Mnemonic Scanning

1
Requires Seasoned
The power to peek into another's memories.
Used by Dr. Theodore "Laz" Lazcowicz, Created by EvilRicktator.
(Activating this Effect is not obvious. The only sign you are using an Effect is Small skin rash behind Laz's right ear. )

Laz focuses on a target, and within a few seconds, the very observant may see a small heat rash on his skin. Those with microscopic vision might even see some of his nanites enter the target's head.

A small number of nanites enter a target and replicate in their brain, mapping the neurons used for memory storage and transmitting information to a specialized receiver behind Laz's right ear. When it cycles up, it gives Laz a small heat rash, and its neural connection runs through the cochlear nerve and always causes an irritating feedback. Eliza is examining options.

The brain replication does provoke a hostile immune response, and the feedback on their destruction may alert the target's conscious mind in an unmistakably alien way


Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Living, Animate target within 25 feet. You must maintain Concentration while the effect is active. Roll Intellect + Medicine at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Body at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you are able to view your target's memories. If you fail, the target knows you're attempting to read their memories.

You may ask a number of specific questions about their memory equal to your Contested Outcome. For example, “what is their computer password,” “What were they doing at 4:00PM yesterday,” etc. You cannot get answers to broad, analytical questions like “are they a good person?” or “what are their plans for the future?”

Each question you ask and memory you replay takes a single Round to read.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is Small skin rash behind Laz's right ear. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

Possession of this Power grants the following Battle Scar: Tinnitus.

Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Compulsive Curiosity: Any time someone makes a reference to information or events that are newsworthy or personally impactful to you, roll mind to resist attempting to read their memory of it.

  • In the case of a failed activation, GMs should consider how bystanders would realistically react to a potentially-outlandish accusation of mind-reading.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Community Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction to activate. Select a Location which is at most 50 feet away horizontally or 10 feet away vertically. You must actively and obviously use Watch to activate this Effect.

You jump to the chosen location. If the landing is precarious, the GM may call for a roll to land safely. You will never take fall damage from successfully landing a jump made with this Effect.

  • If you are Encumbered, the maximum range is cut in half. If Encumbrance has reduced your total movement to 0, you cannot activate this Effect.
  • Rolls to land safely will generally be Athletics, but GMs may call for a different roll at their discretion if it makes sense for the specific circumstances.
  • You must be on a surface of some kind in order to activate this effect; it cannot be activated while in mid-air.
  • You may only use this Effect once per round of combat, regardless of any enhancements you have taken.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. Select a Location which is at most 50 feet away horizontally or 10 feet away vertically.

You jump to the chosen location. If the landing is precarious, the GM may call for a roll to land safely. You will never take fall damage from successfully landing a jump made with this Effect.

You may activate this effect while in free-fall, as long as your target Location is a surface on which you can land.

  • If you are Encumbered, the maximum range is cut in half. If Encumbrance has reduced your total movement to 0, you cannot activate this Effect.
  • Rolls to land safely will generally be Athletics, but GMs may call for a different roll at their discretion if it makes sense for the specific circumstances.
  • You may only use this Effect once per round of combat, regardless of any enhancements you have taken.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Expend a point of Battery and spend an hour. Select a Living or Animate target within arm's reach. Select a Battle Scar on your target to treat.

The treated Battle Scar heals as you finish activating this Effect.

  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. You must actively and obviously use A cursed orb to activate this Effect. The area within 20 feet of you immediately and obviously becomes imminently dangerous. Roll Brawn + Alertness at Difficulty 6. Targets inside the radius may attempt an appropriate Reaction at GM’s discretion. Finding a physical barrier to use as cover will cut total damage taken in half (applies after Reaction roll but before Armor).

If the Outcome is positive, your blast hits everything within 20 feet of you with Damage equal to your Outcome + 2. Armor is reduced to 1/2, rounded up against this damage. If you botched the activation roll, you will also take full damage from the blast, otherwise it will not hurt you.

Damage spreads to targets beyond the edge of the initial radius, decreasing by 2 damage for every 5 feet traveled.

Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see it's painful.

Possession of this Power grants the following Battle Scar: Giant scar on my face.

You may only use this Effect once per day.

  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Spend an Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. Roll Brawn + Melee at Difficulty 6. Affected targets may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, your target becomes drowsy for the next 30 seconds, during which time they suffer an additional -2 dice Penalty to all Actions. At the end of their drowsiness, they fall asleep for Contested Outcome x 3 rounds.

Sleeping targets will not prematurely wake up on their own, but may still be woken up by sudden loud noises, being jarred or splashed with water, taking Damage, or similar rousing events. They will also awaken before dying of hunger, thirst, or suffocation. Drowsy targets always fall asleep, regardless of what happens while they are drowsy.

When activating this Effect you may attempt a knockout. If you do and your Contested Outcome exceeds 4, the target falls asleep immediately. Otherwise, they suffer the drowsy penalty for 2 Rounds.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.

  • For targets where "sleep" does not make any sense in terms of flavor, they will power down, freeze, etc, whatever state they can be in which is analogous to sleep.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Stock Targeted Gifts

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Animate target within 20 feet. You must actively and obviously use a watch or clock to activate this Effect. Roll Intellect + Science at Difficulty 7.

If you succeed, the target will suffer a dice penalty equal to the Outcome for the next 2 Rounds. Dice pools may be reduced all the way down to 0 by this penalty. This breaks Concentration.

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 Penalty is not removed if a character Exerts their Mind to ignore penalty.
  • If a character has a dice pool reduced to 0, they cannot attempt that action.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Spend an Action. Select a target any distance away from you. You must have a specific target in mind, but you require only an intuitive understanding of them, such as their name, face, or Location. This Effect cannot be used unless you are speaking to multiple people and the target is listening.

You may send a single message to your target. It can be no more complicated than a multi-page letter or a long email.

The message will only be perceived by the intended recipient. You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is your left hand making a fist. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 2.

  • Receiving a message does not force a target to pay attention to you, and they can feel free to ignore your message if they choose. Depending on the flavor of your Gift, they may or may not be able to return to it and read it later on.
  • Generally you cannot communicate with Contractors who are not in a Contract with you.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

Exert your Mind (unless you win a coin flip) and spend two Actions performing the following ritual: perform a fire-breathing trick. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire). Roll a single D10 as a critical failure check. If you roll a 1, the Effect fails, and you take a Severity-4 Injury as the fire burns your throat. You must maintain Concentration while activating this Effect, and it fails if you are interrupted.

You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a firepit's fire at your target. Extinguishing a fire does not cost Exertion. You may create or extinguish fires the size of a lighter or candle flame without Exerting your Mind. Your fires require fuel and oxygen in order to continue burning.

Lighting a target on fire deals 4 Damage each Round on your turn, starting in the Round after the one in which they caught fire. This Damage is reduced by Armor, but the target’s Armor rating will be shredded by any Damage dealt, destroying material Armor once it reaches 0.

You may extinguish flames as a Reaction. This does not extend to explosives.

  • Your fires may be extinguished with appropriate Actions and materials. Stop, drop, and rolling to extinguish requires spending an Action and making a Dexterity + Athletics roll, with an Outcome of 4 putting out the flames.
  • If the target is larger than your flame size, the Armor destruction creates a weak point instead of applying to the entire target.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Exert your Mind and spend a minute. Select a non-Alien Device within arm's reach. You must use up $10,000 cash (or equivalent) in order to activate this Effect. Cannot be used to improve Armor.

Lasts the next two hours. Your target receives 3 extra dice to all actions taken for its intended use. Attacking with an upgraded weapon grants +3 Weapon Damage instead of additional dice.

  • Reminder: additional Weapon Damage granted by this Effect does not stack with any other bonus to Weapon Damage. Instead the largest bonus is used. The same is true for extra dice.
  • Extra dice from this Effect do not apply to Gift activation rolls.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach with at least half its skeletal structure remaining. 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 rises as an Animate being. The raised creature is totally mindless, with no memory of its past life or hint of its old personality. They cannot communicate. They will follow any command you speak.

The creature lasts for eight hours or until it dies again. It is revived at full health. Any Injuries it had in life are not accounted for when determining its penalties or progression towards re-death, though they may affect its ability to perform certain actions at GM's discretion.

Raised creatures have their Abilities set to the same that they were in life. Their Charisma and Intellect are set to 1, but their Dexterity, Brawn and Perception are the same as they had in life. A raised creature cannot use any Effects.

Destroying one of your zombies requires a called shot to the head or heart. All other Injuries zombies suffer result in Battle Scars only, limiting their mobility and effectiveness in other ways.

Your revived targets deal 2 Weapon Damage with their unarmed attacks.

If you do not have a sacrificial Injury when you activate this Effect, take a new Severity-1 Injury.

  • The called shot requires 4 Outcome dealing 4+ Damage or 6 Outcome dealing 2+ Damage.
  • The sacrificial Injury received from activating this Effect cannot be prevented by any means or healed before 1 day has passed. It is shared with all Effects that use sacrifice. This Injury does not requires Stabilization or cause Battle Scars when it becomes Severe.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.