[FOCI]

Sculpts Light

In Translation

You are a master sculptor, but your medium is translucent light. Hard as iron when fashioned, your creations fade to nothing when you dismiss them. Your ability might come from an object you built or found, be an inborn gift, be the product of an advanced psychic talent, or derive from something far stranger. Objects you create from hard light possess a color distinctive to you, and they are bright enough to create dim light within immediate range of each manifestation. Do you consider your gift a weighty responsibility or the means to accomplish your own ends? You often wear clothing that matches the chosen color of your constructs. If you take this focus in a Supers recursion, your clothing might be a suit that also displays your personal emblem, which is tied to your code name.


COLOR OF LIGHT CONSTRUCTS

As presented, the Sculpts Light focus doesn't suggest a color for the light produced by the wielder. Depending on the recursion where the focus is offered, the color choice might be an important aspect of character creation. If you and your GM wish, you can choose a color from the visible spectrum. This light choice could associate your character with a group of NPCs who wield that same color of light, if such a group exists in the campaign. For instance, if you choose violet, your character might be part of an organization called the Ultraviolets whose members pride themselves on lucid, mindful interaction with the world. If your GM agrees, you also gain color-related effects while your focus is active. The following list provides some ideas, but your GM might come up with a different set of effects for each color, or other colors entirely. Red: The color of danger and heat. When you use Hard Light Blast, you can choose that the damage you deal comes from the burning quality of your light.

Yellow: The color of optimism-or sometimes optimism's opposite, fear. When you use Hard Light Blast, you can choose to frighten the target instead of dealing damage. All tasks, attacks, and defenses of the target are modified by one step to its detriment for a couple of rounds.

Green: The color of growth and renewal. The difficulty of all healing tasks you attempt is decreased by one step, and you can attempt a healing task within long range by targeting an ally with your light.

Blue: The color of sadness and cold. When you use Hard Light Blast, you can choose that the damage you deal comes from the freezing quality of your light.

Violet: The color of purity and lucidity. The difficulty of all tasks related to using calm reason to reach a conclusion is decreased by one step. When you use Hard Light Blast, the damage you deal is considered to be mental trauma on your target.

Spinners and paradoxes are the most likely characters to choose Sculpts Light.

Equipment

Clothing appropriate to your recursion (in Ruk, a bodysuit and an umbilical; in a Supers recursion, a suit and a utility belt) and an account with 70 bits.

Minor Effect Suggestion

Your construct blazes with extra light intensity, partly blinding your target on its next turn, which modifies any task it attempts by one step to its detriment.

Major Effect Suggestion

Make an immediate extra attack with your Hard Light Limb ability.

Tier 1

Hard Light Limb (3 Intellect points) Action

You can produce an additional arm, either connected to your body or floating freely in space up to a long distance away. You can make it look like your normal arm, like the limb of a creature you've seen or encountered, like a simple geometric grasping surface, or like another shape you and your GM agree upon. In all cases, the arm is composed of translucent light of your chosen color. It acts as you direct, floating in the air. Directing the arm is an action. Without a command, the arm does nothing. It can move a long distance in a round, but it never moves farther than long range away from you. The arm's hand can grab, move, and carry things. The arm can also attack. Once created, the arm lasts for ten minutes.

Action to create; Action to direct.

Hard light limb level 3; moves a long distance; inflicts a moderate wound (4 points)

Tier 2

Hard Light Blast (1+ Intellect point) Action

You can project blasts of hard light that inflict 3 points of damage on a target within short range. Instead of applying Effort to reduce the difficulty or increase damage, you can apply Effort to increase the range by 100 feet (30 m) per level applied.

Hard Light Shell (1 Intellect point) Enabler

When you wish it, your body is covered in a flexible, translucent shell of light that gives you +1 to Armor. The shell lasts for ten minutes.

Tier 3

Hard Light Object (4 Intellect points) Action

You create a hard light object of any shape you can imagine that is your size or smaller. This is a difficulty 2 Intellect-based task. The object is crude and can have no moving parts, so you can make a sword, a shield, a short ladder, and so on. The hard light object has the approximate mass of the real object, if you choose. Your hard light objects are as strong as iron, but if you do not remain within long range of them, they function for only one minute before fading away.

Practiced Construct Creator Enabler

You add 2 points to your Intellect Pool.

Tier 4

Hard Light Armor Enabler

When you use Hard Light Shell, you create an airtight internal environmental recycling system within the shell that allows you to survive at oceanic depths or in vacuum for up to three days at a time.

Improved Hard Light Limb Enabler

Your hard light limb is a level 4 creature that can be up to double your size.

Improved hard light limb: level 4; moves a long distance; inflicts a moderate wound (5 points)

Tier 5

Hard Light Conveyance (6+ Intellect points) Action

You create a level 2 conveyance of hard light that can fly, drive, or dive beneath water for one hour, with you as a passenger. This is a difficulty 2 Intellect-based task. The conveyance can be a simple geometric platform or resemble a vehicle you are familiar with. If you create a vehicle that encases you, you gain +1 to Armor while inside it. For each additional level of Effort applied, you can increase the size of the conveyance so it's large enough to hold additional creatures your size or smaller. In terms of overland movement, your conveyance moves about 20 miles (32 km) per hour and is not affected by terrain if the vehicle is an aircraft or a submersible. You can use Hard Light Armor in conjunction with this ability to provide an airtight internal environment in your conveyance

Action to initiate.

Tier 6

Massive Hard Light Object (7+ Intellect points) Action

You create a hard light object, whose base size can fit within a 10-foot (3 m) cube, floating freely in space up to a long distance away. This is a difficulty 2 Intellect-based task. The object is crude and can have no moving parts, so you can make a wall segment, a block, a box, a massive hammer, and so on. The hard light object has the approximate mass of the real object, if you choose. Your hard light objects are as strong as iron, but if you do not remain within long range of them, they function for only one minute before fading away. 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.

Incredible Hard Light Limb Enabler

Your hard light limb is a level 5 creature that can be up to triple your size. You can use it to wield a weapon created with Massive Hard Light Object to attack all creatures within immediate range of each other (one attack roll per creature).

Incredible hard light limb: level 5; moves a long distance; inflicts a moderate wound (6 points)

GM Intrusions: Your hard light construct winks out unexpectedly. The light of a construct gives you away. Someone with light-based powers of an opposing color appears and announces himself as your nemesis.