Powers and Abilities:
Transformation Power: You have the power to transform into something else. This is almost exclusively a Magical Girl ability, and as such, the typical transformation is exactly that - a magical girl. Transforming is an
Energy effect. When transformed, you gain certain automatic benefits and there may be additional ones based on your choices and Year Level. Transforming requires a Major Action, and makes your inner aura shine brightly, making it obvious to those who can see spirits and battle auras. The automatic benefits are: +2 Hit Point per Year Level, any one form of Extraordinary Movement, and a special protective costume - even if you are specifically hit in the face or anywhere else your costume doesn't cover, you still reduce all incoming damage by an amount equal to your Year Level unless the costume is damaged. Changing back is Not an Action, and indeed automatically happens when you are knocked out. Upon un-transforming for any reason, you become
Blocked. Transformation only lasts for 1 minute per Year Level, and then you automatically change back. There are several "sub-powers" that can affect the transformation:
- Instant Transformation: Transforming is no longer a lengthy process, it just happens instantly. It changes from a Major Action to Not an Action.
- Dazzling Transformation: Your transformation becomes almost hypnotic, with a brilliant burst of light that overwhelms viewers. When you Transform, you can make a Health Test. If you roll 5 or better, all First Year students become Distracted for one turn as a Mental effect. For every 2 above that, another Year Level is affected. On a 15 or better, even Staff and Abominations are affected.
- Lasting Transformation: you remain transformed for fifteen minutes per Year Level, so can just about spend all your time transformed, with short bursts of regaining your energy in between.
- Double Transformation: You have a second transformation available, which can only be performed once you are already transformed. This unlocks a third form for you, with even more power. In this third form, you reduce all incoming damage by an additional 2 points when your costume is not damaged, and every time you Focus you can remove a status affliction or regain one Hit Point. Transforming requires the same action as it normally does, likewise it is Not an Action to "power down".
Enhanced Speed: You move fast. Really really fast. Depending on your level of speed, you get to go before everyone else in combat, flat-out move faster, and actually get special actions you can take to move super fast. This is an
Energy ability. Any effect that requires you to have used Enhanced Speed on a previous turn simply requires that you used at least a Minor Action to move and were not
Blocked.
- Level 1: You act before anybody who lacks Enhanced Speed, unless they catch you unaware. Additionally, your movement speeds are all doubled, and the difficulty to hit you is always increased by 1. The sub-powers are as follows:
- Blink-Step: you can move from one place to another in an instant, focusing your speed to incredible degrees. Effectively, for short ranges you don't have a move speed, you can just teleport from one point you can see to another point, as long as you could physically move there.
- Double-Team: you move so fast in combat that it appears there are two of you working in tandem. Every turn that this is active, you basically have a spare you who can Assist you or perform some kind of non-combat action - picking things up, opening/closing doors, getting vehicles moving and so on, but not Focusing for you, attacking, conjuring weapons or the like.
- Speeding Bullet: your attacks - even thrown or fired weapons - benefit so much from your incredible speed that few people can possibly avoid them. Every attack you make against anyone who has less Enhanced Speed than you is made as though they are unaware - an automatic hit.
- Level 2: You act before anybody who lacks Enhanced Speed II, unless they catch you unaware. Additionally, your movement speeds are tripled - on top of the doubling from level 1 (total x6). The sub-powers are as follows:
- Eye of the Storm: when you attack someone, you surround them by yourself, just utilising the motion blur and the "mirror images" set up. In any turn after a turn in which you move with Enhanced Speed, you can perform two different Major Actions, rolling for both and then selecting the one you want to take. The other is wasted.
- Jet Thruster: moving in a straight line, you can actually take off and fly. Additionally, you can barrel into or through people, or catch them in the draft behind you and hurl them about. Not only can you fly in straight lines, but everyone in your path must make either a Gym or Health Test (Hard) to avoid getting slammed into and knocked Prone, and everyone immediately to the sides of where you move must make a Gym or Health Test (Standard) to avoid getting dragged behind you.
- Sonic Boom: you can elect to make a short leap so fast that it creates a massive sonic boom. This is the same as Speeding Bullet, except there is a deafening boom at the point you move from and the point you move to - all within earshot become Distracted for one turn, and all within 10m must pass a Hard Health Test or take 1 Blunt damage.
- Level 3: You act before anybody who lacks Enhanced Speed III, unless they catch you unaware. Additionally, your movement speeds are quadrupled - on top of the previous multiplications (total x24). The sub-powers are as follows:
- Illusion Combatants: in combat, there are so many of you moving about that people don't know which to attack - or which one just hit them. Any turn immediately after a turn in which you use Enhanced Speed, all attacks against you are of Extreme difficulty and your attacks catch people unaware. Against a combatant who is also benefiting from Illusion Combatants, the effects cancel each other out.
- Faster Than Physics: at the speeds you move, gravity is entirely optional. Not only can you skim over water or run along walls or the ceiling, you can in fact run straight up without needing something to run against. You can just move in any direction in any way you wish.
- Double-Accelerator: having started moving fast, you then do it again - just like going from normal to fast a second time. To use this, you must have been using Enhanced Speed on your previous turn. Once this is active, your move speed gains a further x10 multiplier and you can take two sets of actions each turn. However, for each set of actions, either the Minor or Major Action must be spent actually moving. You cannot Focus when using this ability.
- Level 4: you are faster than time, and no-one really understands that. You act before anybody who lacks Enhanced Speed IV unless they catch you unaware. Your move speed is multiplied by 5 (for a total of x120). The sub-powers are as follows:
- Clock Stopper: sometimes you can go so fast that, to you, it is as if the world is standing still. With a Major Action, you can halt time, giving yourself a full turn to act in which everybody else is completely motionless. You can take actions as normal, though the stress of this deals 1 damage to you, bypassing resistances. You cannot use Clock Stopper with Clock Stopper, nor can you use it with Double-Accelerator. You are allowed to use this free turn to charge up for Hyper Attack, for instance, unleashing it on your next turn.
- Army of Me: you glitch reality with your movements - there are so many shadow clones of you moving about from your rapid movement that reality actually treats them as real just long enough to count. When performing actions that require individual targets, as long as you used Enhanced Speed in the previous turn, you can target up to 10 characters all at once. If using an attack that hits an area rather than an individual target, you effectively launch ten of it, all hitting different areas for one very big total area - overlapping effects don't double-up on the damage.
- Teleporter: you move so fast that the world just gives up trying to track your location, and you can flat-out be where you want to be in an instant. This is exactly as it sounds - you spend a Major Action, and you are then wherever you could already move to in the universe. If currently restrained, you can't move far, likewise walls and such still get in the way, but other than that, the sky is the limit unless you can fly, in which case it isn't.
Enhanced Strength: you are so incredibly strong that you can break walls by accident if you're not careful. When you
mean to break things, people know it. This is an
Energy ability.
- Level 1: you are very strong, gaining +1 damage in Melee combat, a minimum B Grade for strength-based Gym tasks and the ability to lift/drag/push 200kg with little effort, and carry half that comfortably. The sub-powers are as follows:
- Herculean Throwing: you can throw stupidly big and heavy objects, and you can throw them stupid distances. You are also even better at lifting than your Enhanced Strength normally grants, able to lift twice as much and carry as much as you can lift for long durations. If you can lift an object, you can throw it, dealing damage as a Massive Object that benefits from your Gym Bonus to damage. You can throw objects ten times as far as normal.
- Collateral Damage: when you hit stuff, everything around you tends to shatter and explode. Objects do not reduce damage from your attacks, and indeed, when you hit someone, any objects within 2m of them are also damaged - shockwaves, hurling them into walls and so on.
- Concussive Strikes: when you hit people, it rattles their entire body and scrambles their brains. Any time you damage someone with a Gym-based attack, they must pass a Hard Health Test or become Distracted. If they don't even roll high enough to beat a Standard Test, they instead become Confused (for the standard variable duration of Confusion).
- Level 2: you are crazy strong, enjoying a minimum effective B+ Grade for strength-based Gym tasks, another +1 damage in Melee combat (total +2) and the ability to lift/drag/push 500kg with little effort, and carry half that comfortably. The sub-powers are as follows.
- Unstoppable: nothing can stop your movement - once you start going, you can just power on through. You effectively tunnel through walls at your regular movement speed, smashing them up as you jog.
