When you wish it, your body is covered in a sheen of ice for ten minutes that gives you +1 to Armor. While the sheen is active, you feel no discomfort from normal cold temperatures and have an additional +2 to Armor versus cold damage specifically.
You create a solid object of ice that is your size or smaller. The object is crude and can have no moving parts, so you can make a sword, a shield, a short ladder, and so on. Your ice objects are as strong as iron, but if you're not in constant contact with them, they function for only 1d6+6 rounds before breaking or melting. For example, you can make and wield an ice sword, but if you give it to another PC, the sword won't last as long for that character. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to create objects larger than you. For each level of Effort used in this way, you can create an object up to twice again as large as you.
Ice is usually frosty and opaque, unless the character specifies transparent ice.
You attempt an additional Intellect task as part of your Cold Burst attack, and if successful, you blind foes for up to one minute with a layer of freezing ice. All tasks of blinded creatures are hindered by two steps.
You designate a creature or flammable object you can see within short range to catch fire. This is an Intellect attack. The target takes 6 points of ambient damage per round until the flames are extinguished, which a creature can do by dousing itself in water, rolling on the ground, or smothering the flames. Usually, putting out the flames takes anAction.
Action to initiate.
If you are affected by an unwanted condition or affliction (such as disease, paralysis, mind control, broken limb, and so on, but not damage), you can ignore it and act as if it does not affect you for one hour. If the condition would normally last less than an hour, it is entirely negated.
You ignore the impaired condition and treat the debilitated condition as impaired.
You touch an object, and that object sheds light to illuminate everything in short range. The light remains until you use an action to touch the object again, or until you've illuminated more objects than you have tiers, in which case the oldest objects you illuminated go dark first.
You appear to be someone or something else, roughly of your size and shape, for up to one hour. Once created, the disguise requires no concentration. For each additional Intellect point you spend, you can disguise one other creature. All disguised creatures must stay within sight of you or lose their disguise.
Action to create.
You create a single image of yourself within immediate range. The image looks like you as you are now (including how you are dressed). The image can move (for example, you could make it walk or attack), but it can't move more than an immediate distance from where you created it. The illusion includes sound and smell. It lasts for ten minutes and changes as you direct (no concentration is needed). If you move beyond short range of the illusion, it vanishes.
Action to create.
When you would be hit by an attack, you teleport an immediate distance away, leaving behind an illusory copy of yourself to be struck by that attack instead of you. This destroys the illusion but leaves you unharmed by the attack. If the attack affects an area and the teleportation can't get you out of that area, the attack still affects you normally.
You create four holographic duplicates of yourself within short range. The duplicates last for one minute. You mentally direct their actions, and the duplicates aren't mirror images—each one can do different things. If struck violently, they either disappear permanently or freeze motionless (your choice).
Action to create.
You gain +3 to your Might Pool. You can attempt a Might task to avoid being knocked down, pushed back, or moved against your will even if the effect attempting to move you doesn't allow it. If you apply Effort to this task, you can apply two free levels of Effort.
After interacting for at least one minute with a creature who can hear and understand you, you can attempt to temporarily impart an ideal to it that you could not otherwise convince it to adopt. An ideal is different than a specific suggestion or command; an ideal is an overarching value such as “All life is sacred,” “My political party is the best,” “Children should be seen, not heard,” and so on. An ideal influences a creature's behavior but doesn't control it. The imparted ideal lasts as long as befits the situation, but usually at least a few hours. The ideal is jeopardized if someone friendly to the creature spends a minute or more bringing it back to its senses.
Your Learning the Path ability works more effectively, allowing you to ease a task by two steps or to provide two assets to a friend's task, instead of easing normally.
For one hour, you alter your voice, posture, and mannerisms, whip together a disguise, and gain an asset on an attempt to impersonate someone else, whether it is a specific individual (Bob the cop) or a general role (a police officer)
Action to initiate.
