Animal Powers (FiD)

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Animals are an important part of mystic experience.

What Animal Does

The entire domain of living creatures is governed by the Life power, but this is subdivided into different realms: Mind governing creatures that think and act, Animal governing creatures that act but do not think, Plant governing life that doesn't act or think.

Animal governs the minds and bodies of natural animals as well as creatures and spirits related to animals. The defining trait of all these creatures is that they can act, but are not Sapient, don't build societies, and are motivated by instincts and drives. Some can be trained or even domesticated making them a part of the society of Humans and other sapient Folk, but they do not form society by themselves. Eusocial animals are a borderline case, but these are still animals as they don't reason, they work off instincts.

There is no clear line between Animals and Monsters. A monster is an animal that is dominated by its Forms, it is not as much a part of the ecology as a danger to the ecology. This is a narrative deskription, the rules don't make this distinction.

Elemental Forms deal with animals and monsters that are connected to their elements.

• Air governs flying animals.
• Earth governs burrowing animals.
• Electricity governs the few electric animals, such as electric eels and sharks with electrosense.
• Fire governs desert animals.
• Ice governs arctic animals.
• Water governs aquatic and amphibious animals.

Animals, Monsters, & Elementals

Animal-like monsters exist with all kinds of weird powers, often reminiscent of tribal myths, but they are all creatures of flesh and blood. All these creatures are monsters, but still under the Animal Form as well as their elemental Forms. A bird is affected by both the Animal and Air forms.

On the other hand, Elementals, creatures that are entirely made of elemental materials, are not governed by the Animal Form even when they have the form of an animal.

Animal Spirits

Animal Spirits are immaterial intelligences associated with the fauna of a territory. When you speak with an animal, you may actually be communicating with such a Spirit, which temporarily channels itself through a particular animal in order to speak. The animal is not the spirit; it is a vessel or mouthpiece. Most such spirits are weak, bound to their Haunts, and perceive the world through the animals they protect. They allow more complex conversation than would be possible with an entirely mundane animal, resolved using the relevant Command and Sway powers. They do not grant access to great power. More powerful spirits can be summoned; this is the realm of Attune.

Totem Animal

You can choose to have a special relationship to a particular kind of animal, and your relation to other animals is colored by the totem. For example, wolf totem is regarded by animals as a wolf and feared by prey animals, sheep totem is liked and regarded as harmless, and so on.

Animal Attacks

Animal attacks create phantom animal features such as teeth, claws, antlers, or horns to attack with. You use them to do stunts like grab, tackle, or knock back. You create these animal parts from nothing, use them, and they then disappear. How this works and what this looks like depends on your Power Playbook, it can be animal spirits or ghosts, conjured animal shapes, projections of your ki or chi or actual summoned but very temporary animals. Decide on the look of your animal attacks and stick to it until there is a narrative reason to change.