- Atlas' Shoulders: your lifting capabilities have now reached "stupid" levels, and your spine seems unbreakable. Not only can you lift and carry one thousand times as much as your Enhanced Strength says you can, you never take damage from falling or being fallen on, and are completely immune to harm or pain from being stretched (like on a rack or some submission holds) or compressed (falling in a trash compactor). Also, you can throw things ten times as far as normal - so if you also have Herculean Throwing, that's x100.
- Pinball Strikes: when you hit people, they are launched through the air at dangerous speeds. You launch targets 2m per Partial Gym Grade above F (so for the minimum B+ that would be 18m), multiplied by the level of your Enhanced Strength (so the bare minimum is 54m). If they hit an object, which they probably do, apply the damage against the object. If it's enough to break it, they go through and keep moving. If it isn't, they take an extra point of damage and bounce off.
- Level 3: your strength is beyond ridiculous. You have a minimum effective A+ Grade for strength-based Gym tasks, another +1 damage in melee combat (total +3) and the ability to lift/drag/push 1,000kg with little effort, and carry half that comfortably. The sub-powers are as follows:
- Shockwaves: when you hit things, it creates a shockwave like an explosion - basically all of your attacks have area of effect blasts that you are immune to. The area of effect is a 5m radius, increasing to 10m at Fourth Year. The damage dealt to the area is half the amount dealt to the primary target (round down), with one point of damage to all objects in the area (enough to shatter windows).
- Mighty Leaping: you can spring off the ground, taking off like a comet. This leaves a small crater where you leapt from, and allows you to move 3m per Partial Gym Grade above F (so 36m for the minimum of A+) with a Minor Action, doubled at Fourth Year. Landing leaves a substantially larger crater - a 5m radius - and causes your Bonus Gym Damage plus the Enhanced Strength Bonus (so a minimum of 5) to everyone in the area. They can avoid this damage with a Hard Gym Test, or automatically by throwing themselves Prone.
- Pulverising Blows: when you hit objects, they completely shatter into dust and fragments. This includes large walls, vehicles, forcefields, the limbs of abominations and so on. One hit automatically destroys one such object. Abominations and other massive creatures lose a limb, taking damage as normal and being unable to use the lost limb (obviously). Against other humans, it batters them and causes any armour and so on to burst open, removing defences.
- Level 4: you are THE STRONGEST. You have an effective Grade of S for all strength-based Gym tasks, and can lift/drag/push up to 10,000kg with little effort, or carry half that amount comfortably. The sub-powers are as follows:
- Earthquake Stomp: with a Major Action, you can stomp the ground so hard that a literal earthquake hits the area. Decide what magnitude you want, from 1 to 6. That magnitude hits the area within 100m, with the next magnitude down hitting everything from 100-500m away, the one lower hitting the area out to 1km away and continuing to lower by 1 for each additional km. The ground cracks and rumbles, buildings shudder and collapse, furniture falls over and breaks, people fall over if they fail Standard Gym Tests.
- Tempest Roar: with a mighty bellow as a Major Action, you create a massive shockwave in the air that blows things away and damages them. This hits a cone that is 100m long and at any point is as wide as its length. Anyone caught in the area must pass an Extreme Test - Health or Gym - or be hurled to the end of the area and then an extra distance equal to how far they have already been launched. This deals 1 point of Blunt damage to all who pass the Test, and 3 to all who fail and to all objects.
- Dinosaur Wrestler: you can grab and grapple anything, regardless of weight or size. You really could suplex Godzilla. You ignore the size and weight of anything you wish to lift or tackle. Likewise you can reach vital weak points and pressure points on creatures no matter how large, and ignore the benefits of Ironskin. Any time you throw something, it takes as much damage as what it crashes into (though they each apply their own damage resistances separately).
Enhanced Durability: you are extra tough, and can generally shrug things off that should probably kill you. Depending on the level, you have more HP, you suffer less damage from attacks, and generally are immune to some things. This is a
Physical effect, not affected by energy manipulation.
- Level 1: you are very resilient - you never catch colds or get minor bumps or scrapes from day to day activity. You reduce all damage taken by 1 point, have 2 extra hit points, and a minimum effective Grade of B for endurance aspects of Gym and Health.
- Anvilfall: when you fall, you don't take damage. Everything below you does. You never suffer falling damage, but your landing causes a shockwave with a radius of 1m per point of damage you would have taken, dealing the damage you would have taken to all in the area and making a crater in the ground.
- Sturdy: you are particularly solid and hard to move. Shockwaves, telekinesis and so on can't move you about the place and you can't even be tripped or thrown. A character of a higher Year Level than you can affect you in such ways, but the distance and damage are halved (round down). Unlike normal, abominations are not actually treated as seniors for this - they can't shove you around.
- Relentless: your endurance is not only physical but mental as well. You're never going to give them up, nor let them down. You gain the Relentless trait.
- Level 2: you can be mistaken for granite at times. The only reason you wear shoes is as padding to protect the ground from your hard feet. You don't suffer from aches and pains after injuries or a hard work-out. You reduce all damage taken by another point (total 2), have 4 more extra hit points (total 6), and a minimum effective Grade of B+ for endurance aspects of Gym and Health.
- Weather the Storm: you are not affected by wind, rain, hail or dust storms, and are basically immune to Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts: any attack that, after damage is reduced, only deals a single point or no damage but another effect, instead has no effect on you.
- Poisonproof: you are completely immune to Poison effects, including diseases and so on.
- Sturdy Mind: you are mentally resilient as well, and your effective Grade for endurance also applies to Philosophy and Ethics Tests.
- Level 3: the structure of adamantium is based on you, true story. Some people hide behind you when there are missile strikes. You never catch illnesses of any kind, even mutant space ebola or magical super tetanus. You reduce all damage taken by yet another point (total 3), have another 6 extra hit points (total 12), and a minimum effective Grade of A+ for endurance aspects of Gym and Health.
- Ironskin: your flesh actually does have the consistency of steel or something. Not only do you have incredible resistance, reducing incoming damage by another 2 points and Resisting Sharp and Jabbing damage, an Extreme Gym Test is required in order to force your limbs to move when you don't want them to. Likewise you weigh ten times as much as you normally would, and landing on people is a very painful affair - for them.
- Shake it off: nothing hampers you for that long. At the end of each turn, you can roll 1d6. On a 6, you end one condition that is affecting you - even if it doesn't make much sense. You don't have to do this, so you're still able to sleep like normal.
- Recoil: weapons tend to break against you, and people hurt themselves from the shockwaves. Any time someone hits you, make a Standard Health Test. If you succeed, they suffer 1 damage per Health Grade you possess above F (such as 2 for a C). If they hit you with a weapon, they can elect for the weapon to shatter instead.
- Level 4: to put it bluntly, you are immune to "things". You cannot be transmogrified or polymorphed without your express permission, actively resisting the effect. You have 8 more extra hit points (total 20), and a minimum effective Grade of S for endurance aspects of Gym and Health. You also feel no pain ever, ignoring it completely.
- Immunity: pick a type of damage. You are 100% immune not only to that damage, but to any secondary effects that are carried by it.
- Awesome Cover: you actually ignore shockwaves and explosions. Rather, you stop them - they not only have no effect on you, but you block them so the people behind you are perfectly safe.
- Immortality: you have no natural lifespan - you'll just remain in your prime forever until something kills you - and I have good news on that front. Even if apparently killed, as long as your brain remains intact it enters a form of stasis so that cell death doesn't occur. This allows your entire body to regenerate and be restored to life in about a month if sufficient nutrients are available.
Grade Boost: Various things boost grades - abilities, traits, just being in a House, whatever. This is simple: increase the Subjet's letter by 1 - so a D to a C, or a B- to an A-. This cannot raise an F, nor can it increase an A to an S.
- Partial Grade Boost: a Partial Grade Boost is typically given from Club Activities or traits, not as an ability in its own right. For the Subject in question, it removes a minus from the Grade. If there is no minus, it adds a plus. So a C- would become C, a C would become C+ but there would be no benefit if the grade was already at C+.
- Grade Penalty: typically caused by the effects of others, or by traits, a Grade Penalty is basically the opposite of a Grade Boost: you lower the Subject's Grade by one full letter (so from a C to a D, or from an A- to a B-). As above, this cannot reduce a D to an F, nor can it reduce a Grade of S. A Partial Grade Penalty works like the opposite of a Partial Grade Boost - changing your B+ to a B or your B to a B- but not affecting a B-.
