The user of this gift will touch a corpse's torso and using their shadow, the mark will spread out in a black circular shape that will begin to move unpredictably around the torso after placed.
Spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless on a corpse.
Your target is marked with It appears to be a black tattoo that moves around the torso seemingly of it's own will until it is removed or until you choose to end the Effect. Your mark can be discovered if the target is inspected visually. Removal inflicts a Severity 1 Injury on the target.
You are aware of the marked target's direction and distance from you. You can have up to 3 marks active.
You may activate another Effect through your Mark as though you were standing at its location. This destroys the Mark.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
Apex Cryptid: The Primordial Shift
The moment you activate this power, a deep, guttural resonance hums through the air—like a chorus of ancient, forgotten beasts calling from the dark corners of the earth. Your body twists and stretches, bones popping and muscles coiling into unfamiliar shapes. Your skin ripples with patterns that seem to mimic the natural camouflage of apex predators long thought extinct. Scales, fur, or chitinous plates may shimmer across your form, shifting with every step as though the essence of cryptids from across the globe surges through your veins.
Your human instincts dull as primal instincts take hold. Words become foreign; the structure of language replaced by a heightened awareness of your surroundings. The scent of fear hangs like a thick mist, every sound sharpened into a potential threat or prey. Your hands become crude tools—talons, claws, or massive, rugged fingers that can grasp but never delicately control.
Stress dissolves as the primal mindset overtakes you. The noise of human worries is replaced with the singular clarity of survival and dominance. In this form, you are an echo of the unknown, the whispered terror of campfire stories given flesh.
Apex Cryptid → Amalgamation of Cryptids: The Unveiling
If the battle turns against you—if pain strikes deep and the cryptid essence within senses true danger—a terrifying metamorphosis unfolds.
Your body convulses, and the injuries that should cripple you instead fuel a grotesque evolution. Limbs elongate and twist, growing jagged with predatory adaptations stolen from creatures lost to time. Gills flare along your neck. Serrated fangs emerge where human teeth once sat. The eyes of countless predators open across your body, each gazing with predatory instinct.
For one breathless minute, you become the embodiment of earth’s cryptid lore—a walking nightmare of mismatched power. Movement becomes instinctive, effortless. Every step feels like a hunt, and every breath crackles with the potential of the predator’s pounce. The air itself seems to recoil, bending to your unnerving presence
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You transform into Apex Cryptid for 30 minutes. You have access to all of your Powers while you are Apex Cryptid, and you can use your equipment. The Injuries and Battle Scars of your Alternate Form and your true form are tracked separately.
While transformed, your Attributes are the same. Your Stress is reduced by 2.
If you take Injuries totaling 4 Severity or higher while transformed, you recover all Injuries and change into Amaglamation Of Crytids Across the earth. All dice rolls are at -1 Difficulty for the next minute or until this Effect ends. Cooldown 1 day.
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.
As she swipes the air an arc of wind flies forward slicing whatever it hits
Spend an Action. Select a target within 45 feet. Roll Dexterity + Athletics 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 2.
You may use this Effect to Defend against any melee, projectile, or firearm Attacks within range or Clash against any Attack targeted at you. Using it to Defend deals no Damage but does not cost Exertion.
The target suffers a -3 dice penalty for the next hour or until the Injury is healed. This dice penalty does not stack multiple times on the same target.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
Possession of this Power grants the following Battle Scar: Left eye is like a window to the sky - When eyes are not concealed all social rolls are at +1 difficulty and beautiful is suppressed..
Close up shot. Miraculous wind that happens to only blow on the protagonist’s hair. A sideways glance towards the camera. Pause.
Title Drop.
Time to put your game face on.
Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action.
Your Stress from Injuries and Mind Damage is reduced to 0. Lasts three hours.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
Shelly is able to catch and falling children or other objects. She is also quite adept at throwing things.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are engaged in combat with thrown weapons.
+2 dice to all rolls utilizing thrown weapons.
You also gain the following effects:
The beast on human legs has blood-red eyes, elongated fangs, and all-too-pale skin.
Lorelei is a bloodfiend, nightwalker, draugr, empousa, undead, ghoul, et cetera et cetera. It's a vampire. A creature of the night who desperately craves the taste of blood above anything else.
You gain the following benefits as long as you have sated your Hunger condition in the last 24 hours.
You are permanently and visibly transformed: you have pale skin and vibrant red eyes, and two pointed fangs. You are considered to be a Sapient, Non-Living being when targeted..