A loose object within short range that you could carry in one hand is drawn to your free hand. If the object is stuck or held by another creature, you must succeed on a Might roll to rip it free, or the object remains where it is.
Path of the PlanebreakerYou are trained in planar lore.
You can walk (or crawl or run) on steep inclines and horizontal surfaces (such as walls and cliffs) for the next minute as if they were flat ground. When using this ability, “down” for you is either the surface you are walking on or the normal orientation of gravity (your choice). If you apply one level of Effort, you can also walk on the ceiling or on a liquid or semi-liquid surface such as water, mud, quicksand, or even lava (although touching a dangerous surface like lava still harms you). If you apply two levels of Effort, you can also walk on air as if it were solid ground.
You perform a feat of strength, speed, or combat, impressing those nearby. For the next minute you gain an asset on all interaction tasks with people who saw you use this ability.
When you use Absorb Kinetic Energy, instead of being able to absorb 1 point of damage from a physical attack or impact, you can absorb 2 points. You can also store up to 2 points of energy from any source. However, you can still release energy only 1 point at a time.
You call a creature of up to level 3, which appears next to you. You can choose a creature that you've previously encountered, or (no more than once per day) you can allow the GM to determine the creature randomly. If you call a random creature, it has a 10 percent chance of being a creature of up to level 5. The creature has no memory of anything before being called by you, though it can speak and has the general knowledge a creature of its type should possess. The creature is receptive to communication and helping you (unless shown that it should do otherwise).
When you use your Command Spirit ability, you can command a spirit or animate undead creature of up to level 7.
Your companion (such as a controlled beast) or follower increases to level 4. As a level 4 creature, it has a target number of 12 and 12 health, and it inflicts 4 points of damage (though in most cases, instead of attacking, it provides an asset to your attacks). You can gain this ability once per tier. Each additional time you select it, it increases your companion or follower's level by 1.
You can use Copy Power to copy more powerful abilities. In addition to the normal options for using Effort with Copy Power, if you apply one level of Effort, the GM chooses a mid-tier ability that most closely resembles that power (instead of a low-tier ability). When you use Improved Copying, a copied ability must be low, medium, or high tier according to how it is listed in the ability categories. It doesn’t matter if a type or focus makes it available at a lower or higher tier.
When you use Designation, you can designate one additional creature to be innocent or guilty, which means up to two creatures at a time may be innocent, or two guilty, or one innocent and one guilty.
Choose one of your Edge stats that is 0. It increases to 1.
You can harm a group of targets within long range by rapidly increasing gravity's pull on one portion of each target and decreasing it on another, inflicting 6 points of damage. The targets must be within immediate range of each other.
Old Gus' Daft DraftsYour Handy Hold-All's level increases by 1. Additionally, choose one of the following modifications:
The machine from your Machine Companion ability improves, becoming a level 5 creature with the ability either to fly a long distance each round (and carry you) for up to ten minutes at a time, or to carry an extra cypher for you that doesn’t count against your cypher limit.
When you inflict damage to creatures more than twice as large or massive as you, you inflict 3 additional points of damage.
When you manifest the ally from your Bound Magic Creature ability, it is now a level 4 creature. Also, the creature gains a pulse attack that renders all artifacts, machines, manifest cyphers, and lesser magic devices within short range inoperable for one minute. After the creature uses this ability, it must retreat to its object to rest for three hours. .
Old Gus' Daft DraftsYour Psychometric Bond with your object deepens. Depending on the object's function, you gain the following benefits:
Your ten-minute recovery roll takes only one action instead, so that your first two recovery rolls are one action, the third is one hour, and the fourth is ten hours. .
sYou create an object of solid light in any shape you can imagine whose base size can fit within a 10-foot (3 m) cube. The object appears in an area adjacent to you or floating freely in space up to a long distance away, and the object lasts for a few days. The object is crude and can have no moving parts, so you can make a wall segment, a block, a box, stairs, and so on. The sculpted object has the approximate mass of the real object and is level 6. If you apply Effort to increase the size of the object, each level applied increases the size by an additional 10-foot (3 m) cube.
