Pearl of the Sea

2
Requires Seasoned
The power to augment others' bodies.
Used by Fiddleraceous, Created by PascalsAngel.
(While you are augmenting your target, it is obvious you are treating them. All augmentations you make cause a visible and obvious alteration to the target's body. This Effect is obviously Alien when used.)

The changes all started when he swallowed the pearl, but he's since learned to control these changes.


Spend an Action. Select a Living target within arm's reach. The target can easily Resist.

You may add one augmentation to your target. Each augmentation counts as a Battle Scar and can have exactly one of the following Effects:

  • Specialized: You receive +2 dice to a particular non-combat, non-Effect Action.
  • Environmental Adaptation: You do not suffer harm from heat, cold, pressure, or lack of oxygen in a particular environment, provided that challenge normally exists in that environment.
  • Implanted Tool: You have access to the functionality of some common Device at all times. The selected Device can be no larger than a motorcycle helmet.
  • Armor: You have 2 Armor at all times. As always, Armor from multiple sources does not stack.
  • Pouch: Part of your body functions as a hidden pocket. It can hold no more than a briefcase (15 liters).
  • Zippy: Your Free Movement is increased by 10 feet.
  • Maws and Claws: Your unarmed attacks do +2 Weapon Damage instead of -1.

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 a horrible twitching overtakes the crab as it opens its mandibles spread in a silent scream. The affected area bloats until it bursts and cracks the shell, the gore disintegrating and revealing the change.

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

Possession of this Power grants the following Battle Scar: Clubbed Claw: You are at a -1 die penalty for any roll utilizing your shield claw..

Your alteration "heals" over the course of the next month, after which it is fully cured.

  • When narrating disturbing content, be cognizant of your group's tone and accommodating to those who would like to "fast forward" through the description.
  • Remember: A Contractor’s Body rating is reduced by 1 for each Battle Scar after their fourth.
  • You may not augment targets with pouches or implanted devices that are larger than they are.
  • Targets without Body ratings may have a maximum of 4 augmentations.
  • Example environments for adaptation: space, all saltwater, all fresh water, all water under 50 feet deep, all water deeper than 50 feet, the jungle, radioactive areas, a specific alien world, etc.
  • 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

Spend a minute. Investigate an area with a radius of up to 500 feet You must use up 2 litres of purified water in order to activate this Effect. At the end of your investigation, roll Intellect + Investigation at Difficulty 6.

You learn the following information about the area:

  • You can locate the source of any Alien energy or the presence of any Alien effects on the area. Specific information about the function of these effects beyond their general type is not forthcoming.
  • You learn how heavily trafficked the area is, what sorts of Animate beings have moved through the area and when.
The quality and specificity of information gained depends on your Outcome.

This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 1.

You cannot investigate the same area more than once per day.

  • 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 (unless you win a coin flip) and spend at least one Action. Select a Sapient target within 20 feet. Your target may be actively engaged in Combat. Communicate a command to your target. Roll Charisma + Influence at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 7.

If the contested Outcome is positive, your target will be compelled to follow your command to the letter-- but not necessarily the spirit-- of the command until they have completed it or for your Contested Outcome in minutes. You cannot issue another suggestion to the target until 10 minutes after they have completed the first command or 10 minutes after a failure.

The target is unaware that they are under supernatural influence and feel they are acting of their own free will. If you fail, they realize that you were attempting to influence them supernaturally with your command.

Your command can be an order to take an immediate Action. You cannot order a target to "do nothing," and they are free to take other Actions as they fulfill your request. Your command cannot be obviously self-destructive. The Effect ends if following your command would cause a target to cross one of their Limits in a way that would necessitate a Trauma roll.

This Effect ends if you are stunned, fall asleep, go unconscious, are incapacitated, die, or if your total Stress ever exceeds 5.

  • You cannot order your target to endanger themselves, but you may order them to flee, attack a certain target, take a defensive or offensive stance, or similar.
  • The target must be able to understand you and must receive your communication for the suggestion to work.
  • Allowed Commands
    • Direct Order: The target must take an immediate action (e.g. “Sit down,” "run away," or "tell me your password.")
  • 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.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire).

You may start or extinguish a fire as large as a fire in a residential fireplace 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 3 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 3 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.

Use up this A balloon full of Diethyl Ether and spend an Action to activate. Make a Water balloon attack at a Living or Animate target within normal attack range. Roll your for your attack as normal. The target may roll to dodge or defend, as normal for Water balloon attacks. The attack may or may not deal Damage as per a normal attack, at the user's choice.

If you succeed, your target becomes drowsy for the next 30 minutes, during which time they suffer an additional -3 dice Penalty to all Actions. After this, they fall asleep for Outcome x 3 rounds.