- Genius: this is the same as a Grade Boost, except it can raise a Grade from F to D, or from A-, A or A+ to S. Additionally, for the purpose of getting actual results in exams and such, it is treated as S even if it isn't.
- Grade Perfection: a much rarer ability, this changes the Subject Grade to an S, forever making it perfect. People will always be impressed by how amazing you are at that Subject.
Elemental Blast: you can unleash blasts of elemental energy. You actually have to pick an elemental type from the following when gaining this ability: fire (Fire), lightning (Shock), wind (Air and Blunt or Air and Sharp), ice (Cold), water (Water and Blunt), light (Fire), darkness (Mental or Poison), LOVE (Mental), plant (Sharp or Poison), earth/rock (Blunt), metal (Jabbing or Sharp). This is used as an
Energy weapon with a range of 50m/100m and base damage of 1 per Year Level (5 for Teachers and Abominations). There are several sub-powers that can be chosen, too:
- Second Element: you have a second element you can use - and if you also have linked effect, it has its own secondary effect. If you Focus, you can mix the two together - the damage is the same, but the type of damage is "both" for the purpose of beating resistances and immunities, and in the case of linked effect, both secondary effects apply.
- Linked Effect: your blast has a secondary effect on those hit by it. This effect is:
- Fire: Burning until they spend a Major Action going Prone and rolling about
- Ice: if they fail a Standard Health Test they are Immobilised until thawed
- Air: the attack is Pummeling or Shredding as appropriate
- Water: Distracted until they spend a Major Action clearing their lungs and eyes
- Lightning: Immobilised for 1 turn
- Ground: the attack is Pummeling
- Plant: Burning (from seeds taking root or poison) for 3 turns
- Metal: the attack is Shredding or Piercing as appropriate
- LOVE: Confused
- Light: Distracted for 3 turns
- Darkness: Confused
- Mighty Blast: the range increases to 250m/500m, and if you Focus, the damage increases by 1.
- Prism Blast: when you Assist an ally, if they use their own Elemental Blast you may use yours, adding them together. The damage is all treated as being from the one attack, so any reduction applies once to the total.
- Negation Beam: you can in fact channel a special form of energy that negates energy in general and breaks magical effects. If this hits somone, it negates ongoing Energy effects and causes the Blocked condition.
- Wide Blast: you enjoy big blasts and explosions. Your blast can be used as normal, or you can also unleash a cone that is 10m long and as wide as it is long at any point, or an explosion starting at the point hit by your bolt, with a 5m radius.
Heightened Senses: your senses are all exceptionally good. You have an effective minimum of A to track things by smell, can always smell and taste poisons, have darkvision and echolocation. You can fire ranged weapons at extreme range without needing to Focus. You are also never caught by surprise when combat starts, and gain a Grade Boost to Crime Scene Investigation Tests if you possess it.
Resist: select a damage type. All attacks of that type against you deal half as much, rounding down. Additionally, you are unaffected by regular environmental irritations related to it - so hot weather or walking over hot coals for Fire, drowning for Water, or getting small cuts and scrapes for Sharp, for instance. Resisting that element (for instance, to resist torture) is always Standard for you, they'll probably need to try something else. You can actually Focus on your resistance (or for some characters it can be innately Boosted). This results in that damage type never doing more than 1 damage to you.
Entangling Attacks: when you attack people, you tend to trip them over, bind their arms and weapons and so on. If you successfully hit an opponent with an attack, they must roll higher than you did with a Gym Test or be Distracted as a Physical effect until they spend a full turn untangling themselves.
Evasive Acrobatics: instead of the Standard difficulty for foes to hit you, you make a Gym Test of your own - it becomes an opposed roll as you leap and dive out of the way with your awesome skills.
Elemental Control: select an element from: wood, metal, water, air, earth/rock, fire, ice/snow. You can use a Major Action to control an amount as follows: half a metre cubed for First Year, one cubic metre for Second Year, 3 metres cubed for Third Years and 10m Cubed for Fourth Years and graduates. This amount is doubled if you Focus. You can't conjure the element - it has to be there to begin with. This can be used offensively, defensively or in a completely different way. This is an
Energy power.
Emotional Blast: you can unleash a special wave of energy that is powered by your emotions and hits the minds of enemies - this is an
Energy attack, but any conditions caused are
Mental. This is a ranged attack out to 50m/100m and the effects depend on your emotional state - if you are strongly affected by the emotion in question, you automatically count as having Focused. The target is also somewhat affected by the emotion in question - if hit by Angry Blast, they become angry and so on.
- Anger: the target is hit by your blinding rage, and takes 1 point of Mental damage per Year Level as though by a Pulverising attack. This also deals 1 point of damage to all objects within 3m of the target, including those carried, wielded or worn. If you Focus, they suffer from the Burning condition until either you or they calm down.
- Happiness: the target is hit by your happiness, which fills them with hope and energy. This removes the Afraid condition and restores 1 Hit Point per Year Level, as well as making them Distracted for 1 round. If you Focus, it also cures the Burning, Confused and Immobilised conditions.
- Love: you channel your love into the target - whether for them or for someone else. At any rate, the weird mixture of feelings overwhelms them and they become Confused. However this does cancel out any other Mental effects. If you Focus, you can dictate their actions for the duration of the confusion - however they can elect to still be confused.
- Sadness: the target is overwhelmed with waves of sadness, and finds it hard to do anything. They are knocked Prone and take 1 Mental damage per Year Level. If you Focus, they are instead Immobilised for one minute or until someone else snaps them out of it.
- Fear: you scare the target. They become Afraid of you. If you Focus, they actually become Afraid of every living thing.
This Power also has a few Sub-Powers:
- Emotional Aura: you can unleash the emotional blast out in a sphere emanating from you. It extends for 2m per Year Level and the attack potentially hits everyone in the area (roll once, everyone in the area opposes it with Philosophy and Ethics).
- Suggestive Beam: you can fire this off in a different way to normal. Instead of making a blast that is powered by your feelings, you instead unleash an invisible beam that causes the emotion, without even dancing about or shouting the attack name. Your attack roll is resisted by Philosophy and Ethics, and if you succeed, they are strongly affected by the emotion of your choice.
Friendship Punch: by Focusing, you can make an attack carry a special wave of power and love and friendship. If the attack defeats them, they become your friend and see things from your point of view for the rest of the day, and still have positive feelings about you thereafter. This only works on humans - interestingly enough, no matter how far they change, the Inhuman are treated as human. Thankfully, Abominations have not been found with this power,
yet. This is a
Mental effect and has a number of sub-powers to choose from:
- Friendship BEEEEEAM: this becomes an attack in its own right: with a Major Action, you utilise this Energy effect, making a ranged attack out to 50/100m. If it hits, it deals damage equal to your Year Level. If that reduces someone to 0 HP, they are affected as though by Friendship Punch.
- Lingering Friendship: when you defeat someone with this, they become your friend and see things your way forever - or until you betray their implanted friendship.
- Thorns of Betrayal: you can Focus to add this Mental effect to any attack: if it deals any damage, the seed of betrayal is planted. Within the next minute, you can declare that it has sprouted - you declare the target's actions on their next turn. After that, the effect has ended but the damage is done.
- Forbidden Rhapsody: you have a horrifying form of mind control that changes a person's alleigance, even making them your personal warrior and causing them to accept any strange bionic enhancements you perform on them. Forbidden Rhapsody requires physical contact, typically a jab to the heart, gripping the head, touching the forehead or holding them close to you. As such, the target must already be Immobile. They are allowed one chance to resist - an Extreme Philosophy and Ethics Test - and if they pass, they cannot be affected by your Forbidden Rhapsody for another day. If they pass, you become their Beloved and you can make any request of them and they will go along with it.
Fearless: you are completely immune to Fear of all kinds forever.
Relentless: this works just like the Trait with the same name: you can be sad, but not suffer penalties from it. Indeed, if you would suffer a numeric penalty from sadness or despair, you instead take that as a bonus. You have one more hit point than normal.
Flight: you have the ability to fly. If a character just has this base ability, they can move at the same speed as they can normally move (modified by conditions, Enhanced Speed and so on), but manoeuvring is not that great. They have to make a Gym or Piloting Test for many types of movement - Standard to go around a corner without crashing, Hard to avoid obstacles such as people in a corridor, Extreme to suddenly change into reverse. This is an
Energy power.
- Fast Flight: your flight sped is multiplied by 1.5 if a First Year, x2 if a Second Year, x3 if a Third Year, or x5 if a Fourth Year or greater.
