Linguistic Espionage Mastery

2
You possess the ability to communicate with humans.
Used by Harold Polk, Created by jwesley123.
(This Effect may or may not be obviously Alien. It is clear that you are communicating with the target. )

Harold Polk has honed his skills not only in the courtrooms of Chicago but in the shadowy corridors of international diplomacy and espionage. By tapping into his deep understanding of cultural nuance and linguistic subtlety, Harold has developed a unique capability akin to a high-tech linguistic decryption tool. With a moment of concentration, his mind synchronizes with the wavelength of any spoken or written communication, allowing him to fluently understand and interact with any creature or person, irrespective of language barriers.

This ability stems not from supernatural talent but from a rare combination of spy training, legal acumen, and a sophisticated mental framework developed over years of decoding complex legal documents and sensitive intelligence information. When activated, Harold’s eyes might briefly flicker with a subtle, cipher-like glow, reflecting the mental processing of converting unfamiliar languages to comprehensible information.


You gain the following benefits at all times.

You may understand and communicate to humans as if you are fluent in a relevant language.

  • The target of "human" refers to any target that speaks a human language.

Community Passive Gifts

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You are permanently and visibly transformed: Made of fabric, filled with stuffing, stubby limbs, resembles a creature. You are considered to be a Sapient, Non-Living being when targeted..

You are immune to damage from cold. If cold is a substantial component of other damage you would take (e.g. falling from a great distance into a vat of liquid nitrogen), that damage is reduced by 2 (in addition to Armor)

Your Injuries no longer degrade with time. You do not age naturally, and supernatural attempts to age you fail.

You can squeeze through any cracks and passageways a cat would be able to.

You cannot be mistaken for a normal human. You cannot always use standard human clothes, equipment, vehicles, and facilities, and when you can, you suffer an increased Difficulty.

You are incapable of fine object manipulation and can only hold or grasp things in a crude, clumsy way.

  • You must still perform some equivalent of eating, sleeping, and drinking unless other Effects allow you to ignore that requirement.
  • Attribute bonuses from multiple sources do not stack. Instead the highest bonus is used.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You can move at three times your normal movement speed.

Your super speed affects all self-powered modes of movement, and you may avoid minor obstacles as you go.

  • Any Encumbrance penalty to your movement still applies, but you do not suffer from any sort of exhaustion.
  • Damage from a collision depends on your speed at the time, as well as what you hit. GM's discretion, but generally moving faster than a car on the freeway and hitting a dense, solid object like a wall or a tree should be lethal. Mundane armor will not apply, but any supernatural forms of protection will.

A vampire who fights with melee weapons is far more dangerous than a vampire who fights with their fangs alone. The latter fights to feed and sustain itself, while the former fights simply to kill.

It is the use of this technique that divides the garden-variety vampire from the true beasts.

You gain the following benefits as long as your attacks are against an opponent with blood in their body and you are engaged in combat with melee weapons.

+2 dice to all rolls with melee weapons. You may Defend against firearm attacks from any range using melee weapons.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Assassin: If your attack Injures your target, they cannot make a sound, even incidentally, for a single Round. Even the sound of their body and equipment dropping to the ground is silenced.
  • Finesse: When Attacking a single being, you may limit the Severity of any Injury you inflict or determine a maximum Wound Level, including Incapacitated. You may also choose to make this Injury properly or improperly stabilized, or to keep it unstabilized. If you would successfully incapacitate a target, you may opt to knock them out for one hour instead of having them suffer an Injury.
  • Grip Discipline: You cannot be disarmed against your will by Minor, Major, or Severe Battle Scars, physical Actions, environmental conditions, botches, or Effects. Your weapon may still be destroyed.

You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.

You have 6, which reduces incoming damage from all sources of physical attack except WHITE DAMAGE. Armor from multiple sources does not stack.

Your Armor cannot be destroyed, and it always provides a minimum of 2 Armor regardless of any Armor shredding or penetration. It cannot be circumvented with Called Shots. When shredded, it returns to full potency in one hour.