Animal Abilities

Action	Basic	Advanced	Master	Apex
Dice	—	Minimum 2d	Minimum 4d	Minimum 6d
Stress	Avoid fumble (2+).	Succeed (4+).	Full success (6).	Critical (2 sixes).
Attune	Wild Watch Detect Animal powers and animals with powers.	Wild Ward Dismiss animals. End Animal powers.	Wild Wrangling Summon animals and animal spirits.	Wild Window Create a portal that allows travel to and from the Animal spirit realm.
Command	Beast Boast Command with animalistic authority.	Beast Message Communicate long-distance with or using animals.	Animal Authority Command animals as if you were their alpha.	Enslave Animals Permanently bind creatures to service.
Consort	Animal Mask Gain cosmetic animal traits to mask your identity or create a fabulous look.	Animal Shape Assume animal form or human–animal hybrid form.	Animal Transformation Use Animal Shape on a willing or helpless creature.	Wild Hunt Transform a number of willing or non-sentient creatures and give them a simple instruction.
Finesse	Beastly Bridle Ride any animal or animal-powered vehicle.	Fine Claw Fine and Potent close-range attack. Grant Crew Beastly Bridle.	Control Animal Control an animal like a string puppet.	Wild Ride Ride while ignoring terrain.
Hunt	Scent Seeker Track by scent, similar to a well-trained tracking dog.	Beast Bolt Flying fangs, similar in effect to a Fine and Potent rifle.	Herd Mind Influence many animals at once.	Beastly Barrage Attack like a Fine and Potent grenade.
Prowl	Camouflage Assume the camouflage pattern of an animal; hide where that animal could.	Beast Stride Use animal movement; move through herds or packs.	Pack Prowl Bring Crew when you use Camouflage and Beast Stride.	Roaming You and allies teleport from one animal den to another.
Skirmish	Avoid Animals Resist Animal damage.	Ravage Fine and Potent animal attack.	Onslaught Create distractions that prevent Scale.	Pack Attack Attack all enemies in an Area.
Study	Animal Analyze Identify animals and objects related to animals.	Animal Lore Learn the powers and abilities of analyzed subjects.	Pedigree Read past events of an animal or animal product.	Omniscience Animal Lore in a wide Area, then Pedigree on chosen targets.
Survey	Sense Animal Sense animals and animal remains at a distance; gain the senses of a chosen animal.	Beast Perception Perceive through an animal you know is present.	Pet Perception Gain Beast Perception through the nearest suitable animal.	Wild Sense Perceive through all animals over a wide Area.
Sway	Read Animal Understand animal motives and anticipate their actions.	Animal Tongues Crew can communicate with animals; influence lustful or competitive behavior.	Program Animal Implant suggestions in an animal’s mind.	Domesticate Permanently change an animal’s personality and motivations.
Tinker	Animal Crafts Work animal products as if you had appropriate tools.	Animal Shaping Shape animal-sourced materials as if they were clay.	Beastcraft Create animal-part objects from nothing or transmute materials.	Wild Fabrication Mass-produce objects or construct large works from animal materials.
Wreck	Mangle Brutally break organic materials animals could destroy; noisy and destructive.	Decompose Apply reducers such as bacteria or insects; slow but powerful.	Wildwarp Mangle or Decompose silently, reducing targets to dust.	Infestation Apply Mangle or Decompose across a large Area over time.

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Expanded Animal Powers

Connect with the natural world and harness the power of animals for various purposes.

Attune

Harness the power of Attune to perceive and manipulate supernatural energies, allowing you to detect and interact with beings and phenomena from other planes of existence.

The consequences usually depends on what happens around you when you do it. Having helpers and bodyguards reduces the consequences, and sometimes a creature wants to be dismissed and the consequence might be that it loses control of itself, or that other creatures appear to intervene.

Wild Watch

Detect Animal.

Detect Animal powers and animals with powers. This is usually done to spot a spirit or a disguised creature. However, it can also help identify a creature's connection to powers, providing valuable insights into their nature. Limited effect suffices against a creature you can clearly see. If you know several different powers, you can scan for all of them at the same time. Limited outcome suffices against a creature you can clearly see. You need greater outcome against against a creature that is hidden (standard outcome) or behind a wall (great outcome). The position usually starts controlled, with the usual consequence that you missed the opportunity and cannot try again until the situation changes.

Wild Ward

End Animal abilities.

Dismissing a creature is hard and usually requires great effect. A creature that has been wounded or otherwise weakened only needs standard effect. A creature that wants to be dismissed requires only limited effect.

You can dispel Animal effects and powers that affect Animal creatures. Dispelling can be used as a defense against others' use of powers, or it can be used to break continuing effects. Dispelling is often used as a setup action to help another character in a situation when the opposition is using powers. This usually improves the position of the supported action and can work in addition to other setup actions. When used directly, the effect is usually limited unless the opponent is relying on powers for their safety. Against an opponent that uses Animal wings to fly or turned into a fish to breathe underwater you have a better base effect. When dramatically appropriate that a power is hard to dispel, often because it is the crux of the situation, this will not negate the power but instead give you a clue to what you need to do to resolve the situation.

Forcing a spirit to materialize or de-materialize is easy, but limited in range. The spirit cannot return under its own power for a while, usually after the score. Limited Outcome only works on spirits within reach. Standard Outcome covers an area based on your tier (p 220). Great Outcome reaches out to a range covered by tier (p 220).

Dismissing a creature back to its home plane is hard and usually requires Great Outcome. A creature that has been wounded or otherwise weakened only needs Standard Outcome. A creature that wants to be dismissed requires only Limited Outcome.

