cannot activate it again for an hour. The area within 25 feet of the chosen Location immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Anyone in the area has 1 Round to attempt to escape. During the next Round, on your Initiative, roll Brawn + Melee at Difficulty 6. Targets remaining 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. Armor is fully effective against this Damage.

Any object destroyed or individual killed in your blast turns to dust. Any parts of structures within your blast radius are destroyed and cannot bear a load or block movement. Your blast leaves a 15 foot deep crater in the ground and deals +1 Damage.

When you activate this Effect, roll a single D10. if the result is 5 or lower, you receive a Severity-1 Injury and a Minor Battle Scar.

  • If this Effect fails due to the Unreliable check, you must still pay any associated activation costs.
  • 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.

Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Location within arm's reach. You must be in an area abundant with man-made structures and materials.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of Man-Made Construction Materials originating at the target:

  • Sculpt: Sculpt a surface made of Man-Made Construction Materials up to 40 feet by 40 feet. You may make aesthetic changes or minor functional improvements like a ladder or stairs. You may sculpt windows, doors, and similar alterations into structures you created with this Effect.
  • Wall: Create a straight wall made of Man-Made Construction Materials up to 40 feet long, 10 feet high, and 12 inches thick. This wall can also be used to create a bridge, ramp, or similar. It must be free-standing.

The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.

This alteration lasts indefinitely but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 6 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

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.

  • The sacrificial Injury received from activating this Effect cannot be prevented by any means or healed before 1 day has passed. It is shared with all Effects that use sacrifice. This Injury does not requires Stabilization or cause Battle Scars when it becomes Severe.
  • Attempting to break any alterations with inappropriate tools may damage or destroy the tools at the GM's discretion.
  • Any structures you create leave precise gaps for obstacles in their path or push them out of the way. You cannot directly destroy objects or structures or damage beings by creating walls or domes.
  • Tool guidance for GMs:
    • Difficulty 9: Brawn 5, no tools.
    • Difficulty 7-8: One-handed tools or makeshift tools (like a sword). Mythic Brawn without tools.
    • Difficulty 6: Appropriate manual tools. Crowbar, sledgehammer, armor-shredding attacks.
    • Difficulty 4-5: Power tools, vehicles, explosives.
  • This Effect produces the substance you are controlling unless it is drawn from the environment via “Required Environment” Drawbacks.
  • 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.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. This Effect cannot be used unless You are in your Yaksha form..

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 extra appendage can stretch to reach an additional 30 feet.

You may dedicate your extra Quick Action to contest any attempt to escape your Grapples. If you do so, you roll your full dice pool to contest and retain your Action.

You may turn this Effect on and off at will during its duration.

You may only use this Effect once per day.

Your Extra Appendage is incapable of fine object manipulation.

  • You may stretch or retract your limbs once per Round on your Initiative.
  • You may only switch this Effect on or off once per Round on your initiative as a Free Action.

Stock Artifact Crafting Gifts

You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.

You get +2 dice to any Body resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:

  • Survivor: You are immune to all non-Alien diseases.
  • All Brawn No Brain: You suffer a -2 dice penalty on Mind resistance rolls.

  • These bonuses apply only to Body rolls made to resist Effects and other supernatural phenomena. They do not apply to other contexts such as attacks made while under the Creature Transformation Effect.

You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.

You get +0 dice to any Mind resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:

  • Naturally Resistant: Any time you make a Mind resistance roll, the individual who you are resisting must Exert their Mind, or your resistance succeeds automatically.
  • Clash Of Wills: If you fail to fully resist an Effect, your Outcome is considered to be 0.

  • These bonuses apply only to Mind rolls made to resist Effects and other supernatural phenomena. They do not apply to Trauma rolls or self-control rolls.