A young man sits down on top of a Marshall 112 combo at Jake's Pawn Shop in a destitute part of Los Angeles. He fishes about on the stained carpet for the quarter inch input of the cable coiled in front of the dirty 1980s-era amp. He plugs it into the jack of the pristine pearl-white Ibanez Iceman. It reminds the kid of something a rockstar from the old days would play. Back when they were still made in Japan and not some lesser shithole. He strums the opening refrain from Stairway to Heaven as any good pawnshop guitarist should. His hand comes down to strum the next chord when he feels a presence swoop down on his mind. Like a Kingfisher slamming into the surface of his mind, he feels another with him. And then he feels nothing.
Nikki strums the second chord of Stairway to Heaven, his long brown hair hanging over his bare chest. He sings quietly, "and the piper's calling you to join him". He unplugs and stands up, Ibanez Iceman hanging around his slim body as if it never belonged anywhere else and walks out. His return to the skinlands announced by the jangle of bells tied around a pawn shop door.
Exert your Mind and spend three Actions performing the following ritual: Playing Guitar. Select a Living or Sapient target within arm's reach. Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you Intended Target attacks guitar. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you possess your target for a number of days equal to the Contested Outcome. The target has no control over their body or actions, though they retain consciousness and will remember anything that occurs during the possession. While the possession is active, the host body will Takes the appearance of Nikki, making it very obvious to anyone who sees them that something is not right.
Your original body will be left behind, unconscious, in its same location. You may perceive through your original body's senses by Concentrating. If your original body is touched, you may roll Perception + Alertness to notice. You may spend an Action to end the possession early.
Stats: During the possession, you use the host body’s Body rating, but your own Mind rating. Any rolls you make use the host body’s Brawn, Dexterity, and Perception but your own Charisma and Intellect. You may use either your own or the host’s Ability ratings, whichever is higher. You gain the effects of any physical Assets and Liabilities they have. You cannot read the target’s mind or memories.
Gifts: You have access to and can use any of your own Powers which are not intrinsic to your biology or physical body. You cannot access any Powers or other supernatural effects which the target has, unless they are intrinsic to the target’s biology or physical body.
Death: If the host body is killed or destroyed while you are still possessing it, you are evicted to your original body. If the possession ends and your original body was killed or destroyed, you die.
Eviction: If you attempt to force your host to take actions which would violate one of their Limits or their instinct for self-preservation, they may resist by rolling Mind. If their Outcome is higher than or equal to the contested Outcome, the possession ends and you are evicted from their body. If they fail, you remain in control.
Emily lets out a breath, and with her claws, slices the insides of her arm, allowing the blood (for power) to spill to the ground. She then mixes a vial of virgin's blood (for tempting), and mixes it with the dirt (for binding). In a pinch, she can smear it on the floor, but the creatures that speak though the blood to her do not appreciate this as much.
They whisper to her the desires of the land and those in it. Those who desire to hurt, those who desire to change, those who desire to move.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend a minute. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 1 mile You must use up a vial of virgin's blood in order to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Brawn + Alertness at Difficulty 6.
You learn the following information about the area:
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.
The song feels as if it wraps around your heart and mind. Its tune seems mournful- but, then again, aren't you? Filled with the experience of your grief and pain being seen and understood, you feel at peace. You will never forget, no, but you can accept what happened and let go.
The act of letting go creates a mask, the design of which represents the trauma inflicted upon your heart.
The Song of Healing has the capability to heal a soul and give peace to those who cannot forget. Those who are tormented by what they have seen and felt are released from their pain, and given the ability to move on.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) to activate. Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Over the course of one Downtime, your patient must communicate with you and reveal at least one of their Traumas to you, including the details of those Traumas and the circumstances of how they were acquired. After the full treatment time has elapsed, roll Charisma + Performance at Difficulty 6.
Your target may Resist. If your treatment is successful, you may remove one of the patient's revealed Traumas without incurring any Experience cost.
Luci's metabology has been changed, altered by Umbra's possession. With it, Luci is able to sustain herself purely using the Well's energy by consuming a medium that closely aligns with its nature. Such comes in the form of ink, which meshes with Luci's fascination with art combined by the inherently shadowy, underworldly, nature of the Well.
Spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. You must use up 1 liter of ink in order to activate this Effect.
For the next 24 hours, your target does not require any food, water, or air.
Your target is adapted to their current environment for one hour. While adapted, they do not suffer harm from heat, cold, pressure, or lack of oxygen in that environment, provided that challenge normally exists in that environment.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
A tinge of brine and the scent of saltwater hits the air as the tip of the trident forms, compresses and fires out a compressed shot of high-intensity saltwater at the target
Spend an Action. Select a Living target within 45 feet. Roll Brawn + Occult Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling Body, Difficulty 6.
If the Contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 6.
Any Injury inflicted is considered unstabilized even if its Severity is less than 4. The equipment and roll required to Stabilize it is treated as though it is a minimum of Severity 6.
If the target receives an Injury, they are knocked back 5 * Severity feet.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
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.
Akira can place his hand on the ground, proceeds to breathe in and out once, and “feel” the earth by pressing his hand into the grass. Feeling into the roots and closing his eyes, he could feel the energy and aura of every living being within a 100 feet radius. Even if said beings left in that area a long time ago. Anyone that’s near Akira can can feel a warm, calming glow of energy around him.
Exert your Mind and spend 2 Actions. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 1 mile At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Alertness at Difficulty 6.
You learn the following information about the area:
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is his body temperature is degrees warmer than usual.. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.
By focusing and whispering a prayer under their breath, the priest may invoke their god to protect those who have good works left to do.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is a living human. Roll a single d10, Difficulty 4. If you fail or botch, the Effect fails and you cannot activate it again for an hour. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6.
If you succeed, you create a barrier around your target, which absorbs the next Outcome +2 Damage. 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.
This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is you whispering a prayer under your breath. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.
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.
The Vampire is able to turn one of their victims into a lesser vampire, a pale shadow of a full creature of the night but useful nonetheless. Having drained and killed their target, the Vampire performs a brief ritualistic bloodletting, wherein they spill their own blood into the target's mouth, forcing them to drink, and bonding them together as child and sire.
Shortly afterwards, the fledgling vampire will rise from death, hungry for blood and eager to serve.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach that has died within the last hour. This Effect cannot be used unless you drained the target's blood while they were still alive.
Your target rises as an Animate being. The raised creature is totally mindless, with no memory of its past life or hint of its old personality. They cannot communicate. They will follow any command you speak.
The creature lasts until it dies again. It is revived at full health. Any Injuries it had in life are not accounted for when determining its penalties or progression towards re-death, though they may affect its ability to perform certain actions at GM's discretion. The raised creature must consume flesh every day or it will die again.
Raised creatures have their Abilities set to the same that they were in life. Their Charisma and Intellect are set to 1, but their Dexterity, Brawn and Perception are the same as they had in life. A raised creature cannot use any Effects.
Your revived targets deal 2 Weapon Damage with their unarmed attacks.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
The mobster presents a reasoned, logical case to the target: there's a lot of dangerous folks out there, and only they can offer safety... for a price.
If they agree, they will pay the mobster a monthly fee for protection. If they stop making their payments... well, let's just say, the mobster can't be held responsible for any unsavory types that might pay them a visit.
This Effect cannot be used unless you are making a deal to exchange money for protection.
You may make an oath with a physically-present, Sapient target. Communicate the oath's terms to the target, including the requirements and penalties for each participant. If all agree to the terms, you must Exert your Mind and all participants must shake hands to seal the deal.
Record the oath as a Condition. If a party breaks the oath, the Condition ends and they suffer the oath's penalty.
When crafting your oath, you may incorporate any of the following penalties:
The target cannot be compelled to agree via a direct threat of violence, another Effect, or another oath. If you would like to use clever wording to mislead the target, you must succeed a contested Intellect + (Culture or Influence) roll.
Through their faith, the priest is able to stretch bread or fish to extreme lengths, feeding a seemingly endless number of people from meager supplies.
Spend an Action. Select a Animate target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use bread or a fish to activate this Effect.
For the next 24 hours, your target does not require any food, water, or sleep. Any attempts to age your target fail. Any roll to resist an Effect dependent on any affected requirement is made at -1 Difficulty.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.