- Graceful Flight: you can turn on a molecule, weave through all kinds of obstacles and so on. You don't need to make Tests for manoeuvrability, and can make Gym or Piloting Tests to oppose enemy attack rolls in combat.
Hyper Attack: you can a super-duper beam attack which basically annihilates everything, as an
Energy power. It does, unfortunately, take some time to charge up. You have to spend one turn (Major and Minor Actions) gathering your power, and then unleash it on the second turn - using both your Major and Minor Actions. The beam travels out as a ray of energy, 1m in radius and 100m long - and affects everything in the area (roll one attack and apply it against all). The damage is a standard 10 points of any one type of your choice - chosen when gaining this power. A sub-power
must be chosen:
- Apocalypse Beam: this attack has a massive area of effect, and is great at causing colateral damage. The beam automatically destroys objects, and upon hitting something big enough to count as terrain (a mountain, a building, the ground, an Abomination), that thing takes full damage and there is an explosion out to a 50m radius. Everything in that area takes 5 damage, or 2 points if they pass a Hard Gym Test and throw themselves Prone. This leaves a crater.
- MIND CRUSH!: this attack is a mental effect, damaging only minds and souls - it leaves people as drooling idiots and zombies. The damage is Mental, and anyone hit at all becomes Confused. If it deals enough damage to beat them, they are rendered Immobile and incapable of thought - perfect for possession or mind control - for one day. During this time they are unable to resist Mental effects.
- Gamma Ray: the blast from this beam excels at killing the living while leaving other stuff unharmed, but also leaves deadly radiation behind. It deals Poison damage, and anyone hit is Burning until the radiation is "cleaned" off. The area is left irradiated for 1 week, causing the Burning condition to anyone who wanders into it.
- Mining Beam: this energy ray can shoot a hole straight through the planet. Literally. It carves through anything. It ignores any reduction to damage from any source, and just keeps on going through any objects. It is also longer - 1km to be precise.
- Ultimate Strike: you unleash a physical strike with does cataclysmic damage to the target, obliterating them and ignoring all of their barriers. It must be charged up as normal, but only requires the Major Action on the turn you use it - you can still use your Minor Action. This adds your bonus damage from Gym and/or Enhanced Strength and ignores armour, shields, forcefields and such, but not "innate" resistance to damage.
Aura: you radiate a constant 3m radius aura that can be used to affect those around you - you can suppress or resume the aura with a Major Action, and in all cases you can Focus on the Aura to strengthen it. This is an
Energy ability. The different auras are as follows:
- Innocent Defence: you just seem too innocent, nobody would want to hurt you, right? Anyone within the area must pass a Standard Philosophy and Ethics Test in order to attack you each round. If you Focus, it becomes a Hard Test that round.
- Furious Pressure: the pressure radiated is so great that people have difficulty moving. Entering the area requires a Standard Gym Test, and within the area, all movement is halved and Enhanced Speed is reduced by one level (minimum zero). If you Focus, the Test becomes Hard and Enhanced Speed is reduced by two levels.
- Damaging Energy: you radiate electricity or fire or something. At any rate, people in the area suffer 1 point of damage of the appropriate kind every round. If you Focus, the radius is doubled.
- Total Fear: you emit a wave of horror, and people don't want to be near you. Anyone in the area must pass a Standard Philosophy and Ethics Test or be Afraid of you. If you Focus, the Test becomes Hard.
- Mighty Barrier: this is an actual forcefield. Enemy attacks bounce off, probably leaving octagonal ripples in the field. Against attacks originating from outside the area, you reduce all damage by 1. If you Focus, the damage is reduced by 3 and attacks that destroy shields, objects and forcefields simply cancel out with the aura, leaving you unscratched but taking the aura out for one turn.
Conjure Weapon: there is a specific weapon keyed to your mind, and you can conjure it by concentrating. Conjuring the weapon is an
Energy power, and the weapon itself is an
Energy effect. By spending a Minor Action, you summon the weapon into existence, into your hand for use. It is not an action to dismiss it, and if it leaves your hands for more than a minute, it disappears, allowing you to summon it again. If it is broken, you become Blocked and cannot summon it again until the Blocked condition ends. When gaining this power, select a weapon other than the bazooka. It will always be that exact weapon, except the minimum damage (before modifiers) is 1 for a First Year, 2 for a Second Year, 3 for a Third Year, and 4 for a Fourth Year or beyond. This has only a few Sub-Powers directly related to the conjuring itself:
- Defensive Conjuring: you can partially summon the weapon when it is not even your turn - it appears in your hand to help parry an attack unexpectedly, making it a Hard Test to hit you. However, on your next turn you lose your Major Action - it was retroactively spent conjuring the weapon. If something prevents you from spending your Major Action, it's no big deal, you already summoned it.
- Greater Weapon: the weapon can now be something better than before, such as a bazooka, or a gun that fires chainsaws (as the chainsaw, but with a range of 10 metres/20 metres) or a super sniper rifle (as the rifle, but with a range of 1 kilometre/2 kilometres) or something.
- Armour Conjuring: when you conjure your weapon, you can also conjure up armour - it can appear however you like, and if either is broken, then you become Blocked. The armour reduces incoming damage by an amount equal to your Year Level. If it is targeted for damage, it is treated as steel, regardless of what it is made of.
- Dual Purpose Weapon: your weapon now has two profiles, for instance it could be a rifle that is also a big club, or has a bayonet that makes it a spear, or you have a guitar that is a big club or an axe (oh the hilarity) that can send sonic waves like a shotgun that deals Air/Sharp damage.
- Instant Conjuring: conjuring your weapon is no big deal to you - it is not an action. If you have this and Defensive Conjuring, then defensively conjuring your weapon just uses a Minor Action on your next turn.
Piercing Attack: this automatically affects all Jabbing attacks you make, ignoring shields, armour and forcefields - only innate damage resistance can apply. They must also pass a Hard Health Test or drop Prone from the shock. If you Focus, the attacks pass straight through foes (not in a harmless way) and you can attack foes behind them as well - apply the attack roll against all of them in the line as far as the attack can reach.
Shredding Attack: this automatically affects all Sharp attacks you make, damaging armour, clothing and force fields as well as the primary target and causing the Burning condition (a
Physical Sharp effect) as they start to bleed out - at the start of every turn, they can attempt a Standard Health Test. If they succeed, the bleeding stops and the condition ends before the damage would occur. If you Focus, it also negates any Auras for one turn and reduces Battle Aura by an amount equal to the damage dealt (if applicable), and the Health Test becomes Hard.
Pummelling Attack: this automatically affects all Blunt attacks you make, causing the target to become Distracted for one turn as a
Physical Blunt effect. It also weakens their defences, negating all of their damage resistances for the next turn - these things end at the end of your next turn. If you Focus, the for is Confused instead of Distracted (but still for only one round), and they are so stunned they're unaware of any attacks for the duration.
Fast Healing: you heal really fast. Every minute, you regain 1 Hit Point. You also don't physically bleed. This is an
Energy effect.
Weapon Empowerment: these are modifiers that alter the properties of a Conjured weapon, so typically only apply to those, though a character may be able to grow flaming horns or something. As they alter an existing weapon, this is only an
Energy effect if the weapon itself is (it usually is).
- Impossibly Large: the weapon is surely too big to actually wield... except you wield it anyway. This lets you target an area around you - everyone within 3m (or 5m if you Focus) is targeted, you just make one attack roll and apply it against everyone. Anyone hit must beat your attack roll with a Gym or Health Test or fall Prone.
- Trapping: this weapon binds people and locks them down so you can hurt them more. When you hit someone, you may elect to reduce the damage by 1 and cause the foe to become Distracted as a Physical effect, somewhat bound and entangled. They also can't physically move away from you without beating you with an opposed Gym Test. If you double this up with a second hit and Focus, they must beat your attack roll with a Gym Test or else become Immobilised.
- Unexpected: the weapon hits from strange angles, or is completely hidden until you make a surprise attack. In any fight, the first attack you make with this weapon catches the foe unaware. Even afterwards, people using Evasive Acrobatics have a Grade Penalty to their roll.
- Energy Wreath: the weapon channels some kind of energy that makes it hurt people more. Add one type to the damage such as Fire, Shock or Cold, and every time it hits it causes the Burning condition until they spend a Major Action going Prone and rolling about.