Wild Wrangling

Summon Animal.

Summoning brings you allies to fight or labor for you, giving you scale. Summons can use simple effects of their power and maintain power effects you have created.

You can summon mundane animals from other planes, including extra large and legendary animals and Animal creatures with Powers other than Animal. The limit is that animals are not Sapient or capable of speech. Most mundane animals are native to this world and have no special vulnerability to Attune power effects.

Summons are Chohorts: Creatures you summon function as temporary cohorts (p. 96) — either an Expert or a Gang — with added Powers from their Form. An Expert is a skilled individual who can offer advice, Assist, or act independently. A Gang is a group (numbers based on your Tier, p. 221) that primarily provides Scale in combat and labor.

You can always summon a Gang of creatures one Tier below yours. Summoning a specific Gang or Expert requires knowing its unique identity — called a true name in mystical traditions. For a technomancer, this might be a type ID, blueprint, or genetic code. Learning a creature’s true name may require a flashback, or in complex cases, the research downtime activity or a reward from a score.

Summoning a Creature

The summoning itself is quick but dangerous. When you have time and resources, it is wise to use wards and Barriers, but in action this is usually impossible and you must face the risks. Having allies present for safety is advisable. Offering a creature gifts or services appropriate to its nature and power can be a literal Devil’s Bargain — accepting an additional consequence to gain an advantage.

Depending on your degree of outcome, a creature is willing to do different things:

• Limited Outcome allows you to ask questions of an Expert or demand a short period of physical labor from a Gang. They will not fight for you.
• Standard Outcome allows any service appropriate to the creature’s type, having it act in its typical role. Most creatures don’t mind fighting, but may have preferences about how they do it and what they do outside a fight.
• Great Outcome allows service outside the creature’s comfort zone, though not against its nature. Lengthy service — even within its comfort zone — also requires a Great Outcome, such as guarding treasure until it is stolen.

The position usually starts at Risky — the creature is compelled and may resist. Typical consequences, in ascending order of severity:

• Half-hearted efforts
• Demanding not to be summoned again
• Breaking things or demanding concessions
• A short fight to assert dominance
• Deliberate sabotage
• A constant struggle to maintain control

Wild Window

Animal gate.

Create a portal that allows travel to and from the Animal spirit realm, a vast wild land with many different biotopes inhabited by all kinds of wild animals. Many animals in this land are Inteligent and can speak. Humans are only visitors here, tolerated and even allowed to hunt as long as they don't disturb the natural order.

There are things that are possible to do here that are not allowed in the regular world. Appropriate effects are reduced one step in difficulty, from advanced to basic, master to advanced, and apex to master. This opens the possibility of new super-apex powers that have to be negotiated with the game master. Such effects rarely reach outside the plane of origin, but if they affect creatures there the effect may remain when you return to the mundane world.

This can also be used to contact creatures too powerful to summon. This allows you to ignore tier when creating the gate, but gives you no power over the target. The creature may then use the gate to come to you, call you into its presence, send minions, or communicate with you at a distance.

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Command

Command and intimidate animals, projecting authority. Position and Effect depend on the situation and your relationship with the listeners.

Beast Bristle

Animal intimidation.

You can growl, roar, raise your hackles, and otherwise display animalistic traits to heighten your authority, similar to what could be achieved by displaying a weapon, but with less notoriety. This can provide the leverage needed to use Command to intimidate without a spoken threat of violence. Animals may recognize you as a figure of authority.

Beast Boast

Animal messenger.

Communicate over long distances with or through animals. You can communicate with Animal creatures over any distance, as long as you know the target, even without line of sight. You can also communicate with the most powerful Animal creature associated with a vehicle or installation, provided you can see its exterior. Communication is simple and direct, as is typical for the Command action.

You can have animals carry messages to a specific place, or with Great Outcome to specific individuals. The animal must travel there by its own means.

Beast Bluster

Command as an alpha.

Animals perceive you as an alpha, or as if you have just successfully faced them down. This allows you to issue orders to strangers and improves Effect, but not Position; targets comply without accepting your authority. This does not remove existing loyalties, which may lead to conflict. Understanding the social structure of your targets helps avoid clashes with established hierarchies.

Orders must be direct and specific. You can tell an animal to escort and guard something, but if you later want it to do something else, you must Command it again.

Beast Bond

Permanently bind an animal.

This only works if you already hold power over the target. The effect is similar to Beast Bluster, but permanent. Strong emotions may break your control, but otherwise it persists until dispelled.

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Consort

Consort powers change your form and, later, that of other creatures. These powers also facilitate Consort rolls where being an Animal is an advantage, often granting improved initial Effect, improved Position, or allowing actions a human could not perform. Do not make separate Consort rolls for using the power and for consorting in this form; it is all resolved with a single roll.

Both Animal and Life allow you to assume animal forms. Animal can produce hybrid or partial animal forms; Life can only assume the forms of existing creatures.

A common consequence is that you are mistaken for someone else, or that your assumed form becomes a hindrance. You might be obnoxiously attractive, trigger prejudices, or suffer unexpected handicaps.

Herd Hue

Animal cosmetics.

Gain cosmetic animal traits to mask your identity or create a striking appearance. You make minor physical changes to yourself, such as adding an animal nose, fur, ears, or a tail. You can also make subtler changes, becoming reminiscent of an animal in stance or manner, such as ratlike or catlike, while retaining your general form. The initial Effect is usually Limited and the Position Controlled.

You can use this ability on your entire Crew as an Advanced ability.

Herd Heart

Transform self.

Assume an animal form or a human–animal hybrid form. This is a true physical transmutation, allowing you to gain the abilities of animals. You need not assume the form of an existing creature, as long as the game master agrees that your new form qualifies as an animal, including legendary animals.

Herd Heart can function as a set-up action for other actions, but may penalize some actions, as appropriate to your new form. Your new form can use appropriate Basic and Advanced Animal powers inherently, without risking Stress. If you wish to transform into a Monster, you must know any Forms that monster is related to.

• Limited Outcome allows you to transform into a version of yourself as you might have been if you had grown up as the creature whose form you assume. Those familiar with you will recognize you.
• Standard Outcome allows you to become a generic creature, making you very difficult to recognize as yourself.
• Great Outcome allows you to assume the shape and some of the personality of a specific creature you have studied.

Herd Haven

Transform others.

This is Herd Heart applied to another creature that is either helpless or cooperative. The duration depends on the Outcome.

• Limited Outcome is very temporary.
• Standard Outcome lasts for the duration of a score.
• Great Outcome lasts a long time and, when used as punishment, may be permanent.

If you also want to make the target unrecognizable, that requires additional Outcome; see Herd Heart.

Herd Host

Transform bit characters.

Transform a number of willing or non-sentient creatures into animals and give them a simple instruction. This is where Consort becomes similar to an Attune ability to summon. You transform a number of existing creatures and give them a task that they will perform with gusto, turning them into single-minded minions. Targets must be willing, Non-Sentient like animals, or just very minor figures in the plot, many tiers below you.

This creates a gang cohort (p 96) that they can be given bit parts as servants or laborers or fight and chase for you. Such goons are more useful for chasing and cornering targets than in actual combat.

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Finesse

Exercise finesse with your power, manipulating and attacking with precision.

Practiced Poise

Ride any Animal.

This allows you to proficiently use Finesse with mounts and animal-drawn vehicles, even if you are not familiar with them. You can ride beasts even if they are not trained to carry a rider, as long as they are physically capable of doing so. You can also sprint like an animal, giving you a very fast burst of speed over short distances.

As an Advanced ability, you can grant Practiced Poise to your Crew.

Precise Poise

Fine and Potent Attack.

Claw, bite, or thrust like an animal. Animal attacks manifest as phantom animal features such as teeth, claws, antlers, or horns. Using Finesse, you strike with sudden swipes or thrusts while mostly staying out of reach.

This substitutes for equipment only; a Fine and Potent Finesse weapon is equally effective for dealing damage. Using this ability does not take additional time in a fight; activating your attack power is equivalent to drawing a weapon.

Puppet Poise

Puppet an animal momentarily.

Force an animal to perform a small, precise movement. This works best on animals not actively involved in the scene, such as pets, mounts, or vermin in the area. The control is extremely precise but very brief.

