On a successful roll, contractors will see letters on one of their forearms.
You gain the following benefits as long as you have your SPQR brand on forearm.
Your Brawn rating is increased by 1. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Brawn (cannot be used on combat rolls or Effect activations).
If you are witnessed actively using this Effect, whoever sees it can make a Perception + Alertness roll at Difficulty 6. A complete success reveals the source of your power.
You also gain the following effects:
Maggie's pact with Zemlya, Grandfather Rock, grants her a power as old and unforgiving as the mountains themselves. This eldritch spirit, old as the night sky and a witness to the cosmic endlessness, embodies the resilience of nature against the tides of time. When activated, Maggie must offer a sacrifice of her own blood - a small, self-inflicted wound that serves as a conduit for Zemlya's ancient power, jolting her awake to resist against the tides of exhaustion and incapacitation.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend an Action.
Your Stress from Injuries and Mind Damage is reduced to 0. Lasts three hours.
You may move at your normal speed and still maintain Concentration. Taking an Injury less than Severity 6 no longer interrupts Concentration.
If you are Stunned, asleep, drugged, or otherwise made unconscious for any reason other than being Incapacitated, you may Exert your Mind to wake up. Any penalty which was caused by this condition is removed.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
Alexei's spent his career wrestling, and he'd gotten good. His fighting only continued when he went into prison, and again when he started his career as a contractor. Now he's finally learned not to let the pain get to him.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action to activate.
Your Body Penalty is reduced to 0. Lasts for one hour. Does not reduce Mind Penalty.
"Heads, or tails?" A simple 50/50 chance, yet getting it right instills one with the feeling that they are on a 'hot streak', that surely they can keep predicting the flow of luck and the face of the coin. Surely the unlikely will happen, and a big win is within reach only if one keeps gambling.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a number of Living targets equal to your Charisma within arm's reach. Roll Charisma + Thievery at Difficulty 6. Affected targets can resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6 -3 dice.
If you succeed, for the next hour, affected targets will do things they otherwise wouldn’t have done, inspired by hubris. 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.
If you choose to use Chain of Screaming, your target interacts with any valid target, they must roll Self-Control or be swept up in the same emotion. New targets pass it on as well, and so on, with the remaining duration decreasing by half until the chain stops.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is fidgeting with a lucky charm. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Sapient target within 80 feet. If a target does not consent to the transfer, you must roll Intelligence + Medicine at Difficulty 6 to use the effect on them. They can resist by rolling either Body or Mind at Difficulty 6, depending on what you are attempting to transfer to them.
You may choose a single instance of one of the following to transfer from your target to yourself, or from yourself to them:
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see (Pending).
Whenever you transfer an Injury, it's Severity increases by 1. Whenever you transfer Mind damage or Traumas, the recipient takes an additional Mind damage.
Bubba takes a beep breath, his skin and muscle turn pink and rubbery, and he inflates like someone is blowing him up like bubblegum.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction. Roll Brawn + Brawl at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a barrier around yourself, which absorbs the next Outcome + 2 Damage. Half the damage absorbed is reflected back at the attacker, which they can Defend against as normal. The Damage reduction from the barrier is applied before Armor. You may only have 1 active barrier at a time.
You must maintain Concentration while using this Effect. The barrier will fall if you are interrupted, or if it absorbs the full amount of Damage. When a barrier falls, you cannot use this Effect again for a minimum of 2 Rounds.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation or for its duration will almost certainly be disturbed to see his flesh turn pink and inflate like bubblegum.
The time-twister spins a dial on one of her watches, slowing time for everyone but her and one other person.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use a watch or clock to activate this Effect.
Lasts 1 minute. Whenever you use your Movement, after all other calculations, the distance you may travel is doubled.
Outside of Combat, any non-Gift, non-movement Actions you attempt take drastically less time to complete, as long as your personal speed is a factor in the Action. Total time reduction is determined by the GM and capped at 90% (executing the Action takes no less than 1/10th the normal time).
While using this Effect, you may carry one other being without affecting your Encumbrance, so long as you maintain contact with them for the duration and they consent or are grappled.
The priest's miracles expand into the treatment and curing of poisons and diseases. To do so, they require a ceremonial dedication (or often re-dedication) to the service of their god, during which the priest and the patient pray together and perform ritualistic bloodletting. These wounds burn with holy, golden fire, attacking the sinful malady and expelling it from the body.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. You cannot target yourself. Your target takes a Severity 1 Injury. You must actively and obviously use a ceremonial dagger blessed with holy water to activate this Effect.
You may cure any Non-Alien diseases, toxins, or poisons afflicting your target even if you have not diagnosed or fully 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.
You may use this effect to sanitize a 15-foot radius, destroying all poisons, toxins, diseases such that they are inert and cannot affect any new targets
The Toon performs some sort of cartoonish act of violence. This may be handing someone a bomb, hitting someone with a cartoon mallet, burping a burp that is so noxious it melts flesh, or anything else as long as it is cartoonish.
The attack is more of a throwaway gag than a plot element, so any props or properties of the attack are incidental and disappear immediately. Animated mallets evaporate in a puff of smoke, fire does not spread, and electricity cannot power devices.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 45 feet. Roll Charisma + Performance 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 4. Armor is fully effective against this damage.
Unimportant characters just can't seem to hit our hero with their attacks. Injuries that are sustained from underlings are conveniently non-severe.
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.
The Witch summons a crow, whispers a message to it, and sends it off to deliver her words. Half an hour later, the crow arrives at the recipient and repeats her message aloud in its croaking, animal voice.
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.
You may send a single message to your target. It can be as complex or as large as you like. It takes at least 30 minutes before it is received.
The message may be intercepted while in transit, and may be overheard, read, or otherwise understood by anyone near either you or the recipient. You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.