- Unmaking: the weapon hits with a strange negative energy that breaks energy effects and reduces Battle Aura. Foes that have Battle Aura find it reduced by an amount equal to the damage dealt, and it cancels any Energy effect that is active on the target. If you Focus, it also causes the target to be Blocked.
- Burst Attack: the weapon causes blasts and explosions. Used for ranged weapons, this makes the attack hit a 3m radius area - apply the attack against all in the area. The radius is 5m if you Focus. Anyone can attempt a Hard Gym Test to drop Prone and halve the damage (round down).
- Barrier: the weapon actually makes a good shield. You can hide behind it or otherwise use it for protection, reducing incoming damage by an amount equal to its base damage and making all incoming attacks Hard.
Acrobatic Assault: you are particularly skilled at attacking on the move - leaping in to deliver unexpected strikes and then sliding out of reach, and attacking from multiple directions at once. Foes can't use Evasive Acrobatics against you, and when you use a Minor Action to move, you gain that movement both before
and after your Major Action, if your Major Action is spent attacking in some way.
Empty Heart: you are able to close your eyes and just clear your mind, heart and soul. Doing so requires a Major Action, but you purge most ongoing effects - you negate any emotions and
Mental effects, and you momentarily suppress your own chi. Doing so ends any ongoing
Energy effects you have active, or suppresses them if they don't truly stop, also ending the
Blocked condition. It also reduces your Battle Aura to 0 if you have Battle Aura Control.
Battle Aura Control: you have perfect control over your battle aura, and thus can shape it as necessary: you can hide it completely, making it appear (to those with Aura Sight and similar) that you are completely ordinary, you can also alter the intensity, seemingly having greater or lesser power than your own (though if you read as an Abomination or something, people will probably guess you're faking it... or raise the alarms). You can also force your aura into shape, changing your emotions to those as necessary - you can remove the effects of any emotion you are feeling. Most importantly, as you progress, you gain greater maximum levels of battle aura. Every turn that you spend fighting or at least very angry, it rises by 1. Every turn not spent angry or fighting, it lowers by 1. The minimum is 0, the maximum depends on your Year Level. In and of itself, this doesn't do anything, but various abilities require certain minimums of Battle Aura. This is an
Energy power.
Aura Sight: you can look at people at see what they are feeling - as well as how powerful they are, and whether or not they're ready to fight. This is an
Energy power, and just needs a Minor Action to switch on or off. By looking at someone, you can see what House they are in, their Power Level (None, Low (First Years), Moderate (Second and Third Years), High (Fourth Years and Graduates) and Extreme (Abominations)), what
Energy effects are active on them and the strongest emotion they are feeling.
Energy Wave: as an
Energy power, you can use a Major Action to strike the air and propel a wave of energy towards foes with destructive results. It has a range of 5 metres/15 metres, is clearly visible and has a Base Damage of 1, using your Philosophy and Ethics instead of Gym for the damage modifier. It automatically ignores all damage resistance of spirit creatures and Abominations. The damage is Shock. This has several Sub-Powers that can be chosen:
- Invisible Pressure: your energy wave is completely invisible, it's just a blast of air. Against foes who can't see auras or into the spirit realm, this always catches them unaware, and it deals Air and Blunt damage against foes.
- Burning Motion Wave: your energy wave actually ignites, setting foes on fire. It deals Fire damage and causes the Burning status on anyone who suffers any damage. If they spend their Major Action dropping to the floor and rolling about, the fire goes out, otherwise it lasts for 5 rounds.
- Solar Flare: your energy wave is a short range massive burst of energy that is blinding in its intensity. The damage is Fire, and instead of a range, it attacks all within a 2 metre cone. Those who are hit are Distracted for 3 rounds from the blinding light.
- Vacuum Wave: you instead draw the energy towards you from outside, catching your foe(s) from behind and bringing them closer to you. Foes in a 10 metre cone are dragged towards you, the nearest one landing right in front of you and suffering the hit - they are caught unaware and the damage is Air.
Pressure Point Attack: by jabbing or gripping the pressure points of foes, you can cause all sorts of effects. When you gain this ability, select three of the following options. Others can be learned with experience and time or experimentation.
- Sleeper Hold: you grab someone and make them fall asleep. You need to successfully attack, but once you grab on, they need to beat you in an opposed Gym Test to escape. Every round you keep it locked on (including the first round), they must pass a Health Test - Standard on the first turn, then Hard on the second, and Extreme after that. If they fail, they pass out, becoming Immobile and unaware. Once you release them, they can attempt Standard Health Tests to wake up.
- Knock-Out Punch: you punch someone and they pass out. This requires a Hard Test to hit, but if it deals any damage they must pass a Hard Health Test or pass out, becoming Prone and Immobile. Every turn they can attempt a Hard Health Test to wake up.
- Spine Stopper: you jab someone and paralyze them. If you hit, instead of dealing damage you force them to take an Extreme Health Test. If failed, they are Immobilised until the end of your next turn.
- Clot Jab: with one jab, you cause a terrible blood clot that is potentially lethal. If you deal any damage, they gain the Burning condition, rolling 1d6 at the end of each turn (after damage has been taken). On a 5 or 6, the condition ends.
- Brain Shock: with one strike, you disrupt their brain. Instead of dealing any damage, you cause the target to become Confused.
- Arm Shock: a simple jab renders the arm useless. If you hit, you only deal 1 damage but their arm is completely worthless for one minute.
- Leg Shock: a simple blow renders the leg useless. If you hit, you only deal 1 damage but their leg is worthless for one minute and they fall Prone.
- No-Damage Blinding Touch: you blind someone without clawing their eyes out. This requires a Hard Test to hit, but if you succeed, you do no damage and just blind them - they cannot see, and thus have an F for any task that relies on sight and are caught unaware by everyone if they don't have Enhanced Senses.
- Chakra Poison: you poison their energy, slowly killing them. This deals no damage if it hits. Instead, the target loses all healing and regenerative abilities until cured, and suffers 1 point of damage per day. Every morning, they can attempt an Extreme Philosophy and Ethics Test to end the effects.
- Puppet Squeeze: as long as you grip the nerve cluster at the back of the head, the target is your puppet. This requires an Extreme Test to hit, but if it works, as long as you maintain contact you can control them - you can make them walk and talk, although forcing them to fight is really hard, making every action Extreme difficulty.
- Chakra Block: you seal off someone's energy with a touch. If you hit, you deal no damage but the target is Blocked.
- Healing Jab: you can actually heal injuries and undo terrible effects with the right touch. The target regains 1 Hit Point.
- Happy Jab: you poke the spine in the right way to make someone happy and energetic. This removes all Mental afflictions and changes their mood to happy.
Explosive Strike: when you punch things, they explode. Or at least, there is a massive shockwave, launching them away and shredding things. When you hit someone or something with an unarmed attack, everything within 5 metres, including objects, is hit for 1 Blunt Air damage and hurled to the edge of the 5m radius and then an equal distance beyond (so if they were 1m from the point of impact, they'd travel 8m total). This actually includes the target, who suffers this effect on top of any damage. Simple objects in the area are just flat-out destroyed. This is an
Energy effect.
Chi Breaking: you can break ongoing energy effects with your attacks, and also end such effects by hitting the users. Whenever you hit with an unarmed attack, if you Focus you may cause the target to be
Blocked in addition to any damage or other effects. This is an
Energy power.
Chained Attacks: you combo your attacks together so well that it's a constant barrage, making it hard to actually defend against you. If you Focus when attacking someone, then they suffer a Grade Penalty to defend if they attempt to evade rather than leaving the attack roll in your hands. Furthermore, for every 4 points you exceed the threshold by, you hit them once more with the same damage and effect each time.
Psionic Subjugation: this is the psychic art of telekinesis - moving objects with your mind, or killing a yak from five hundred yards away... WITH MIND BULLETS! Unless specified in the description for the power, any use of Subjugation is a Major Action.
- Level 1: you can telekinetically handle things that you can see. It's kind of clumsy - the most complex actions it can do would be to pull a lever, so it could lift or shove someone, but not yet choke them out. Still, even at this level you can handle up to 100kg of weight. The better abilities require Sub-Powers:
- Kinetic Strike: You can focus the Telekinetic might against small points, creating massive force. Basically, you can make attacks with your mind, at a range, using Science and with a Base Damage of 1. Furthermore, these attacks actually knock foes around: they are launched 3m per point of damage.
- Strong Kinesis I: Your Telekinesis benefits from Enhanced Strength I, so it can move things up to 200kg when just doing a short shove, push or lift for one turn rather than carrying them for the long-term. It also has Hurclean Throwing. As usual for Enhanced Strength, it deals +1 damage when attacking.
- Multi-Focus: you can handle multiple objects at a time with your telekinesis, splitting the weight up amongst them.
- Basic Complexity: you now have better telekinetic control, and can choke someone out, poke them in the eye or operate a keyboard, but not pick a lock or hotwire a car or activate pressure points.
- Level 2: your telekinesis is both stronger and better controlled: you can handle up to 200kg of weight, and it automatically has Basic Complexity as a Sub-Power. If you already had this, gain another level 1 Sub-Power. The level 2 Sub-Powers are as follows:
- Advanced Complexity: your complexity is really good - you can now pick locks, activate pressure points or write with a pen. You can't pluck individual hairs though, and performing surgery is not recommended.
- Strong Kinesis II: your telekinesis benefits from Enhanced Strength II with the Atlas' Shoulders Sub-Power, so can carry 250,000kg or quickly lift 500,000kg, and deals +2 damage when attacking.
- Energy Kinesis: you can actually move energy - forcing electricity away from you or from power sockets into people, or moving heat around the room as necessary. You can even clear radiation out of an area.
- Level 3: your telekinesis is stronger still, with a limit of 400kg and one free level 1 or 2 Sub-Power. The Sub-Powers for level 3 are:
- Perfect Complexity: now you can perform surgery, do wiring and soldering, or pluck individual hairs. You can even do things with your mind that you can't do with your body, your control is that fine.
- Strong Kinesis III: your telekinetic power benefits from Enhanced Strength III with the Shockwaves Sub-Power, so can carry 500kg (500,000kg if you have Strong Kinesis II) and quickly lift 1,000kg (1,000,000kg if you have Strong Kinesis II) and do a total of +3 damage with telekinetic attacks.
- Biotic Kinesis: you can actually move people's blood cells and trigger the synapses in their brains. You need to make an Extreme Science Test in order to cause a specific biological function or kill specific cells or whatever, but it's a Standard Test to just afflict them with "bad stuff", causing them to become Immobile for one turn.
- Kinetic Wall: you can set up telekinetic barriers that are stronger than steel. The walls can be up to 100m in height and in length, but are just one micron thick. They nonetheless have 20 HP and reduce all damage suffered by 5 points.
- Level 4: your telekinesis is now the strongest, with a limit of 1,000kg and a free Sub-Power of level 1-3. The level 4 Sub-Powers are:
- Strong Kinesis IV: your telekinetic power benefits from Enhanced Strength IV, so can carry 5,000kg (5,000,000kg if you have Strong Kinesis II) and quickly lift 10,000kg (10,000,000kg if you have Strong Kinesis II) and do a total of +3 damage with telekinetic attacks.
- Subatomic Kinesis: you can mabnipulate individual particles, so you can rearrange the structure of carbon to turn it into diamond, ot strip electrons from atoms with fun results, or whatever. This requires an Extreme Science Test to do specific things.
- Telekinetic Flight: although there's nothing stopping you from lifting yourself anyway, this gives you Flight, with both Sub-Powers. However that counts against your telekinetic limit, which may or may not be a problem.
Psionic Dominance: this is the psychic power of telepathy - from basic thought reading and communication all the way up to actual mind control. Unless specified in the description for the power, any use of Dominance is a Major Action.
- Level 1: you have the power to communicate telepathically with anyone you can see. You can read their surface thoughts and send telepathic messages to them. You roll Language Studies, resisted by their Philosophy and Ethics, if they are unwilling. You can also link in with someone you can see, allowing you to continue communicating even after they leave your line of sight. This works for as long as you concentrate - you can't Focus and it ends if you get Distracted. But there is no actual time or space limit. Anything else requires Sub-Powers:
- Foggy Mind: with a Minor Action, you can get into someone's head, just causing enough disruption to make them Distracted.
- Agreement: you talk about something and spend a Major Action. The target then has your opinion placed into their head - they must pass a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test or agree with you on the matter. This can be used to suggest people do things and have them do these things. The effects wear off after ten minutes unless you spend another Major Action to reinforce it - you must still be in contact with them to do this.
- Cause Fear: you spend a Major Action, and the target then becomes Afraid of you for one minute.
- Level 2: your telepathy now extends out to 500 metres even if you can't see people - thankfully you can choose to tune people out. You are also instantly aware of any presence in this area, and you can also know someone's fears, desires and most important people just by looking at them. The Sub-Powers are as follows:
- Mind Link: you form a link with a target whose surface thoughts you can read - if they resist, they make a Philosophy and Ethics Test opposed by your Language Studies. If you succeed, then until either of you becomes Blocked or Distracted, you can see through their eyes, hear through their ears, and innately feel their opinions and instincts about everything.
- Influential Trance: with a Major Action, you unleash a wave of hypnotic power across a group of people - all within 5 metres of you. They all may make a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test, and those who fail become Distracted for two turns, and susceptible to your suggestions, as though subject to Agreement (level 1 power) with no chance to resist.
- Mind Blast: with a Major Action, you unleash a blast of mental power that overcomes your lessers (everyone). Nominate up to one target per Year Level that you can see (including seeing them through the eyes of another). They must make a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test or become Confused. If you Focus, failure also results in 3 points of Mental damage.
- Level 3: your telepathy extends to a kilometre, and you can also gather people's intentions. Additionally, you are a natural lie detector - you just know when a person is lying. The Sub-Powers are as follows:
- Domination: this power requires a Minor and Major Action, and the target has to be Distracted or Confused at the time. You make a Language Studies Test, they make a Philosophy and Ethics Test. If you win, you can control their actions for the next minute, though this uses your own actions to focus on.
- Befriend: this power gradually batters someone's mind until they realise they have to be your friend, whether they like it or not. You make an attack as a Major Action, using Language Studies to hit. If you hit, they must make a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test (Extreme if you Focus) or become your friend forever.
- Kneel Before Me!: you can overwhelm people and assert your dominance all the time. With a Major Action, you force a target to make a Standard Philosophy and Ethics Test (Hard if you Focus). If they fail, they are rendered Immobile and Prone for one turn. Alternatively, you can make the Test Hard without Focusing, but they are only Prone if they fail, not Immobilised.
- Level 4: you can establish basic (willing) telepathic communication with someone no matter where they are, as long as you've linked with them before. The Sub-Powers are as follows:
- Control of the Heart: this power is particularly extreme in intensity. It works as Domination, except that the target needn't be Confused or Distracted. Furthermore, you not only control their actions, you control their thoughts and feelings - you can place ideas and opinions in their head that they will thereafter consider to be their own and true. If these conflict with their own beliefs, then the first time it comes up, they are allowed a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test to realise it is illogical and discard it, otherwise cognitive dissonance just lets it stay, overriding their own genuine thoughts. This can also be used to change someone's emotions or thought processes, by specifically implanting chains of thought, to alter their behaviour. It requires an Extreme Test to undo the effects through counseling.
- Mental Journey: this is the power of mental healing. You contact the mind of a willing target - or an unwilling one who is Distracted and fails a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test - and then concentrate, entering their mind. At this point you have access to all of their thoughts and memories, even those that are locked away from themselves. You can learn every secret about their thoughts in this way, dig through all of their dreams, and also remove any effects that have been placed there, including all other uses of Dominance. This can also undo trauma and heal the mentally ill.
- World of Illusion: you reach into the minds of everyone around you and alter their perceptions trapping them all in a dream. Any targets you can see or have contact with must pass a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test, or become Confused. Even when the confusion ends, they become Distracted until you stop concentrating. During this time, you can implant suggestions (like the Agreement power) and actually fool their senses so they are not truly aware of the world around them.
Automatic Status: you automatically have a certain kind of status, and the reputation to go with it. This means people will generally know who you are, and you can command the respect of people. In any case where your Year Level matters (such as being allowed into places, tie-breakers, what is needed to affect you with certain powers) except for the strength of your own powers, you are treated as one Year Level higher. A Fourth Year would be treated as a graduate in these cases.
Automatic Access: by dint of who you are, you are automatically allowed to do something specific - this is often access to certain off-limits areas, or to use certain equipment, but can also allow instant membership to the Student Council depending on the form of access. What you gain access to is always mentioned when you gain this ability.
Psionic Defence: you have psychic defence powers, allowing you to protect yourself... WITH THE POWER OF YOUR MIND. As long as you are able to use your powers, you can attack with them to negate enemy attacks. Their attack roll becomes an opposed roll, with you rolling whatever you would roll to attack with your power (typically Language Studies for Dominance, or Science for Subjugation).