When you use Sensor, you can place the sensor anywhere you choose within long range.
When you roll a 17 or higher on an attack roll that deals damage, you deal 1 additional point of damage. For instance, if you roll a natural 18, which normally deals 2 extra points of damage, you instead deal 3 extra points. If you roll a natural 20 and choose to deal damage instead of achieve a special major effect, you deal 5 extra points of damage.
When you inflict damage to witches (or other intelligent creatures who cast spells), you inflict 3 additional points of damage.
When you perform a task in which you are not trained, you can improvise to gain an asset on the task. The asset might be a tool you cobble together, a sudden insight into overcoming a problem, or a rush of dumb luck.
When you put your friends before yourself as your action, you ease all defense tasks for all characters you choose that are adjacent to you. This lasts until the end of your next turn. If one of your friends would be damaged, you can choose to take up to half the number of points of damage they would otherwise take, but only if you’re not already impaired or debilitated.
You use necromantic magic to make one creature in short range fall prone and be unable to take actions for one round.
While on a starcraft you own or have a direct connection with, your Might Edge, Speed Edge, and Intellect Edge increase by 1. When you make a recovery roll on a starcraft you’re familiar with, you recover 5 additional points.
You treat rolls of natural 19 as rolls of natural 20 for either Might actions or Speed actions (your choice when you gain this ability). This allows you to gain a major effect on a natural 19 or 20.
If you fail at a noncombat physical task (pushing open a door or climbing a cliff, for example) and then retry the task, the task is eased. If you fail again, you gain no special benefits.
You do something amazing in the lab. This takes parts and materials equivalent to three expensive items. Possible incredible feats include:
Incredible Feat of Science is an ability often associated with the Conducts Weird Science focus.
Action to initiate; a full day of work to complete.
Thanks to a dip in a magical pool, an injection of artificial antibodies and immune defense nanobots into your bloodstream, exposure to strange radiation, or something else, you are now immune to diseases, viruses, and mutations of any kind.
You move up one step on the damage track or shake off any unwanted ongoing condition.
You move much farther than normal in a round. This means as a part of another action, you can move up to a long distance. As an action, you can move up to 200 feet (60 m), or up to 500 feet m) as a Speed-based task with a difficulty of 4.
Path of the PlanebreakerThe entity in the Grove of Crows wants you. But in the meantime, they're satisfied with the occasional visitor you send their way. As an action, you transport a creature of level 3 or lower within short range to the Grove of Crows. Each round, you can make another attack roll to keep the creature banished to the Grove for another round, up to one minute total. When the creature returns, they appear where they were when they vanished, or in the closest available space.
The Grove of Crows is a difficult place for unprepared newcomers, and all the creature remembers from being there is an unending mass of battering, flapping wings.
If you have the Erase Face ability, the banished
creature is automatically affected by Erase Face,
starting the moment they are transported away.
A loose crow feather might
be stuck in the clothes or hair
of the target of the Inevitable
Call of the Grove ability. The
feather acts as a Path token,
but inevitably leads someone
who tries to use it back to the
Grove of Crows.
For each additional level of Effort you apply, you can attempt to affect a target of one level higher.
If you interact with or study a target for at least a round, you can attempt to read its surface thoughts, even if the subject doesn't want you to. You must be able to see the target. Once you have gained a sense of what it's thinking— through its body language, its speech, and what it does and doesn't say—you can continue to infer the target's surface thoughts for up to one minute as long as you can still see and hear the target.
Action to prepare; action to initiate.
For the next minute, you leave a trail of flame in your wake. The trail matches your path and lasts for up to a minute, creating a wall of flame about 6 feet (2 m) high that inflicts 5 points of damage to any creature that passes through it, potentially catching them on fire for an additional 1 point of damage each round (if they are flammable) until they spend a round putting out the fire.
You are trained in interactions involving lies or trickery.
You master one type of small creature (such as insects, rats, bats, or even birds) and they respond to you in number. Your creatures within short range will not harm you or those you designate as allies for one hour.
Action to initiate.
You speak telepathically with any or all machines within 1 mile (1.5 km). You can ask one basic question about themselves or anything happening near them and receive a simple answer. For example, while in an area with many machines, you could ask about the location of a specific creature or individual, and if they are within a mile of you, one or more machines will probably provide the answer.
You gain an informer within an allied community. They act as your secret (or known) informer. If something of note happens in your informer's location, they will use whatever means they have available to tell you about it.
When you kill a creature or destroy a spirit with an attack, if you choose, its spirit (if unprotected) immediately infuses you, and you regain 1d6 points to one of your Pools (your choice). The spirit is stored within you, which means it cannot be questioned, raised, or restored to life by any means unless you allow it.
You transfer your body and whatever you are carrying into a crystal at least the size of your index finger. While in the crystal, you are aware of what is going on around it, seeing and hearing through the crystal. You can even speak through the crystal and carry on conversations. You cannot take actions other than to exit the crystal. You remain within as long as you wish, but you are not in stasis and should exit to eat, drink, sleep, and so on as normal (breathing is not an issue). If the crystal is destroyed or takes major damage while you are within it, you immediately exit, cannot act for three rounds, and move two steps down the damage track.
A character should specify where they place the crystal for the Inhabit Crystal ability before using it, even if it’s just on the ground at their feet.
Action to enter and exit.
Choose either your Might Pool or your Speed Pool. When spending points to activate your focus abilities, you can spend points from this Pool instead of your Intellect Pool (in which case you use your Might Edge or Speed Edge instead of your Intellect Edge, as appropriate).
Life's trials have toughened you and made you hard to read. You are trained in any task to resist another creature's attempt to discern your true feelings, beliefs, or plans. You are likewise trained in resisting torture, telepathic intrusion, and mind control.
You can modify any artifact to give it different or better abilities as if that artifact were one level lower than normal, and the modification takes half the normal time.
You call a swarm of insects in a place where it is possible for insects to appear. They remain for one minute, and during this time, they do as you command while they are within long range. They can swarm about and hinder any or all creatures' tasks, or you can focus the swarm and attack all targets within immediate range of each other (all within long range of you). The attacking swarm inflicts 2 points of damage per round. You can also command the swarm to move heavy objects through collective effort, eat through wooden walls, and perform other actions suitable for a supernatural swarm
Action to initiate.
You are trained in tasks to discern others' motives and to ascertain their general nature. You have a knack for sensing whether or not someone is truly innocent.
You speak words of encouragement and inspiration. All allies within short range who can hear you immediately gain a recovery roll, gain an immediate free action, and have an asset for that free action. The recovery roll does not count as one of their normal recovery rolls.
Inspiration might be so powerful that the GM adds a usage limit to it.
High Noon at MidnightYou meditate, perhaps over a drink, perhaps on a fond memory you made in a saloon or similar enjoyable location. You gain a level 6 subtle cypher of the general variety that you want (though the GM chooses the specifics) and can use it next round. If you are already at your cypher limit when you use this ability, choose which cypher you replace with the new one. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the cypher's level; each level of Effort used in this way increases the level by 1.
If one ally can see and easily understand you, you can instruct that ally to take an action. If the ally chooses to take that exact action, they can do so as an additional action immediately. Doing so doesn't interfere with the ally taking a normal action on their turn.
Your words twist the mind of a character within short range who is able to understand you, unlocking their more primitive instincts. As a result, they gain an asset on their Might-based attack rolls for one minute.
Action to initiate.
If your allies can see and easily understand you, you can instruct each of them to take one specific action (the same action for all of them). If any of them choose to take that exact action, they can do so as an additional action immediately. This doesn't interfere with them taking their normal actions on their turns.
You speak words of encouragement and inspiration to everyone within immediate range whom you have designated as innocent with your Designation ability. They immediately gain a free recovery roll. One person you choose can gain an immediate free action instead of a free recovery roll. If you also have the Inspiration ability, the target who gains a free action also gains an asset on it.
Through stories, songs, art, or other forms of entertainment, you inspire your friends. After spending 24 hours with you, once per day each of your friends can ease a task. This benefit is ongoing while you remain in the friend's company. It ends if you leave, but it resumes if you return to the friend's company within 24 hours. If you leave the friend's company for more than 24 hours, you must spend another 24 hours together to reactivate the benefit.
When you succeed on a roll to perform a task related to the stat that you choose upon selecting this ability, and you applied at least one level of Effort, you may choose another character within short range. That character has an asset on the next task they attempt using that stat on their next turn.
One light or medium melee weapon of your choice (such as a mantis blade or monowire) is built into one of your arms. The weapon is concealed until you wish to use it.
You can speak telepathically with any intelligent machine within long range. Further, you are trained in all interactions with intelligent machines. Such machines and robots that normally would never communicate with a human might talk to you.
You gain an asset on intimidating, persuading, and influencing people for ten minutes.
You are trained in two skills in which you are not already trained. Choose two of the following: deceiving, persuading, public speaking, seeing through deception, or intimidation. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, you must choose two different skills.
By directly plugging into a device, you can identify and learn to operate it as though the task were one level lower.
Your vociferous, booming command prevents a creature within short range from taking any action for one round. It can defend itself if attacked, but when it does so, its defense is hindered by two steps. Each additional time you attempt this ability against the same target, you must apply one more level of Effort than you applied on the previous attempt.
You can create new artifacts in half the time, as if they were two levels lower, by spending half the normal XP.
You are trained in perception, cryptography, deceiving, and breaking into computers.
You are trained in two skills in which you are not already trained. Choose two of the following: perception, identifying, lockpicking, assessing danger, or tinkering with devices. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, you must choose two different skills.
To really shine as an investigator, you must engage your mind and body in your deductions. You can spend points from your Might Pool, Speed Pool, or Intellect Pool to apply levels of Effort to any Intellect-based task.
You become invisible for ten minutes. While invisible, you are specialized in stealth and Speed defense tasks. This effect ends if you do something to reveal your presence or position—attacking, using an ability, moving a large object, and so on. If this occurs, you can regain the remaining invisibility effect by taking an action to hide your position. If you have another ability that also confers invisibility, using either one allows you to remain invisible for twice as long as the duration specified.
Action to initiate or reinitiate.
You become invisible while using Phase Sprint and during the following round. While invisible, stealth is eased by two steps and Speed defense is eased by two steps (this replaces the asset to Speed defense tasks provided by Phase Sprint). The first attack you make using any Shreds the Walls of the World attack abilities is also eased by two steps; however, if you attack a creature, Invisible Phasing ends immediately instead of lasting for one additional round. If you have the Invisibility ability, you can remain invisible during the entire round, which means that if you use Scratch Existence or Shred Existence, attacking each target along your path is eased by two steps.
You inflict an additional 3 points of damage with any single-target attack spell cast through a firearm using Spell Bullet. If the attack spell doesn't inflict damage, you instead can modify the spell as if you had applied a level of Intellect Effort to it.
Your unarmed attacks deal 4 points of damage.
When they wish, an Inebriate doesn't suffer ill effects of alcohol, including descending steps on the intoxication track (see boxed text). Instead, they can put down shot after shot of whiskey or other drink with no apparent effect, other than being able to access the abilities noted.
You magnetically pick up a metallic heavy object within short range and hurl it at someone within short range, an Intellect action that deals 6 points of damage to the target and to the hurled object. For each additional level of Effort applied, you can pick up a slightly larger object, allowing you to affect one additional target within short range as long as it is next to the prior target.
The more you imbibe, the greater your tolerance grows (at least, so far…). You gain +5 to your Might Pool.