Charlatans

Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action. Select a target within 10 feet.

You place a ward, which is fixed to a target Object that can be moved and repositioned. You can perceive with all your senses through the ward as though you were standing at its location. Your wards last 3 hours. This Artifact may have at most 3 wards active at once.

The ward requires Concentration to monitor, though it will remain active until you deactivate it. It can be detected with a roll and destroyed through mundane means.

You may destroy the Ward to activate one Investigate Individual, Object, or Area Effect as though you were standing at its location.

You may declare a condition to watch for on an active Ward. If it occurs, you may roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 6, to notice it, even if you are not actively monitoring that ward.

Your Ward records all activity it observes, regardless of whether or not you are actively monitoring it. This recording can be played back and referenced later.

You may communicate through your ward, though doing so will reveal its presence.

Exert your Mind and spend one minute. Select a Living target within 25 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the dust must cover them a good amount. You must use up items made from downtime in order to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Occult ( dice) at Difficulty 6. Your target may resist by rolling Body at Difficulty 8.

If you succeed, the target is afflicted with a Condition that causes any number of the following symptoms:

• Brain Fog: The target’s thoughts are muddled and incoherent. They must succeed a Mind roll to remember details of things, at Difficulty 7 for old details and Difficulty 9 for things which occurred while afflicted. They also take a -2 penalty to all mental actions, which grows by -1 every hour until it reaches your Outcome.
• Disabled: The target suffers from an affliction that leaves them unable to act at full strength, such as physical pain, severe fever, intense fatigue, etc. They take a -2 penalty to all physical actions, which grows by -1 every hour until it reaches your Outcome.
• Poisoned: The target gains a Severity-1 Injury which ignores Armor and doesn’t heal naturally. For every hour that passes, they receive a new identical Injury. If this new Injury would kill them, they roll 1d10 at Difficulty 6. Success cures the condition; otherwise, they will die.

The affliction is not treatable by modern medicine. It may be diagnosed by rolling Perception + Medicine ( dice) at Difficulty 6, and can be cured by priest's prayer.

You may cure any target you’ve afflicted at any range as a Quick Action.

When you activate this Effect, instead of occurring immediately, you may choose to delay its effects until the target takes a particular Action. For example: "when they fire a gun" or "when they swim in deep water."

This Effect ends if you are stunned, fall asleep, go unconscious, are incapacitated, die, or if your total Stress ever exceeds 5.

You may only use this Effect once per day.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend at least one Action. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. Your target may be actively engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Occult ( dice) at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.

If the contested Outcome is positive, your target will be compelled to follow your command to the letter-- but not necessarily the spirit-- of the command until they have completed it or for your Contested Outcome in minutes. You cannot issue another suggestion to the target until 10 minutes after they have completed the first command or 10 minutes after a failure.

They will be unaware that they are under any sort of compulsion until the effect wears off, but they will appear obviously mind-controlled the entire time to anyone observing them. If you fail, they realize that you were attempting to influence them supernaturally with your command.

Your command can be an order to take an immediate Action and a conditional request. You cannot order a target to "do nothing," and they are free to take other Actions as they fulfill your request. Your command cannot be obviously self-destructive. The Effect ends if following your command would cause a target to cross one of their Limits in a way that would necessitate a Trauma roll.

You must have some means of communicating this command to your target, but no one other than you and them will understand or perceive it.

You may activate this Effect as a Reaction to contest any Action a valid target is taking, reducing their Outcome by your own. Your command has no impact beyond disrupting their Action. This interrupts Concentration.

This Effect ends if you are stunned, fall asleep, go unconscious, are incapacitated, die, or if your total Stress ever exceeds 5.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend an Action. Select a target within 45 feet. Roll Brawn + Alertness ( dice) 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.

You may use this Effect to Defend or Clash in Combat, including against ranged attacks such as firearms.

When you activate this Effect, instead of occurring immediately, you may choose to delay its effects until the target takes a particular Action. For example: "when they fire a gun" or "when they swim in deep water."

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. Roll Brawn + Melee ( dice) at Difficulty 6. The target may contest by Defending or Dodging.

If you succeed, your target will be restricted at their location by a physical, tangible binding. They cannot move to a new location, and, if your Contested Outcome was greater than their Brawn, they are encased and cannot take any physical Actions other than attempting to escape until they break free.

The target may spend an Action and roll Brawn or Dexterity + Athletics to attempt to break free. They must accumulate a total Outcome equal to or greater than the original Contested Outcome to escape. Damage to the binding from outside sources also contributes.

You may use this Effect as a Reaction to contest any physical Action a target is taking. Excess Outcome does not restrict the target.

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:

• You may suspend a targeted Offensive Power which will take effect when the oath is broken. The Power must be able to target all participants the oath indicates it could hit.
• A Battle Scar up to Severe (deaf, missing limb)
• The oath-breaker is physically marked as an oath-breaker, and any investigative effect will reveal the terms of the oath they broke.
• A particular Trauma and a single Mind Damage
• The oath-breaker goes unconscious for up to 24 hours
• An Injury up to Severity-6 (cannot be reduced by any means)

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.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend a minute. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target does not know you're watching them. At the end of your investigation, roll Charisma + Investigation ( dice) at Difficulty 6.

You learn a single specific piece of information, chosen from the following list, about your target:

• You learn how to reliably contact the target.
• The target’s trail for the past 24 hours is revealed to you and anyone you teach to follow it. This trail shows how long ago the target was there and is followable even when they are in a vehicle.

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

You cannot investigate the same target more than once per day.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within 50 feet. You must be in an area abundant with man-made structures and materials.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of standard building materials originating at the target:

• Wall: Create a straight wall made of standard building materials up to 40 feet long, 10 feet high, and 12 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 one minute 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 6 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

Spend 1 Action and use up this glowing blue disk. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. Cannot be used to improve Armor.

Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 2 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +2 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice. While it is upgraded, the item cannot be destroyed.

After the Effect ends, any upgraded targets suffer a -2 dice penalty until they are either repaired or upgraded again.

Exert your Mind and spend 15 minutes. Select a Living target within arm's reach. This Effect cannot be used unless you can forage for herbs. You must actively and obviously use water, a container, and heat 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.

Whenever you cure a disease, poison, or toxin, if it had inflicted any Damage, your target is healed for half that Damage.