Innate Authority: you just have authority. You are given special rights and possibly responsibilities based on the nature of the authority, and this is recognised by staff and, broadly speaking, students. You gain an effective Grade Boost to Language Studies for the purpose of telling people what to do, but not for anything else like using Dominance powers.
Spirit Sight: you are just able to see into the other world, and likewise see invisible creatures, pure energy effects and so on. Activating or deactivating this ability is a Minor Action, and it is an
Energy effect. With a Major Action you can focus hard enough to tune in for one turn, thus engaging all of your senses - you can hear the other world, feel things, determine the temperature, the direction of gravity, taste and smell stuff, and all those other senses.
Spirit Bonding: you have the ability to communicate and bond with spirit creatures from the other world. This allows you to always know where they are and how they feel, and heal them with a touch. Bonding requires 1d6 minutes and a Standard Language Studies or Hunting check. By touching a creature with a Major Action, you restore 1d6 + Grade Level hit points to it. Unless a character has "Multiple Bonds", they can only bond with one spirit creature at a time, though a creature can be dismissed with a ritual, meditation and conversation that takes an hour. The rules on creation are below, but sample critters will be listed later.
- Lesser Entities: these critters are usually smaller than humans, possibly as small as rabbits. They also aren't power houses, typically. They don't have Elective Subjects, and their grades are D, C, C, B, B, B to assign as they wish. They may have up to three points worth of positive Traits and up to three points worth of negative Traits. They may have a single power of the following: Enhanced Speed 1, Enhanced Strength 1, Enhanced Durability 1, Shredding Attack, Piercing Attack, Pummelling Attack, Fast Healing, Energy Wave, Elemental Blast, Living Weapon. They receive 1 Bonus HP and are treated as First Years for all effects.
- Moderate Entities: these ones often are human sized or even a bit bigger, and can be pretty powerful creatures. They still don't have Elective Subjects, but their grades are C, C, B, B, B, A to assign as they wish. Again, they can have up to three points worth of Traits of each type. They may have one of the previous powers, with one sub-power if appliccable, and also one of the following: Enhanced Speed 2, Enhanced Strength 2, Enhanced Durability 2, Explosive Strike, Regeneration, Extraordinary Movement, Toxins. Taking Enhanced Attribute 2 requires choosing Enhanced Attribute 1 for the other power, but grants all of the level 1 sub-powers. They may instead select two of the Lesser Entity choices. They receive 2 Bonus HP and are treated as Second Years for all effects.
- Major Entities: these creatures are usually significantly larger than humans, and are "the big guns". They are allowed one Elective Subject, and can assign C, C, B, B, B, A, A for their Grades. On top of the previous benefits, they can also improve Enhanced Strength, Durability or Speed from 2 to 3, gaining all level 2 sub-powers, or gain an Aura, Flight, Emotional Blast or, if they have Living Weapon, a Weapon Empowerment. Any ability may be traded down for a lesser one. They receive 3 Bonus HP and are treated as Third Years for all effects.
- Class-S Entities: these creatures might actually be gods. They are created as Major Entities, but with B, B, B, A, A, A, S for their Grades, and gain two selections from each of the power sets. Also available as the Major Entity choices are Psionic Dominance I (all sub-powers) or Subjugation I (all sub-powers). They receive 4 Bonus HP and are treated as Fourth Years for all effects.
Spirit Taming: you can actually train spirit creatures, teaching them new abilities that are available to them - even if you yourself lack those powers. As you progress, new options are unlocked, and you can teach these to creatures - once per power (or sub-power) per creature. Doing so takes 1 hour each time, though that can be broken into 15 minute segments.
Spirit Summoning: you can summon the creatures you bond with into the material world. Summoning into the "real world" requires a Major Action, and sending back requires a Minor Action. Every turn, you have to issue commands with a Minor Action, otherwise the creature merely loafs off, plays around, gets distracted or defends itself against attackers. Only one creature can be summoned at a time by any one person - it takes too much energy to focus on them. A Distracted character has to pass a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test in order to summon a creature or even keep it in the material world. On the turn that a creature is summoned, it immediately Guards and Shadows its summoner, and continues to do so until further instructions are given.
Spirit Fusion: you can temporarily fuse with your spirit creatures, turning into a beast yourself. It requires a full turn to do - for both participants. Upon fusing, you have all of the Traits, Abilities and Powers of both participants (though they don't add together - if you both have Enhanced Speed I, it doesn't become Enhanced Speed II). Likewise, for any Subject, you use the higher grade of the two. This transformation lasts for only one minute, or until Blocked or you are knocked out. After that it ends and the spirit creature returns to the spirit realm.
Multiple Bonds: a character with Multiple Bonds can bond with more spirit creatures than normal. Specifically, you can bond with however many is listed under "Multiple Bonds" for you. So if you gain "Multiple Bonds (3)", you can bond with up to 3 creatures at a time. You can still only have one active critter actually manifest into the world and listening to you at any given time.
Words Beyond the Void: you are able to communicate intelligently with creatures from the spirit realm, regardless of how smart they are. You communicate telepathically, so can convey and understand emotions and base instincts as well as fully developed thoughts. Disturbingly, you can also understand the "words" of Abominations, but perhaps more importantly you can understand their intentions: when fighting an Abomination, regardless of turn order, the Principal has to tell you at the start of your turn what action the Abomination intends on taking next.
Spirit Stasis: with a Major Action, you can place a spirit creature - even one that is not bonded to you - into stasis. You just have to touch it, and make opposed Health checks. If you win, the spirit creature is put into stasis - any afflictions are paused, and it can't gain or lose hit points, but it also cannot take actions. It is literally frozen in time. This lasts for as long as you concentrate - if you Focus on anything or become Distracted it ends. Typically, this lets you protect your own spirit creatures (which can elect to not roll and let you win), or temporarily shunt enemy ones out of a fight. This ability can be used on living creatures that aren't spirit creatures - including Abominations and those from House Monstrosity. In this case, all it does is, if successful, cause them to be Distracted and Blocked for the duration. This is an
Energy power.
Camouflage: you naturally change appearance to blend in with your surroundings, which is really handy for not being seen. People must pass Extreme Tests in order to spot you when you are hiding.
Morphic Disguise: you can slightly transform your body to change your appearance. It requires a Major Action to do, and you can only turn into things that are roughly the same size as you, but they needn't be the same shape within those size limits. Keeping your body in this altered state requires no action expenditure, though if you become Distracted you revert back to normal. You may use Health to disguise yourself in this manner.
Regeneration: every minute, you regain one hit point. Furthermore, minor wounds close up quickly and you can reattach (with one minute of holding it in place) or regrow (with one hour) missing limbs on your own. Your brain still needs a supply of oxygen and other blood-carried things, however, so decapitation will kill you.
Monstrous Regeneration: you regain a hit point every round. Furthermore, select one damage type - against which you can never be immune or even resistant. Damage from all other sources are marked down separately, then on your turn you can make a Health Test to remove all of this damage (1-3 damage: Standard, 4-10 damage: Hard, 11+ damage: Extreme). If you fail, it actually does turn into real damage. You can instantly reattach limbs, or regrow missing ones in just one minute. Finally, your brain simply goes temporarily dormant if deprived of vital stuff, so decapitation is no real threat in itself - the brain must be crushed, stabbed, burned or whatever to kill you.
Body Shaping: your body is changing. As you get older, your body starts to take on permanent morphs, in quite dramatic ways.
- Level 1: you start gaining some surprising changes:
- Partial Grade Boost to Health
- Your body is particularly resilient to physical damage, reducing incoming Jabbing, Blunt and Sharp damage by 1
- You are clearly different, and can be easily noticed or recognised
- You may once, as a permanent change, gain Living Weapon or Extraordinary Movement or Resist (any one type).
- Level 2: your body changes even more. You gain a full Grade Boost to Health, and can ignore the Blocked condition. You also gain Herculean Throwing, the Sub-Power for Enhanced Strength.
- Level 3: you look completely inhuman by this stage, but that's okay. You gain a single Sub-Power from Enhanced Strength, of any level, without actually having Enhanced Strength. Furthermore, Abominations don't realise you are a human and will not treat you as a threat until you actually attack them.