Affected 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.

  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • 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.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a target within 20 feet which has both fuel and oxygen available (if you are starting a new fire).

You may start a new fire as large as a firepit's fire at your target. 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 depleted by any Damage dealt, destroying the Armor once it reaches 0.

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

  • Someone may attempt to extinguish a fire that you started by spending an Action and rolling Dexterity + Athletics. An Outcome of 4 puts out the fire
  • 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

Spend an Action and use up this smoke bomb.

You create a hemispherical dome of smoke originating at your Location, with a radius of 60 feet. and lasting for 5 minutes. The area inside your zone is affected in any number of the following ways:

  • Disorienting: Any time someone moves within or through the zone, they must roll Mind at Difficulty 8. If they fail or botch, they move a similar distance in a different direction of the GM’s choice.
  • Suppressed Vision: The zone is fully blocked from view. Nothing within the zone may see anything or be seen from the outside. Any rolls that rely on sight fail automatically, and any rolls that benefit from sight are made at -3 dice.
The zone expands immediately to its full size from the chosen Location, but will be stopped from spreading in a particular direction by any barriers or cover, and can only fit through openings large enough to fit a grown adult. If a new opening appears while the Effect is still active, it will finish spreading in that direction.

  • The Effect does not follow you after you activate it.
  • This consumable is destroyed when used and cannot be used again.
  • If you select a location at the edge of your range, you will be just outside the zone once the Effect is activated
  • 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 2 Actions. Select a Location within your line of sight , and which is directly adjacent to water. You must be within arm's reach of water to activate this Effect.

You are transported directly to the chosen Location. You must wait an hour before activating this effect again.

  • 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 one minute. Select a Living target within 25 feet. This Effect cannot be used unless the target deserves it. Roll Charisma + Occult at Difficulty 6. Your target may resist by rolling Body at Difficulty 7.

If you succeed, the target is afflicted with a Condition that causes one of the following symptoms:

  • Gross: The target exhibits significant and obvious signs of illness, making them into a social pariah. They will be shunned in public places, and take a -2 penalty to all social actions, which grows by -1 every hour until it reaches your Outcome.
  • Poisoned: The target gains a Severity-1 Injury which ignores Armor and doesn’t heal naturally. For every hour that passes, they receive a new identical Injury. If this new Injury would kill them, they roll 1d10 at Difficulty 6. Success cures the condition; otherwise, they will die.
Symptoms begin to appear immediately, and will remain and continue to worsen until the affliction is cured. The affliction is not contagious and will not spread to others.

The affliction is not treatable by modern medicine. It may be diagnosed by rolling Intellect + Occult at Difficulty 6, and can be cured by bathing fully in clear running water.

This Effect is not obvious, and the only sign you are using an Effect is you staring at the target, speaking calmly. If someone suspects that an Effect was used, they must roll Perception + Alertness, Difficulty 8 to pick up on your Tell.

  • Successfully diagnosing an affliction also includes information about the treatment method.
  • The chosen method of treatment must be something that you could obtain in a small town given an afternoon.
  • Curing an affliction removes the Condition, but does not automatically heal any Injuries, Battle Scars, or Traumas which may have been caused by that condition.
  • This Effect’s symptoms do not stack with themselves on multiple applications.
  • 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. Select a target within 45 feet. Roll Charisma + Performance Difficulty 6. The target may contest by rolling to Dodge or Defend as a Reaction, Difficulty 6.

If the contested Outcome is positive, the target takes that much Damage plus 4. Armor is fully effective against this damage.

  • 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. Select a Location within 50 feet. You must be in an area abundant with man-made structures and materials.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of standard building materials originating at the target:

  • Wall: Create a straight wall made of standard building materials up to 40 feet long, 10 feet high, and 12 inches thick. This wall can also be used to create a bridge, ramp, or similar. It must be free-standing.

The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.

This alteration lasts one minute but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 6 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

  • Attempting to break any alterations with inappropriate tools may damage or destroy the tools at the GM's discretion.
  • Any structures you create leave precise gaps for obstacles in their path or push them out of the way. You cannot directly destroy objects or structures or damage beings by creating walls or domes.
  • Tool guidance for GMs:
    • Difficulty 9: Brawn 5, no tools.
    • Difficulty 7-8: One-handed tools or makeshift tools (like a sword). Mythic Brawn without tools.
    • Difficulty 6: Appropriate manual tools. Crowbar, sledgehammer, armor-shredding attacks.
    • Difficulty 4-5: Power tools, vehicles, explosives.
  • This Effect produces the substance you are controlling unless it is drawn from the environment via “Required Environment” Drawbacks.
  • 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.