The animal’s intelligence or attitude is not a factor, but it must have a suitable body part for manipulation. This allows an animal to open doors, trigger or interfere with mechanisms, or perform other quick, minor actions. You can also cause an animal to fumble an attack or action.

This only takes a moment to use and can be used to Set Up yourself for another action.

Piloting Poise

Ride ignoring terrain.

You, your Crew, and any mounts or vehicles you ride adapt seamlessly to terrain, moving as if native to it. This does not apply in situations that require the use of Prowl.

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Hunt

Track, attack, and unleash devastating barrages with the power of Hunt.

Seeker Scent

Track by scent.

Track by scent, similar to a well-trained tracking dog. Consequences are usually the loss of the trail, but depending on the environment and the target, they may also lead you into traps, cause you to become lost, or result in an ambush.

Seeker Strike

Flying fangs.

Hurl spines or semi-material beasts at your targets from a distance, similar in effect to a Fine and Potent rifle. The exact appearance depends on taste and setting: ephemeral claws or teeth, or even entire temporary animals summoned to strike.

This serves as a replacement for traditional equipment; a Fine and Potent ranged weapon would be equally effective. In melee, this ability can be dangerous to you and your allies.

Seeker Scramble

Confuse animals.

Exert imprecise control over many animals across an entire scene. Mounts may become unruly, herd animals may stampede, livestock may panic, and guard animals may bark, flee, or seek shelter instead of performing their duties.

This is not an attack. It confuses animals, which then affect the environment, but they do not fight on your behalf. You can influence the general direction of their behavior, but you cannot directly control them.

Seeker Storm

A storm of spectral animals.

An escalation of Seeker Strike, creating a swarm of temporary animals and directing them into an Area (p. 221). This effect is less precise and affects all creatures in the Area.

The animals attack indiscriminately, creating a risk of collateral damage. Targets in trenches, behind walls, or otherwise shielded are not in immediate danger, but tend to keep their heads down, giving your side the initiative.

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Prowl

Sneak and move with animal agility.

Skulking Slink

Hide like an animal.

Assume the camouflage patterns of an animal and hide where that animal could hide. This allows you to conceal yourself in otherwise impossible places, as long as you know of animals capable of doing so. The concealment is never perfect, but it is especially effective in natural environments.

This otherwise works like a normal attempt to use Prowl to avoid notice. Only you can use this ability; your friends and allies cannot unless you use Skulking Swarm.

Skulking Scuttle

Move like an animal.

Select an animal. Without changing your shape, you move like the chosen animal. This allows you to climb, jump, or swim as that animal would.

Your size and mass remain the same, which prevents flying and restricts climbing to surfaces that can support your weight.

Skulking Swarm

Prowl with your crew.

You can share Skulking Slink and Skulking Scuttle with your Crew, but each ally still uses their own Prowl action. This often results in a Group Action.

Skulking Surge

Teleport den to den.

You and your Crew teleport from one animal den to another. This allows regional travel between animal dens you know. Both dens must be large enough to accommodate the largest member of the group.

If a den cannot hold all of you, those who arrive first are pushed out to make space. This form of travel is limited to a city or county in scale.

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Skirmish

Prosper in the chaos of battle.

Rush Roll

Resist Animal Harm.

You can ignore Harm from Animal abilities and attacks made by animals. You increase the effect of Skirmish rolls for endurance in such environments. Roll Skirmish to resist such Harm. 1-3: No reduction. 4-6: Reduce Harm by 1 level. Critical: Reduce Harm by 2 levels.

As a Master power, you can protect an ally for a score; as an Apex Power, you can protect your crew. Allies roll their own Skirmish dice.

Rush Rip

Fine and Potent attack.

Attack like an animal, briefly manifesting animal parts such as claws, teeth, or horns to strike with.

Rush Rumble

Prevent Scale.

You call animals or create temporary animals to participate in a fight. They do not inflict direct Harm, but they prevent enemies from benefiting from Scale (p. 221). In addition, you make a Rush Rip attack as part of this ability.

Rush Ravage

Attack all enemies in an Area.

Like Onslaught, but the animals actively attack, allowing you to deal full damage to a cohort gang (p. 96).

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Study

Study and analyze objects made by or from animals. The Effect required depends on range: Limited Effect for touch, Standard Effect for line of sight, and Great Effect to reach a target you know of or have some link to, but which is out of line of sight.

Position depends on the situation. When you are safely in your base, the Position is Controlled. In the middle of a fight, or when pinned down, the Position is Desperate. Sometimes the subject of your research is dangerous in itself, worsening Position. Consequences may grant knowledge that is faulty or lacks crucial details, or arise from the situation, such as a stray shot finding you while studying during a battle.

Token Tell

Name animals.

Identify animals and objects related to animals. This provides the name and very basic information in narrative terms, but not detailed analysis or actual rules. You can tell which animal left certain spoor, identify the shed skin of a particular type of snake, recognize that a specific bird or spider made a nest or web, and similar observations.

Type Tell

Analyze animals.

Learn the powers and abilities of animals. You discover any powers or special abilities an Animal creature or animal-derived object possesses. This includes actual rules and game effects.

Examples include identifying that a snake’s hatchlings are unusually toxic, determining which animal wove a particular web, understanding how that web functions, or learning what is required to counteract a specific venom.

Trace Tell

Animal history.

Read the past events of an animal or animal product. This includes previous owners of an item, how the object or animal has moved over time, and significant scenes from its history. It also reveals breeding information and shows genetic relationships between analyzed animals.

The power focuses on events and information of interest to you.

Territorial Tell

Area animal analysis.

Apply Type Tell to all relevant targets within Range (p. 221), then apply Trace Tell to specific subjects. This provides a detailed view of events involving animals across the Area, pinpointing locations of interest such as territories, dens, nests, and stables. You can then use Trace Tell to learn the history of up to three such locations.

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Survey

Perceive and locate Animals and Animal powers.

The Outcome required depends on the target’s concealment:

• Limited Outcome finds targets hiding behind cover or in distant places you can barely see.
• Standard Outcome can perceive behind walls and into hard cover.
• Great Outcome can reach far-away places or locations you had no prior awareness of.

Instinctual Sense

Animal sensing.

Sense animals and animal remains at a distance, or gain the senses of a chosen animal.

The first use is a basic spotting ability, selectively sensing things related to Animal. The Outcome required depends on the target’s concealment.

You can also choose an animal and gain its sensory abilities. For example, a dog’s perception focuses on scent, while a cat’s focuses on hearing and the ability to detect motion even in darkness.

Instinctual Impression

Borrow senses.

Tap into the perception of an animal you know is present and perceive as if you were that animal. You can use an Advanced Command or Sway ability to have the animal move into a better position.

Instinctual Insight

Sense a target.

Choose a location or creature. You gain Instinctual Impression through the nearest suitable animal. This functions like Instinctual Impression, but allows you to focus on a specific creature or position, which need not be animal-related. The ability automatically selects the animal with the best vantage point. It fails if no suitable animal is available.

Instinctual Integration

Sense an Area.

You perceive through all animals within Range (p. 221). Your senses are enhanced impossibly, as though you were all of the animals spread across the scene. This creates a comprehensive mental image of the Area, revealing numerous details simultaneously and allowing you to integrate them into a single coherent mental picture.

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Sway

Communicate, mesmerize, and manipulate animals. Position and Effect are determined normally, depending on the situation and your relationship to the listeners. Animals are more capable of understanding and negotiation because ambient animal spirits act as intermediaries.

Call Cues

Understand animals.

Gauge the mood and motivations of animals and interpret any communication they use. This does not allow animals to understand you. You can also sense when any kind of creature is in an animalistic, lustful, or competitive mood.

Call Calm

Speak to animals.

This allows you and your Crew to use the Sway action with full Effect when dealing with animals, communing with them more clearly than animals normally communicate with one another. In addition, you can influence any creature to become more animalistic, lustful, or competitive.

Call Charm

Suggestions to animals.

Implant post-suggestions in the mind of an animal. This is an enhanced form of Call Calm, allowing you to implant suggestions that trigger under conditions you set. The power remains subtle until the suggestion activates.

Call Concord

Reprogram animal.

Permanently change the personality and motivations of an animal. This power is permanent and blatant. The animal must be helpless or willing.

Call Concord alters the animal on a deep level, changing its priorities and loyalties. The target remembers its past, but considers it unimportant compared to its new motivations. Only exceptional creatures or circumstances can break this change.

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Tinker

Manipulate, shape, and create objects made from animals, including skin, bone, leather, feathers, and fur.

• Limited Outcome solves an immediate problem, then ends. Any effect achieved will last, such as a repair made with temporary tools.
• Standard Outcome construction, repair, or item lasts for the duration of a score.
• Great Outcome is semi-permanent. This does not make permanent kit, but it can make permanent effects to the setting, such as repairing a large construction like a bridge or wall.

Something larger than you are, very complex, or of higher Quality Level than your Tier increases the needed Outcome.

Position depends on the tranquility of your workspace and if you are working on something that is dangerous in itself.

For long-term projects, Tinker powers can substitute for missing tools, but that is all they do until you use the Apex ability.

Husband Honing

Craft animal parts.

Work animal products like leather, bone, teeth, sinew, and horn as if you had the appropriate tools and protective devices. Items you work with can have small parts made of other materials, such as metal eyelets or synthetic thread.

Husband Handling

Shape Animal.

You can shape animals and animal-sourced materials as if they were clay. You surpass normal crafting limits by shaping animal-sourced materials and forcing them to retain the new form. This allows compound materials that does thing you would not expect organic materials to do.

You can also shape living animals, changing them within the norms for the type of creature or change color and pattern.

Husband Hybrid

Transmute Animal.

Create objects made from animal parts out of nothing, or transform an object from one material to another.

You can create complex tools, such as temporary Fine and Potent items.

You can create objects made from animal parts out of nothing, or transform an object from one material to another as long as you know all of the Forms involved for both the starting and final material. This allows intricate transformations — for example, a antlers can be transmuted into fire and still maintain their form, or a leather door can briefly become mist to allow passage before returning to normal.

You can shape and merge living creatures, creating chimeras and hybrids combining the abilities of multiple creatures. This also allows you to imbue animals with other Forms that you know, such as fire breath or stone skin.

Husband Holistic

Mass animal crafting.

Similar to Husband Holistic, but you mass produce objects, change many animals, or make something large such as a vehicle or building out of animal-sourced materials.

In long-term projects involving construction or crafting, Husband Holistic makes many dozens of items with the same effort as one item but risks the usual Stress cost.

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Wreck

Destroy, dismantle, and obliterate animal products. Rip and rend like a wild beast.

The Outcome required for demolition depends on the size and structural strength of the target.

• Limited Outcome can break barriers significantly weaker than brick.
• Standard Outcome is sufficient to create a car-sized hole in a brick or mortar wall. A smaller hole still requires the same Outcome.
• Great Outcome can crack materials stronger than this, as far as makes sense.

These abilities can also be used in combat, with the effects noted below.

Mangle Mash

Animal bash.

Brutally break organic materials that animals could plausibly destroy. This is noisy and leaves twisted remains. Just as crude as it sounds, you destroy animal products and strike with the force of a bear or boar.

Animal attacks manifest as phantom animal features such as teeth, claws, antlers, or horns. You can grab, tackle, or knock targets back. This functions like any other wreck-themed weapon.

As usual, Wreck may be at an advantage or disadvantage compared to Hunt, Finesse, or Skirmish, depending on the situation.

Mangle Mess

Reduce materials.

Apply the effects of reducers such as vermin and insects, like woodworms. This process is slow but powerful.

This bypasses the strength of materials, allowing you to destroy even the strongest organic barriers, but it takes time: minutes for organic barriers, hours for metals, and days or weeks for stone.

You can use this in combat to smash like a Fine and Potent claw.

Mangle Mulch

Silent destruction.

Use Mangle Mash or Mangle Mess, but destroyed targets silently disappear or are reduced to fine dust. Choose between natural attacks or vermin reducers.

The key difference from earlier abilities is that the destruction is silent. You leave fewer traces, as what you wreck disappears entirely. This allows you to remove evidence, as long as that evidence is organic in nature.

You can use this in combat to smash like a silent Fine and Potent claw.

Mangle Mob

Area destruction.

Apply Mangle Mash or Mangle Mess across a large Area (p. 221). This can cause massive destruction, potentially razing a town over time. This ability simply scales the effects up in scope.

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