Extraordinary Movement: you have a special way of moving that isn't exactly normal. Select one of the following:
- Water Walking: you can move on water as long as you keep moving. You can also sink if you want to, but you can run across liquids, or slide along the surface or whatever.
- Wall Crawling: you are able to run up walls and do the spiderman thing, treating any solid surface as the ground. If you become dislodged, you will fall like normal - and in the same direction that everyone else falls.
- Floating and Levitation: you can hover in the air. You naturally remain about 30cm off the ground, but can vary that from "on the ground" up to about 5m.
- Leaps and Bounds: you can just jump immense distances. You can leap 1m upwards per Partial Grade above F in Gym, and twice as far across. If you have a run-up, this is multiplied by 3 (so with a Gym Grade of C+ you could jump 6m up or 12m across, or 18m and 36m with a run-up). A standing jump can be a Minor or Major Action as you see fit, but a running jump is a Major Action.
- Gloop: you can actually seep through gaps like a liquid. This one is the most obviously supernatural as you can't explain this shit away. You can slide under doors and down drains, although such things require a full turn per metre of movement, and any actual resistance (like trying to slide down someone's throat or the wrong way into a printer) prevents this from happening at all.
Living Weapon: your body is a weapon - you have some number of horrible natural weapons that mean you don't have to worry about carrying a sword or anything.
- Fangs: you have a mouth full of sharp teeth. These have a Base Damage equal to your Year Level, and deal Jabbing damage. You can make opposed Gym Tests after a successful bite to lock on, preventing the target from running off.
- Claws: your hands and feet have razor sharp claws that shred foes. These have a Base Damage of 2, deal Sharp damage and automatically have Shredding Attack.
- Antlers/Horns: your head has bony sharp bits on top. They deal either Jabbing or Blunt damage, with a Base Damage of 2. When you Focus the attack, throwing all your weight behind it, the base becomes 4.
- Tendrils: you have a number of long tendrils - maybe one tail, or maybe lots of tentacles or vines or something. At any rate, they only have a Base Damage of 1, but any target hit becomes Distracted (a Physical effect) as you wrap them up and has to hurt you in order to end the effect and escape. If you affect them a second time while still Distracted, they become Immobilised.
- Spines: you are covered in spines. Not only are your unarmed attacks Jabbing with a Base Damage of 1, but anyone who hits you in melee combat takes 1 point of Jabbing damage.
Toxins: you have a dangerous venom available to use - either injected via your natural weapons or spat onto wounds/weapons or something. At any rate, anyone who is hit by the toxin must pass an Extreme Health Test. If they fail, they begin Burning, taking 1 Poison damage each turn. At the end of their turn they can attempt a Hard Health Test to end the effect.
Ultimate Monstrous Form: you have the ability to burst out into an especially monstrous form, much like a transformation... except very not. It requires a full turn to do this, and you always end up 10-50 metres tall. Typically it results in a monstrous appearance - everyone is Afraid of you if they fail a Hard Philosophy and Ethics Test. You gain an effective Gym Grade of A+ for strength based tasks, 10 bonus Hit Points, and a special attack: you attack a 3m radius area with a stomp or similar, and anyone hit is knocked Prone in addition to any damage taken. Finally, any time you take damage you automatically stop being afflicted by Immobilised, Distracted, Afraid or Confused as anger overrides everything. Thanks to your size, you can treat entire buildings as objects that can be destroyed with single attacks (reduces damage by 3, 10 HP).
Magic Spells: you have the ability to learn and cast magical spells. These are always carefully-researched rituals - combat spells don't really exist, that's covered by actual powers people get. A magic spell has to be researched, generally requiring the restricted section of the library (or the Occult or Book Club). It requires 24 hours to research, however this can be divided amongst multiple people to speed things up - but anyone who fails a Hard History Test fails to find any information and thus can't contribute. It then requires all who were involved in the research to perform the ritual, requiring one hour of uninterrupted work, and then the spell goes off. A magic spell must have its parameters defined before research begins - for example "We will research a spell that will [summon a tornado] that will [tear through the sports field] and [disrupt the game for an hour]." or "We will research a spell that will [curse the headmaster], causing him to [become old an enfeebled]."
To affect someone requires a History Test, resisted by their Health or Philosophy and Ethics. Generally, the effects should be things that are grand and create or resolve situations.
TEAMWORK RA-RA!: you have a number of special teamwork abilities - skills that you can use to help people beyond the basic Assist action:
- Ally Launch: you can throw team-mates into the air, improving their movement speed and temporarily letting them fly. With a Minor Action, you make a Standard Gym Test, and if successful you hurl them like a thrown weapon. Any movement they spend on their turn can be part of the thrown distance, so if you throw them upwards they can keep moving up even if they lack a fly speed. Should this movement end with them attacking someone, they gain the benefits of having been Assisted.
- Double-Team Manoeuvre: when both you and an ally wish to do the same thing to the same person, you can work together for it - use the worse initiative for this, however you are both treated as Assisting each other.
- Follow-Up: whenever an adjacent enemy is knocked down or stunned, you are quick to put the boot in. If an enemy is close enough that you could hit them, and they become Prone or Immobilised, you may instantly make a quick attack without a roll, dealing 1 point of damage to them.
- Incessant Cheering: if you just generally cheer and praise your team, your allies perform better in all that they do. You have to spend a Major Action doing this, and you then roll a Test as though with an A. All of your allies who can see and hear you can use your Test result instead of rolling for any rolls they make until your next turn. The one exception is they cannot use this for their own Incessant Cheering to create a chain of everyone using the same result for ever and ever.
- Distraction: you can distract foes with your noises and actions. With a Major Action, you can attempt to distract one foe - make a Gym or Health Test if jumping about, or a Language Studies Test if making noise. This is opposed by their Philosophy and Ethics. If you win, they are Distracted until you stop - once you start, it only takes a Minor Action each turn to keep it up. If you Focus on the first turn, it affects all foes.
- Team Talk: you can prevent your friends from feeling bad about failure - or can remove the bitter from a bitter-sweet victory. After any incident, you can make a Standard Language Studies Test to help everyone else feel okay, removing any sadness.
Just According to Keikaku: when people plot against you and even do completely unexpected things, it was all actually part of your plan. You planned for things people were going to do before they even know about it. Once per fight, you can declare that up to one hour earlier (as long as you can point to a time when you were free to do so) you had planned for this and sabotaged it, allowing you to do something along the following lines:
- Physically change the battlefield with a pit or collapsed wall or cave-in
- Make a foe Distracted as a Physical effect until you leave the area
- Cause an explosion (use Science to make an attack against the target, Base Damage 4, Explosive damage)
- Grant yourself a breather - allow an opportunity to escape
Sneak Attack: you really hurt people when they don't expect it. Whenever you hit someone who is unaware of your presence (or treated as such, for instance being Prone), you may select one of the following:
- Deal an extra point of damage (4th Year students: 2 extra damage)
- Distract them for one turn
- Cause a Grade Penalty to one Grade of your choice until all damage is healed
SCIENCE! This covers all major projects of the SCIENCE! club. To conduct a major project, you must put forward the basic idea of what you want to achieve with some vague ideas on how, such as "I wish to blow up the moon by feeding multiple large energy reactors into a laser with seven magnifying glasses". This happens at the beginning of the session. Then a time frame is decided: after each session, roll 1d6 plus the number of sessions you have been working on it. Once the total is 7 or more, you finish at the end of that session, and the beginning of next session can involve the deployment of the SCIENCE! idea. Roll a Hard Science Test. Whether you succeed or fail, something important and plot-guiding always happens. Afterwards, it is discarded and people move on, though if successful it can be brought out
once more in future to specifically solve a problem if everyone agrees. So your space laser could be used to shoot a hole through an Abomination one more time, but then the laser is gone and everyone is more interested in some other new thing.
Void: your shadow is too real for other people. Or maybe not real enough. You can move your shadow about independently from your own actions, however it is still attached to you, and if it reaches someone (requiring you to direct it with a Major Action), it can grab them: you make a Health Test and they make a Gym Test. If you beat their roll, they are grabbed and pulled in, sucked into the void. While trapped there, they take a point of damage each round, ignoring resistances or immunities, and all they can do is try to claw their way out. This requires an Extreme Gym Test. If they succeed, they burst out of your shadow, also dealing 3 Sharp damage to you in the process. If, while someone is trapped in your shadow, you become Distracted or Confused, you Focus on something, you try to swallow something else with your shadow or you lose your shadow (such as being in a completely dark room), the victim is ejected harmlessly.
