The rod glows with green light, and the participant being targeted glows the same color. The user of the rod has a green light burn a wound on their chest (or arms if chest injured)
The rod is burns with purifying energy that drives the malady from the target.
Take a Severity-1 Injury and spend 1 Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Your target takes a Severity 1 Injury.
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.
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.
May 8, 2024, 1:51 p.m. - Revision Cost: 3. Added Drawback: Sacrifice, Removed Drawback: Bloodletting
In the clandestine world of espionage, where shadows whisper secrets and the line between ally and adversary blurs, there exists a lawyer turned spy, a master of subterfuge with a power as unique as their dual life. This individual, known only to a select few, possesses an extraordinary ability to infuse mundane spy equipment with unparalleled capabilities, transforming them into artifacts of immense tactical value.
On a night draped in secrecy, our spy enters a nondescript room, the air thick with anticipation. Around them, an array of common espionage tools lay scattered across a workbench—each item a silent witness to missions past and yet to unfold. With a practiced eye, the spy selects a compact surveillance device, its appearance unremarkable, its potential untapped.
As their hands envelop the device, a faint glow emanates from their fingertips, casting an ethereal light in the dimly lit room. The air hums with unseen energy as the spy focuses their will, channeling their unique power into the heart of the gadget. Under their touch, the device begins to transform, its form becoming sleeker, its essence imbued with a power that defies conventional understanding.
This Artifact has been upgraded.
This Artifact 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.
Upgraded weapons count as any material your opponent might be particularly vulnerable to. Upgraded Armor cannot be circumvented by called shots. Upgraded Devices do not run out of fuel or energy.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma: I plead The Fifth -Roll a mind to speak to the police. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.
Joshua understands the importance of a good maintenance routine. From oiling the calf skins of his drums to sewing tears in his coat to keeping his trusty caplock pistols clean, each of the items that the soldier carries is part of an intricate web of consistent upkeep. Like trusted friends, he knows that as long as he treats his equipment well, they'll never fail him in his moment of need.
He's more than willing to teach others his best practices. Amazing what can be done with a needle and thread, a rag, and a simple toolkit. Little bit of oil here, a shine there, he lays out the proper routine in plain English. As long as anyone follows his advice, their equipment can be as trusty as Joshua's.
What Joshua doesn't realize is the energies of the shattered Netherworld Portal has empowered this routine with his own latent resistance to entropy. Though he remains rigorous in his procedures (and insists others to do the same), the equipment that he's given close attention keeps itself in its best condition without any deliberate care.
As tales of Joshua's heroic exploits and good deeds continue to spread through the Netherworld and beyond, there are always people willing to lend him a hand. Even if lost, equipment maintained by Joshua will inevitably be picked up and brought back to him by a good samaritan, who will never request more than a song or two as repayment.
This Artifact cannot be broken.
If this Artifact is lost and in no one’s possession, it finds its way back to its creator during the next Downtime.
The user takes a firm grasp of this artifact and lets out a solemn prayer to the Spirit of Film Noir, begging for it's aid in this time of need. Within seconds, their form is crumbling apart, leaving little of them behind but dust.
The user has been briefly transported into the World of Film Noir, the abode of Frank's benefactor. It appears as an almost endless greyscale city, its streets lined with collapsing buildings and tired denizens. Cigarette smoke forms an impenetrable smog around the city, accompanied by an ever-present smooth jazz soundtrack.
Over-exposure to this world can cause various adverse mental effects, often slowly morphing the user's mind into a flanderized mess of Film Noir tropes.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction. 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.
You phase out of reality for 1 Round. During this time, you cannot perceive or affect the outside world or take any Actions. You cannot move. Nothing can interact with you in any way.
After attaching the frame to their torso, the user must activate and sync the arm's internal operative systems with the neurological activity responsible for their own limbs-- requiring extensive input from the mind, voice, and body. The golden circuitry running across the chassis ripple with energy during this process. While in use, its origami folds are able to stretch, bend, and morph to fit the user's desired movements.
The calibration sequence to connect the arm requires the user to move around their joints (shoulders, elbows, and wrists) and read aloud a pangram (ex: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog").
The systems powering and controlling the arm are an intricate mix of various power sources all synchronizing together. Specifically, they are the culmination of its creator taking influence from his peers, a spatial mage and technomancer, to achieve the final result of a fully functional additional limb.
These include arm's handcrafted, moving folds (of which three are responsible for the core joint movement of a shoulder/elbow/wrist), the golden circuits that connect to the user's mind (branching into a sprawling, fractal pattern across the arm and acting as a signal booster/receiver for all the energy), and the internal technological programming (which are carefully integrated to run with the rest of the arm's systems).
The use of a pangram enables the internal systems to more easily find specific parts of the brain to connect to and the movement of the joints calibrate the arm's motions as well.
The arm's three primary folds, alongside the three sources of power (magic, technology, and clockwork-level crafting), serve as a double entendre inspiring the gift's final name.
Expend a point of Battery and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: activating and calibrating the arms with the user. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.
You gain an additional limb that functions as a standard human arm and hand. Lasts two hours.
Each additional limb you posses can take one Quick Action per Round without incurring a -2 dice penalty to your main Action. Each additional appendage you have gives you +1 dice to make and resist Grapples (up to a maximum bonus of +4 dice).
Any Battle Scars that affect or remove your additional limb will heal in a single week.
Your appendage is capable of bending and squishing in normally-impossible ways. It may fit through any gap that is not water-tight and retain its functionality.
Your extra appendage can stretch to reach an additional 30 feet.
Your extra appendage is not connected to your nervous or circulatory systems, and you will not take damage if it is hit by an attack or destroyed.
Your Extra Appendage counts as an object and can be hacked or targeted by any Powers that affect objects or machines. Injuries to your Extra Appendage cannot be healed by Powers that affect living things but may be repaired during Downtime.
This artifact opens up your mind to the background thoughts of the people around you, scanning for malevolent thoughts, broadcasting this information directly into your mind.
Exert your Mind and spend one minute.
You automatically detect all beings having thoughts with murderous intentions within 50 feet of you for the next hour. This includes any who come within range during the duration. You have a sense of how many valid targets are nearby, as well as their distance and direction.
Even while this Effect is not active, if any beings having thoughts with murderous intentions come within 50 feet of you, you may roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 7 to detect them.
While this Effect is active, you are at -2 dice to all Actions and cannot Concentrate.
The mad scientist can craft steel helmets that protect their wearers from mental influence and attack.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You get +0 dice to any Mind resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:
This device is a piece of chrome the size and shape of the back of a spoon. When placed against the skin, small hypodermic needles sprout from the device and attach it to the user's bloodstream. There, it filters and releases lifesaving drugs into the bloodstream, granting complete immunity from contracting new diseases and added resiliency in all other cases.
WARNING: The immunizing drugs have been shown to reduce inhibitions in test subjects.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You get +2 dice to any Body resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects: