Life (Action Powers Form)
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| Heroic Action Role-Play |
This is life and life-force at the primal level; the essential principle that fuels all creatures, magical and mundane. It is at the opposite scale of the evolution from Mind, yet Mind could not exist without it. It is the antithesis of death, but without death it would become static.
- Alternate Names: Organics, Bio-Chemistry
Associations
- Creature : Microorganisms, Mitochondria
- Skill : Charm
- Attribute : All
- Sense : Mystic life sense
- Mood : Nurturing, sensual, sexual
- Blast: Wounding
Life Cantrips
Basic Action
You can tell the health of a living creature by touch, diagnosing illness and ailments. You can relieve pain. You can make blood and living tissue glow, using it as a ghastly source of illumination or to outline blood vessels, bleeding, infection, or other localized medical phenomena.
Charm Life
Corners of the Mouth
Basic Action
Make a wisecrack, quotation from the classics, or other mysterious or inspirational remark. The person you directed this at (within Charm meters, is immediately focused.
Life Inspiration
Trigger Action
You inspire others to be sensual, libidinous, and generous. Whenever you or someone within Charm meters fails an action based on these virtues, you can take a trigger action to give him an immediate reroll. If the original roll was Confident or Stymied it remains so. This applies to most uses of the Charm skill, and to other skills and rolls as determined my the GM.
Sexual Influence
Basic Action
You can only use this power against someone you have just brought to orgasm. Make an opposed Charm roll. If you succeed, you can use a Finisher against him, just as if you had defeated him in combat.
Sleep
Basic Action or Finisher
Make an opposed Charm roll, on a success the target loses three shots napping and cannot use his Recon as a defense, using his Reflexes instead until his next shot comes up. This is important when people try to Sneak on him. If the attack scores an Outcome matching the target's Mind, the target does not loose any shots, but cannot take any actions for the rest of the round or until he takes damage or is successfully interacted with. If used out of combat, the target is momentarily distracted and doesn't realize something strange happened. As a Finisher, the target is permanently asleep and the effect is a Curse. This is a suspended animation and reduces the targets physical needs to almost nothing—as the plot requires.
The Master's Voice
Focus
If someone else takes a Basic Action to praise you, you can use this schtick to focus. This can always be used in front of an appreciative audience, whose constant praise you thrive on. This can even let you focus when another uses an appropriate stunt against you.
Create Life
Fleshcraft
Finisher
You can shape living bodies, changing their exact form within the norms of their species, or grafting preserved body parts onto them. It is generally hard to restore a creature changed by Fleshcraft; it is considered a Curse. Of course, further applications of Fleshcraft can give the semblance of a cure.
Cosmetic Change: Perhaps the most common way, this is used to create a permanent disguise or disfigurement, or simply to appease the target's vanity. With extensive work you can switch the the target's Charm and Impress skills.
Changing Form: You can change the target, making him or her thin or obese, harmoniously proportioned or a monster. This allows you to rearrange the targets attributes within the norms of his species. You can make the target frail and uncoordinated (down to Body and Reflexes 3 for a human, but you cannot increase the targets attribute total.
Grafting: You can attach an alien body part to a creature. This is most often done to impart some new physiological power, usually a Mutation. This places great strain on the patient's body and sanity; for each mutation so grafted, the patient loses one point from an attribute of his choice. The can be recovered with Limitations or by purchasing the mutations as schticks using experience points.
Automatons: You can repair and animate dead bodies, making them living automatons. Though the methods are different and you need to harvest, repair, and combine suitable body parts, the effects of creating an automaton is similar to that of the Crucible of Life power.
Geneseed
Finisher
You can induce pregnancy in a living creature. You can either take a genetic seed from the target, or impregnate the target with generic seed you carry; either your own or one you have previously taken from someone else. If the target is not normally capable of carrying a child (for example, because it is male), it will still develop a fetus, but will need special care or the fetus will abort in a few days.
Invigorate
Basic Action
You imbue an ally with life. He will recover one Hit at the end of each round of combat until the end of the scene. This will not reduce the effect of a Damage Setback.