Your Injuries no longer degrade with time. You do not age naturally, and supernatural attempts to age you fail.
You may make a +2 Weapon Damage wicked fangs (knife) attack without additional equipment.
Any Animate being that consumes or is injected with your bodily fluids receives a Severity-1 Injury. Every Round, they must roll Body Difficulty 9. If they fail, the Injury worsens by 1 Severity. If they succeed, the Injury stops worsening.
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Bloodthirst. You are uncannily fixated on the blood of living beings. Any time you're exposed to blood, you must roll Self-Control. If you fail, you must feed, and if you botch, you will make a mess of it. You are unable to regain any Mind from resting unless you have consumed the substance that day.
The Witch gazes at a calm and trusting animal and blinks, revealing eyes that have changed to match the creature's. Her body goes limp and collapses, and the witch proceeds to walk away, now temporarily borrowing the animal's body.
A borrowing Witch is a visitor in the animal's mind and cannot overstay her welcome or force the animal into danger.
Spend an Action or Reaction. Select a Non-Alien Creature target within 20 feet. The target may Resist.
You possess your target and have control over their actions for the next hour. Your original body will be left behind, unconscious. You may perceive through your original body's senses by maintaining Concentration. If your original body is touched, you may roll Perception + Alertness to notice. You may spend an Action to end the possession early.
Stats: Any Actions you take will use the possessed creature’s Brawn, Dexterity, and Perception, but use your own Charisma, Intellect, and Abilities.
Gifts: You do not have access to any Gifts while you are possessing your target.
Death: If the host suffers an Injury, or is destroyed or incapacitated, you are evicted back into your own body. If the possession ends and your original body was killed or destroyed, you will die.
Eviction: You cannot force your host to take Actions which would violate their instinct for self-preservation (which includes engaging in Combat for any purpose other than self-defense or natural hunting); any attempt to do so will sever the connection and send you back into your own body. If you are forced out of the target's body prematurely, you must make a Trauma roll.
Targets with Body ratings higher than 10 require a Charisma + Animals roll resisted by the target’s Body. Kaiju and environment-scale targets are immune.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.
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 ninja does not approve of guns; they prefer using the bow for its stealth and versatility.
You gain the following benefits as long as engaged in combat with wooden longbows.
You receive +2 dice to all rolls using wooden longbows. Reloading is a Free Action, and drawing your weapon does not require a Quick Action as long as it is on your person.
You also gain the following effects:
EzFake is an app that appears on any cell phone the influencer holds as long as they are holding it. The influencer need only make a selection and focus their will to project a lifelike forgery into the world in front of them. It may be an object, a creature, or even a specific person, and they can speak and make sounds as well.
The Influencer gets ready to film, and focuses fully on getting a good shot. After all, no video doctoring software can compete with a real life forgery which can be filmed from any number of directions by anyone's camera and appear legitimate.
Exert your Mind and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: open up the app on your cell phone, make your selection, and prepare to film. Select a target within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use cell phone camera to activate this Effect. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted. Choose an illusion to generate, which can be no larger than a person.
The chosen illusion is generated at your target, and it will remain in place as long as you maintain Concentration or you choose to end it. It can be perceived by people through their smell, hearing, and sight. The illusion cannot be used as an attack. You may create a replica of a specific being or Object, though it is still limited by what you do or do not know about the subject.
Anyone who touches the illusion (or who would be able to perceive it significantly through a sense it cannot fool) realizes it is an illusion and can choose to perceive it or not at will.
The illusion will remain fixed to its initial target, and can only change locations if the initial target is mobile in some way. It may have moving parts and engage in simple, predetermined movements but cannot perform anything complex or interactive unless you maintain Concentration and “puppeteer” it.
Doc puts his hands on you and begins to mutter to himself in french. The effect is instant and horrible. You begin to remember all of the sins of your past, all the ways that you've wronged those who loved you. All of the terrible, evil things you've done on these contracts in order to survive. Doc seems to be in the grips of similar memories, tears running down his chin and dripping onto his hands that are pressed tightly against you. At the point where your mind feels like it's about to break, it's over. Just as quickly as it began. You feel your wounds begin to close.
Exert your Mind and spend 1 minute. Select a Living target within arm's reach. 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. Your target must make a Trauma roll to reap the benefits of this Effect. They may choose to Resist the Effect and not make the roll. Choose a specific Injury on your target that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Charisma + Medicine 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.