Become the Tide The Uncountable Horde

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The power to shift into A swarm of Vermin.
Used by Johnny “The Rat” Larat, Created by shotgunwizard22.
(It is not necessarily obvious that your transformed state is an unusual phenomena or that it is acting with singular purpose. )

The Vermin King's body breaks apart into a swarm of Verminous creatures, from Rats, to Cockroaches, to weasels. The Tide of Vermin consists of Vermin native to the region, and can mimic normal Vermin behaviour.


Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate.

You transform into A swarm of Vermin for the next minute. You may end the effect early and return to your normal form at will. Your structure must remain relatively contiguous. It is not necessarily obvious that your transformed state is an unusual phenomena or that it is acting with singular purpose.

While in this form, you can squeeze through any gap that a rodent could fit through.

Damage from standard attacks is halved, but damage from AOE effects is increased by 1.

You cannot communicate, use equipment, or use Gifts while transformed. Your equipment does not transform with you beyond basic body coverings. Carrying capacity is unaffected.


Community Activated Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action.

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.

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. This Effect does not end early when you activate an obvious Effect, attack, or receive an Injury.

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

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

Communication is more than just you talking, it's what you hear too. To stop Frank's brain from frying itself from all of the heinous shit he's been forced to overhear day-to-day, his benefactor has begun offloading some of that stress to itself, protecting his mind.

Exert your Mind and spend one minute. You must use up a cigarette in order to activate this Effect.

You may understand and communicate to Creatures, humans, and Sapient beings as if you are fluent in a relevant language for the next hour.

Communicating with a being cannot directly damage your Mind or cause Injury. All rolls to resist Effects that rely on communicating with you are made at -1 Difficulty.

  • Communing with creatures does not grant them intellect but does allow you to converse with them.
  • The target of "human" refers to any target that speaks a human language.

Exert your Mind (unless having less than 4 Body) and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use Overcoat/cloak to activate this Effect.

You transform into Bat for two hours.You are unable to revert to your original form at will and must wait for the duration to fully elapse before returning to normal. See the Extended System text for stats.

While transformed, you cannot use any equipment (including Artifacts and Consumables), and you do not have access to any of your Powers. Any equipment you are wearing transforms with you.

Injuries and Wound Level are carried over between forms. However, transforming can never kill you; you merely remain Incapacitated until your Injuries are sufficiently healed.

  • Creature Stats
    • Small (mouse up to regular house cat) Body 1. Brawn 0. Dexterity 4. Cannot injure others with attacks. Cannot die from falling damage. +3 dice to Stealth rolls.
    All creatures get +3 dice to any non-combat Action that they are naturally adapted for. All creatures Medium and larger may attack by rolling Body, dealing +0 Damage (+1 for “predators”). Gms and Playgroup leaders can apply other bonuses and effects to specific animals.
  • Animals that are quicker than humans (like dogs) have 50 feet of Free Movement. Animals that are very slow (like turtles) have 0 feet of Free Movement.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action.

Summon the one and only Sapient human child at your location. They last for two hours or until they are destroyed. They are controlled by you. You may have at most one minion active at a time.

  • Initiative: Minions act directly after you in Combat starting the Round after they are summoned.
  • Combat: Minions roll 4 dice to dodge, Grapple, or make Unarmed Attacks. Their unarmed Attacks are melee range and deal +0 Damage.
  • Body/Mind: Minions have 3 Body. Your minions roll 7 Mind resistance dice.
  • Armor: Minions have 1 Armor.
  • Movement: Minions can move 20 feet per Round as Free Movement and double that when performing an all-out Sprint.
  • Intelligence: Minions have human-level intelligence and can speak your language. They can use equipment, Artifacts, and Consumables. However, they cannot Exert their Mind.
  • Actions: Any Perception checks they make are rolled with 4 dice. Your minion is able to Influence with a 8 dice pool. Any other roll is made with 4 dice. They can lift and haul as though they have 2 Brawn.
  • Powers: Your companion can Exert their Mind using your Mind and spend your Source.
  • Unusual: Minions are not obviously Alien.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see The minion is vomited onto the floor and quickly grows to the size of a child, complete with it's own name of it's own choosing, and introducing itself.

If killed, you cannot re-summon your minion until after your next Contract.

  • Your companion heals fully during each Downtime, but is not healed fully when you re-summon them.
  • Your companion is affected normally by Artifacts and Energy Transfer.
  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • Your minions may count as additional targeting types based on their flavor. For example: Living, Computer, Creature, etc.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action.

As long as you maintain Concentration, you can take Actions and interact with things that are within 75 feet without needing to physically touch them or be near them. Lasts for two hours. Any rolls made for Actions taken in this way use a Mental Strength of 4 in place of your Brawn rating, a Mental Agility of 1 in place of your Dexterity, and otherwise use your own Attributes and Abilities.

Telekinetic actions have the following restrictions and behaviors:

  • Line of Sight: You must be able to visually observe anything you interact with, and any actions that you are taking will end if their target moves out of sight.
  • Unarmed Combat: You cannot deal damage through unarmed combat or thrown objects with this Effect, though you may still grapple with targets.
  • Weapons: You cannot wield weapons effectively in combat.
  • Fine Tools: You are otherwise limited to actions that a normal human could do with their bare hands.
  • Levitation: If you are strong enough to lift yourself, you may levitate up to 75 feet away from the ground. Movement is limited to 5 feet per Round.
  • Multiple Items: You can only interact with one thing or take one Action at a time.
  • Lifting and hauling: you may lift 180 pounds. If you Exert your Mind, you may lift up to 2000 pounds for one hour.

  • Any telekinetic actions which interact with Animate targets may require contested rolls at GMs discretion.

Stock Activated Gifts

Spend a Quick Action.

You may withdraw an item from your stash, or add an item that is within arm’s reach to your stash. You may only stash targets which are in your possession, grappled, or otherwise controlled by you.

You may store units of water in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a briefcase (15 liters), and you may store up to 3 things at a time.

You may choose to equip any equipment you withdraw at no additional cost.

  • "Equip" refers to drawing a gun, putting on a piece of armor, etc. You may store or withdraw a maximum of 6 items in a given Round. Reminder: you may perform up to two Quick Actions for -2 dice each or 3 if you use up your Action, unless a different Effect grants you additional Quick Actions.
  • Containers which hold multiple things may count as a single item so long as the things within are generally packaged together. For instance, you may stash a clip full of bullets, a medical kit full of medical supplies, or a box of crackers, but you cannot stash a backpack full of miscellaneous equipment.
  • You may only attempt to store Objects which are free-standing and disconnected from other things. The use of this Effect will not allow you to sever any connections holding an Object in place.
  • The Maximum Object Size parameter is intended to roughly capture the weight / size restriction of items and isn’t intended to restrict shape. GM discretion is advised. A human being is level 4 in the Maximum Object Size parameter.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action.

Your senses are enhanced in the following way. Lasts for three hours.

  • Thermal: You are able to "see" heat signatures within your line of sight.
  • Hearing: You automatically know the origin location of any sound you hear, and you can tell which Action caused the sound.

  • Your thermal vision allows you to judge temperatures of surfaces fairly accurately as long as they are within livable temperatures.

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.

  • Unstabilized wounds do not degenerate during treatment.

Exert your Mind and spend a Quick Action.

You transform into a werewolf for 3 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are a werewolf, 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.

Your alternate form is its own deadly weapon. Unarmed attacks made in your alternate form deal +3 Weapon Damage (instead of the typical -1).

Your alternate form renders you unable to speak any human language and incapable of fine object manipulation. You can only hold or grasp objects in a crude, clumsy way.

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.

While transformed, you automatically fail any Mind roll to resist an impulse and suffer -3 dice on all other Mind rolls.

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Whenever you are struck by the light of a full or gibbous moon, you must roll Self-Control to resist transforming. Triggers a max of once per night.

  • Reminder: Weapon Damage from multiple sources does not stack. Instead, the highest value is used.
  • Attribute bonuses from multiple sources do not stack. Instead the highest bonus is used.

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.

  • This includes any objects that come into range during activation.
  • This Effect does not satisfy the line of sight targeting requirement for other Effects.