At some point—somewhere between all the nights she spent curled next to Bapha's twitching tail and the mornings spent cleaning blood off her shoes—Vita started hearing the way monsters think. Not words, exactly, but wants. She doesn’t bark commands. She echoes them, speaks them in the secret tongue stitched into fur and scale. It was never a spell. It's just that the beasts listen now. And worse, they obey.
Bapha hasn’t noticed. Or maybe he has, and he’s pretending not to.
When Vita activates this effect, the creature’s body convulses—like it’s being yanked on invisible wires. Its limbs twitch violently. It tries to resist, but there’s no fight in its eyes anymore—just a blank glaze and eerie stillness. The world around her goes muffled, like someone turned down the volume of everything except the sound of wet breathing and bone creak. People watching know something unspeakable just happened. They can’t say what. But they know.
This isn’t training. It’s contamination. The longer Vita spends tethered to Bapha, the more the line between her and the creatures blurs. This Gift didn’t come from study or practice—it seeped in like mold in forgotten places. Now when she looks at a beast, it knows her. Not as prey, not as predator—something worse: kin.
And she doesn’t even realize it’s happening.
Every command is a breach. Every flick of her fingers etches new cracks in the divide between mortal will and feral instinct. One day, she might give a command she doesn’t mean to. And something ancient might answer back.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien Creature within 20 feet.
For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow.
Your commands can be complex and multi-layered, though they must still be specific. You cannot make them obviously endanger themselves or violate their instinct for self-preservation. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see the creatures, body spasms as if it’s fighting for its life before it ultimately loses, said fight and its eyes glaze over anyone who witnesses has a sense that I have done something horrible to said creature and Is immediately off put by me.
Target is eaten and starts to be digested
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within arm's reach. Roll Brawn + Melee 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.
Restricted targets may escape their binding by spending an Action and taking a Severity-1 Injury. Their movement is reduced by 10 feet until the Injury heals.
If your target does not escape within 3 Rounds, they cannot ever free themselves and must be rescued.
Only you can free an Imprisoned target.
You may end this Effect prematurely as a Free Action.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see target is eaten.
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.
Doors identify you as a main character of the story and provide plot convenience when near. You verbally weave a portend to entice the need for the door to lock or unlock and open.
While not quite animating an object, unlocking a door requires a will of the doors own. Crafting that will and projecting it onto the door means a micro usage of Causal Diction must be used (refer to "Living Story"). This concise impartation of will and beliefs that infer a crucial event will occur and/or unless the door locks or unlocks in favor of the Storyteller. The same technique also conveniently extends to anything that functions like a door.
Spend an Action. Select a door, container, knot, or lock within 20 feet. This can be used on Alien targets.
You may lock, unlock, and/or open your target.
Possession of this Power grants the following Trauma at all times: Betrayal (limit).
Interweaves with the energy of an object to see if it has any supernatural properties and its purpose
Spend a minute. Select a target Object within arm's reach. You must actively and obviously use Notebook of occult knowlege to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Perception + Occult at Difficulty 6.
You learn all the following information about your target:
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see rotten tentacles spread out of his arm and wrap around the object.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
Bruno implodes in a splash of blood, then reforms from blood streaming out of the target. Neither is injured by this bloody event.
Spend an Action. Select a Location which is at most 60 feet away horizontally or 15 feet away vertically. If you have activated this Effect 10 times it the last minute, you must Exert your Mind. This Effect cannot be used unless the destination is adjacent to a creature or being with blood.
You jump to the chosen location. If jumping blind or landing precariously, must roll Dexterity + Athletics to land safely. You will never take fall Damage from successfully landing a jump made with this Effect.
You may opt to trade your free movement for a Super Leap if you are jumping less than 50 feet or if you are closing a gap to an opponent and spend your Action on an attack.
Instead of physically passing through the air, you are teleported directly to your destination. Does not allow you to go through walls, cages, or grapples.
Anyone who witnesses you during this Effect's activation will almost certainly be disturbed to see Bruno implode in a splash of blood, then reform from blood streaming out of the target.
The user touches the earrings with their hands and for a moment radiant sunlight seems to emanate from their hands, a light that's more a visual hallucination than actual light, visible regardless of brightness of their surroundings.
The earrings are an artifact said to be blessed by the Incan god of sun Inti. They were recovered near Machu Picchu during inofficial archaeological excavations.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within 60 feet of you. Choose a 3-D shape that will define the borders of your Effect.
You create a zone of Golden Sunlight in the chosen shape, originating at the chosen Location, with a radius of 60 feet. and lasting for 5 minutes. The area inside your zone is affected in the following ways:
The Vampire is able to turn one of their victims into a lesser vampire, a pale shadow of a full creature of the night but useful nonetheless. Having drained and killed their target, the Vampire performs a brief ritualistic bloodletting, wherein they spill their own blood into the target's mouth, forcing them to drink, and bonding them together as child and sire.
Shortly afterwards, the fledgling vampire will rise from death, hungry for blood and eager to serve.
Increase your sacrificial Injury's Severity by 1 and spend one minute. Select a Dead target within arm's reach that has died within the last hour. This Effect cannot be used unless you drained the target's blood while they were still alive.
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 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. The raised creature must consume flesh every day or it will die again.
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.
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 Necromancer may exert their will on any undead creature, forcing it to act as they desire. The Necromancer's eyes turn completely black, and they speak a command to the creature in the language of the dead.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Non-Alien, Non-Sapient, Animate target within 20 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target is undead.
For the next day, you may issue specific commands to your target which they will be compelled to follow.
Your commands must be relatively simple and within the target’s intellectual grasp. You cannot make them obviously endanger themselves or violate their instinct for self-preservation. The effects of the command will fade after a day has passed.
The spy is able to transform an ordinary ballpoint pen into a monitoring device that is inconspicuous enough to blend in to most settings, but advanced enough to allow 360 degree surveillance as well as audio capture, which is sent to their smartphone.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within 10 feet. You must actively and obviously use a ballpoint pen to activate this Effect.
You place a ward, which is fixed to its initial location. You can hear and see through the ward as though you were standing at its location. Your wards last 3 hours. You 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.
The hacker is capable of crafting bottles of nanites. When poured on a broken object, the nanites go to work restoring it to a functioning state. The goop shimmers and crawls, sparking with blue electricity as it reforms broken parts.
Spend 10 Rounds and use up this a bottle of metallic fluid. Select a Object within arm's reach that is no larger than an SUV. Cannot be used on Alien technology. More than half the target object must be present in order to begin repairs. Roll 7 dice Difficulty 6, dice penalties do not apply.
If you succeed, your target is repaired back to a functional state. If you fail, you spend the full time working before realizing you cannot repair the target.
The magician dons their wizard hat, raises their arms, wiggles their fingers, and a rain of sparks fly woosh around an object. It shudders to life and follows the magicians commands, including to do things it was not designed to do.
Exert your Mind and an Action. Select a Inanimate target within arm's reach which could fit inside a briefcase (15 liters). You must actively and obviously use a pointed hat with stars and moons to activate this Effect.
Your target will become Animated indefinitely. You may choose to end the effect at will, as a Free Action. You can maintain a max of 4 targets animated at once.
Animated Objects have the following restrictions and capabilities: