You place the windup key to the back of a toy, or similarly human representing golem. Twist for a minute until your hand begins to hurt. The toy will animate and grow in size to a friendly helper of the one holding the windup key.
This artifact relies on the cultural idea of toys, and the cultural idea of wind up toys, especially in the minds of children. The basic idea of these wind up toys is that you wind them up, then let them go and they move around doing toy things, seeming almost alive. This artifact takes that idea, and merges it with a few other ideas of ways to create useful servants to make an artifact capable of making useful friendly minions.
The ritual to create this artifact relies on a ritual involving
- A variety of children's toys which are popular in the shared imagination
- A collection of stories and myths about the Hebrew golumn
- Mary Shelly's frankenstein
- Carefully shaping the pattern of a wind up key while reading various relevant parts of these stories
Exert your Mind and spend one minute.
Summon a single enlarged animated toy at your location. They will last until they are destroyed. They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. This Artifact may have at most 1 minion active at a time.
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.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
You hold out the imbued coin and chant the trigger phrase and blood seeps out of your nails. The blood pools and boils until 3 seemingly human butlers rise from the puddle. They are servants of the god of ultraviolence, they despise all those which cannot bleed for they cannot pay the red tithe. The butlers all appear middle aged, with bald heads and well groomed mustaches. They wear red and black tuxedos and carry an era of professionalism, despite their love for bloodlust.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend an Action.
Summon up to 3 Sapient Battle Butlers at your location. They last until they are destroyed They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. They will attack any nonliving, Animate targets they encounter immediately and will ignore your commands to do otherwise. This Artifact may have at most 3 minions active at a time.
Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their body and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Battle Scar: hemophilia: Unstablized wounds worsen in half the time.. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Battle Scar heals over the course of the next day.
If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.
The contractor inserts an item into their mouths and begins to swallow it like a seagull or pelican would a larger fish. He/She can then pull it out of his stomach with his hand.
Spend a Quick Action.
You may withdraw an item from your stash, or add an item that is within arm’s reach to your stash. You may only stash targets which are in your possession, grappled, or otherwise controlled by you.
You may store Objects in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a briefcase (15 liters), and you may store up to 3 things at a time.
You may choose to equip any equipment you withdraw at no additional cost.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see that I am storing items inside my own body by swallowing them and getting them out by regurgitating them.
Amaranth is perhaps the progenitor of the vaunted berserker state, in moments of intense stress he is able to work himself into such a frenzy that pain and fear become motivators rather than detractors and in a screaming ball of frothing fury he can throw himself towards his opponents as a ball of teeth, fury, and displeasure.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
Your Stress from Injuries and Mind Damage is reduced to 0. Lasts three hours.
Stress from Injuries acts as a dice bonus instead of penalty.
You may only use this Effect once per day.
Carter is one of the rare Gurahl, werebears of the natural world. While he was never taught his true power, he has learned his more natural form.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You transform into Polar bear until you transform into something else or choose to return to your original form. See the Extended System text for stats.
While transformed, you cannot use any equipment (including Artifacts and Consumables), and you cannot use your Active, Targeted, or Trap Powers. However, you can use your Passive Powers. The equipment you are wearing does not transform with you.
Injuries and Wound Level are carried over between forms. However, transforming can never kill you; you merely remain Incapacitated until your Injuries are sufficiently healed.
Ringus is hyper aware to acute changes in his body, using medical knowledge to patch himself up quickly, healing faster than any normal person.
Exert your Mind and spend 15 minutes to activate. Choose a specific Injury on yourself that has not yet been treated with this Effect and roll Perception + 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.
The Witch wiggles her fingers at her broomstick, and it leaps from the ground with a whoosh of wind. She may then hop on and fly around. It’s so fun, she often finds herself cackling uncontrollably.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must actively and obviously use a broom to activate this Effect. This Effect remains active for two hours.
As long as you are conscious, you are immune to falling Damage and may hover in place mid-air. Additionally, you may glide as you fall, traveling 35 feet horizontally for every 10 feet you fall. While gliding, you fall at a minimum speed of 10 feet per Round.
You may ascend into the air and fly using your mind. Your Free Movement is Mind x5 feet/Round, including vertically. You cannot Dash. When sprinting, roll Mind and add your rating in Mind plus 1 to the outcome, multiply by 5 to find your sprint speed. Your encumbrance limit is 10 lbs per point of Mind.
You are subject to the following effects while gliding or flying:
The Thief has a stash in which they can store a few objects. It can be accessed through any burlap sack.
Spend a Quick Action. You must actively and obviously use a burlap sack to activate this Effect.
You may withdraw an item from your stash, or add an item that is within arm’s reach to your stash. You may only stash targets which are in your possession, grappled, or otherwise controlled by you.
You may store Objects in your stash, each no larger than something which could fit inside a briefcase (15 liters), and you may store up to 3 things at a time.
You may choose to equip any equipment you withdraw at no additional cost.
The Thief casts a container's worth of fine powder into the air. The particulates are drawn to any sort of object that is designed to detect people, including tripwires, security cameras, detection lasers, heat sensors, etc. The powder will not trigger these devices or interfere with their operation, but it does reveal their presence to the Thief.
The cloud drifts and swirls, subtly following the Thief for a minute.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. You must use up a container of fine powder in order to activate this Effect.
You automatically detect all object that are designed to detect people, including tripwires, security cameras, detection lasers, heat sensors, etc within 50 feet of you for the next hour. You have a clear sense of both the distance and direction towards any detected items. When you detect objects, instead of learning nothing about them, you may observe each object with all of your senses.
By focusing, the Thief may shroud their hands in shadowy tendrils that seek nearby objects like static-charged hairs. They cast themselves across any surface the Thief touches, acting as anchors that allow the Thief to scale even the sheerest walls.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You may move easily and without a roll in any of the following situations. Lasts 2 hours.
The aquamancer dissolves into a flowing pool of semi-solid water. Anything they were carrying is left behind in a damp pile. While transformed, they may squeeze through tiny gaps, and are extremely resilient against most standard attacks.
Resolidifying is exhausting.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You transform into a flowing pool of water for the next minute. You may end the effect early and return to your normal form at will. Your structure must remain relatively contiguous. Observers will view you as an unusual entity moving with a singular purpose.
While in this form, you can squeeze through any gap that is not water-tight.
Injuries from standard attacks are reduced to Severity 1, but Damage from AOE effects is increased by 1.
You cannot communicate or use equipment while transformed. Your equipment does not transform with you beyond basic body coverings. You cannot carry any items while transformed.
You have access to your Powers while transformed.
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.