  • This Effect’s Armor rating cannot be increased by any other Effects.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

You may go five times longer than a normal human without food, water, sleep, and air.

Stock Passive Gifts

You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your Intellect rating is increased by 1. You may Exert your Mind to automatically gain an Outcome of 5 on any roll that uses Intellect (Cannot be used on combat rolls or Power activations).

You also gain the following effects:

  • Brilliant Deduction: You may spend five minutes pondering an enigma, puzzle, or mystery, and roll Intellect at Difficulty 8. Success will reveal a clue or other tidbit that you have otherwise missed. Limit once per enigma.
  • Insufferable Know-It-All: Any social rolls you make are at +1 Difficulty, and if someone else can answer an informational question or solve a puzzle before you do, make a Trauma roll. The Difficulty of this Trauma roll cannot be reduced by any means.

  • Attribute bonuses from multiple sources do not stack. Instead the highest bonus is used.

You gain the following benefits as long as as long as you have drank a half gallon (lethal) amount of blood in the past 24 hours.

Any Injury you receive heals quickly, reducing its Severity by one level each hour. Any Injuries you receive while this Effect is active do not deteriorate over time. However, any Battle Scars caused by such an Injury will remain unless it is Properly Stabilized as normal.

You gain the following benefits at all times.

Your senses are enhanced in the following way.

  • Sight: You can see things that are normally invisible to the naked eye, such as fingerprints and bacteria.

  • Your microscopic vision requires a close look at a very small, specific area to use. It does not grant increased distance vision, it simply provides a higher resolution, allowing you to see finer and finer detail.

You gain the following benefits as long as you are not at all wet and you are wearing this Artifact.

You and everything you are carrying is obscured in one of the following manners. You may Spend an Action to change the way in which you're concealed.

  • Hearing: You are completely obscured from hearing. You produce no sounds while this Effect is active. All attempts to detect you via hearing fail. Attempts via other senses where hearing would assist are rolled at -2 dice.
  • Sight:You are partially obscured from being noticed by sight. All attempts to detect you using sight are rolled at a -3 dice penalty, and all attempts to detect you where sight would assist are rolled at -1 penalty. Anyone who detects you cannot determine any visual details about you beyond your general shape.

While this Effect is active, any Effect that would obscure you or your equipment specifically from other, additional senses fails automatically.

If someone discovers you, this Effect will not help you hide from them for the next minute. This Effect does not end early when you activate an obvious Effect, attack, or receive an Injury.

  • GMs should use their discretion when determining the exact impacts of this Effect, particularly in conjunction with environmental factors. Standing still against a complex background may render you impossible to detect, and footprints in snow may make it easy. A chance to detect you is not guaranteed.

You gain the following benefits as long as the target object has a cutting edge.

As long as you maintain Concentration, you can take Actions and interact with things that are within 75 feet without needing to physically touch them or be near them. Any rolls made for Actions taken in this way use a Mental Strength of 2 in place of your Brawn rating, a Mental Agility of 2 in place of your Dexterity, and otherwise use your own Attributes and Abilities.

Telekinetic actions have the following restrictions and behaviors:

  • Line of Sight: You must be able to visually observe anything you interact with, and any actions that you are taking will end if their target moves out of sight.
  • Unarmed Combat: You cannot deal damage through unarmed combat or thrown objects with this Effect, though you may still grapple with targets.
  • Weapons: You are able to effectively wield weapons to Attack, Defend, and Clash with this Effect.
  • Fine Tools: You are otherwise limited to actions that a normal human could do with their bare hands.
  • Levitation: If you are strong enough to lift yourself, you may levitate up to 75 feet away from the ground. Movement is limited to 5 feet per Round.
  • Multiple Items: You can only interact with one thing or take one Action at a time.
  • Lifting and hauling: you may lift 90 pounds.

  • Any telekinetic actions which interact with Animate targets may require contested rolls at GMs discretion.