Latent Instincts "People find it really hard to say no to me."

3
You possess superhuman people skills.
Used by Minerva McAlaster, Created by Polymorph.
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Minerva begins subconsciously imposing her will on the world around her. Even without focusing, her as long as she's honest, her desire to be believed will make her be believed. Anyone who sees her attacked feels a deep-seated reflexive instinct to protect and defend her, even if she isn't in the room. And whenever she can hear something, read something... if it's not true, there's a soft... static, to it. She's learned what that means.

When she focuses... every word she says is just the word she has to say, and is taken in the most favourable manner. It's impossible to stay mad at her, or to deny her.

Under the surface, in the depths of her mind, lurk darker thoughts. Her practice with altering the world comes into full manifestation when she panics and loses her composure, her fears seeping into the world.


You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your Charisma rating is increased by 1. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Charisma (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Latent Nightmares: When your mind damage becomes Alarmed or worse make a self-control roll. You automatically fail this roll if your mind damage is Delirious or worse. On a failure, your fears and panic begin to manifest as illusions around you, typically taking the form of shadow creatures. All actions and movement must be focused on dealing with the illusions, which persist until you make a 4-success Mind roll at the end of a turn. The illusions focus on you, but are visible to all and will attempt to prevent anyone from helping you.

You also gain the following effects:

  • An Honest Face: Your word is unimpeachable, and is accepted as truth so long as you are speaking the truth as you understand it.
  • Liar Liar Pants on Fire: You have an intuitive understanding of whether or not someone believes what they are saying. You can always tell if someone is lying to you without making a roll, though you do not necessarily know what they are lying about.
  • No Choice But To Stan: If someone speaks or acts against you socially, anyone observing it must roll Mind, with the difficulty equal to your Charisma, in order to not defend you.

  • In rare cases, GMs may require you to make a roll to detect a lie from particularly powerful beings (trickster gods, etc).
  • Being forced to Stan will not force someone to violate any of their Limits or to engage in violence of any kind (though they may still do so of their own volition).

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Community Power Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Make a Trauma roll when you activate this Effect.

You and any clothes or equipment you are wearing are obscured from sight for the next hour. All attempts to detect you via sight fail. Detection attempts via other senses where sight would assist are rolled at a -2 dice penalty.

Entering Combat or being Injured does not cause the Effect to end early. Anyone you attack will immediately notice you; anyone else may re-roll to notice you each time you take a Combat action, at -1 Difficulty per Combat action you have taken. When the Effect ends, it is disabled for 1 hour.

After this Effect ends, you cannot move quicker than a walk for one minute and suffer a -1 dice penalty for an hour.

  • 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.

Spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien door, container, knot, or lock within arm's reach , which is not electronic and can be no more complex than a standard key lock.

You may lock, unlock, and/or open your target.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is Eyes flashing for a moment. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

  • Operating some locking mechanisms through this Effect may have a secondary effect, such as a turn-key ignition on an older or cheaper car causing it to start or stop. Note that the locking mechanism itself must satisfy the standard targeting requirements (including line of sight), not just the vehicle.
  • Any mechanism that requires a key, keycard, key fob, or combination may be considered locked, at the GM's discretion. This Effect may be used on doors and containers secured with control panels or other electronic locks, but not computer security systems at large.
  • 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 (unless you are Sculpting) and spend an Action. Select a Location within 50 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless you do not choose what alterations are made. Instead, they are dependant on emotions felt. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you you make the area dangerous for yourself to Traverse, and warp your own body causing a Severity-2 Injury.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of the surrounding area originating at the target:

  • Sculpt: Sculpt a surface made of the surrounding area up to 20 feet by 20 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 the surrounding area up to 20 feet long, 5 feet high, and 6 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 3 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

You may sculpt your walls, domes, or tunnels as you create them, without any additional activation time or cost.

Anyone who tries to climb or move across your alterations takes 1 Damage each time they do so. Such alterations are obviously dangerous.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see the alterations often resembling parts of human or supernatural anatomy.

  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • 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.
  • 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.

You gain the following benefits as long as you are engaged in unarmed combat.

+2 dice to rolls for Attacking, Defending, and Clashing without a weapon. Unarmed attacks do +2 Weapon Damage (instead of -1).

You may Defend against melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks from any range and Clash with those in range of your Attacks. Attacking materials like steel or spikes will not Damage you unless it has an Effect that does so.

  • Unlike the Ability Brawl, this Effect does not affect small weapons such as knives.

Exert your Mind and spend an hour to activate. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Select a Battle Scar on your target to treat.

The treated Battle Scar will heal over the course of the next week.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Stock Power Gifts

You gain the following benefits as long as the attacker isn't important enough to have a name.

You have 4 Armor, which reduces incoming Damage. Armor from multiple sources does not stack. This Armor cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your senses are enhanced in the following way.

  • Smell: Your nose is highly sensitive and can differentiate between scents the way a dog can, as well as recognize things you have smelled before.

You gain the following benefits as long as you are in werewolf form.

You have 4 Armor, which reduces incoming damage from all sources of physical attack except silver. Armor from multiple sources does not stack. This Armor cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.

Any Injury received from Damage that was reduced by this Armor is considered makeshift stabilized and will not degrade further. Any Battle Scar received from such an Injury is reduced by 1 level to a minimum of a Minor Battle Scar.

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.
  • 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 a minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. You may select a target at any range if you use up fresh tracks of the target. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Survival at Difficulty 6.

You learn all the following information about your target:

  • You may follow the target's trail, no matter where or how they have traveled, so long as the trail is less than a day old.

The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

Any information you gather is revealed by illuminating the trail in a glowing light and made publicly available.

  • Tracker You are not made instantly aware of where they have been in the past 24 hours; you must follow their trail. You may "happen upon" any trail they have made in the past 24 hours.
  • 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.