Reincarnation
Finisher
You transform one living creature into another. This heals all damage setbacks and harmful effects the target suffers from, but does not restore any Hits. You must build a variant form for him using his normal Creature Type and points. The target keeps most of its original abilities, but you can rearrange the target's attributes - the sum cannot be higher than before, but can certainly be lower. You can also add powers and schticks related to the new form, as long as the total point value does not increase. You can use this to make the target younger, but doing so reduces the targets skills and total point value, at the discretion of the GM. This power cannot be used to imitate a specific creature, not even the target's previous form. Voice, mannerisms, autograph, all changes, and he will have problems recalling the kind of trivia normally used to test someone's identity. This is a Curse.
Dodge Life
Antibodies
Basic Action
Protect a creature from disease and slow toxins by touch. The target adds his Mind to his Body when resisting Infection, both damage and any rolls to halt the progress of disease or poison. This protection lasts for a day. You are normally assumed to use this on yourself each day. This does nothing for other types of biological damage, including neurotoxins; the only poisons affected are the slow ones covered under Infection damage.
Armored in Life
Inherent
This power grants you additional life force. Once per session, it can absorb one Hit you would otherwise take. You can take this power several times with cumulative benefits. It does not work for unnamed characters.
Health Surge
Trigger Action
When you or an ally within Dodge meters takes damage, you increase their soak attribute by +5 for resisting that particular damage.
Impress Life
Blood Ban
Finisher
This Curse forbids the target from doing something. This must be a ban against a specific action, and precise and limited in scope. Acceptable examples include "do not reveal secrets of the Order of the Raven" or "Do not enter the town of Tadia". Open-ended or unclear bans, like "remain loyal to me" fail. The victim is aware of the ban and is warned when he is about to break it. There are no conditions or exceptions to the ban; even if the target is tricked or forced to break it, the ban activates. This does not end the curse; if the target survives or revives the Blood Ban is still there.
When the blood ban triggers, the target takes a Mortal Wound. For healing purposes, the damage value is considered equal to your Impress. You can chose to make the punishment a Finisher you (or an assistant) uses when placing the Blood Ban instead of simply trying to kill the target.
Cause Pain
Basic Action
Make an opposed Impress roll, on a success the target takes a Hit due to pain. If the Impress roll scores an Outcome matching the target's Body, it takes two Hits, but this is not considered a Damage Setback.
Crucible of Life
Limit Break
You can create artificial life, a chimera, an amalgam of physical and mental abilities from different creatures. You can only create physical, living creatures this way; Plants, Plant Elemental, Animal, or Folk. The sum of the creature's attributes can be no higher than your Impress; it is rare to see a chimera with much in the way of Mind. You can also create clones, physical duplicates of other creatures. This requires their True Name or a fresh blood sample. A creature created this way is barely alive; while it goes through the motions of life, it is a sterile automaton. It lacks motivation of its own, but will obey your orders without enthusiasm. To truly make the creature live takes Spark of Life. Of course, if all you want is a powerful bodyguard or servant, this is not needed, and Spark of Life actually lessens your control.
Retribution
Basic Action or Finisher
Make an opposed Impress check to place retribution on a target. Whenever the target inflicts a Hit on a creature within 3 meters of the target, the target takes a Hit as well. As a Basic Action this lasts for the rest of the scene. As a Finisher, it is a Curse.
Spark of Life
Limit Break
This brings a spark of life to a dead matter. It can be used on someone who has been revived by Awaken the Dead as long as the body has been repaired enough that it is viable, and can also be used to give life to a body created with Fleshcraft or grown with Crucible of Life.
This is a highly dangerous power, and the creature brought to life often suffers from some defect. In other cases, the creator is overcome with revulsion for his new project. It is mostly included as a plot device. Also note that a creature awakened this way is not sentient; at best it can function on an animal level of intelligence unless it was sentient beforehand. Greater intelligence that that requires the Flower of Knowledge power.
Know Life
Cure Ailment
Limit Break
This negates any biological damage; infection, neurotoxin or poison. The difficulty of cure ailment is the damage or skill value powering the effect. Cure Ailment removes any lingering effect and prevents future damage from this ailment; it does not cure hits already taken. It also removes mundane infection, disease, and other ailments, but does not help against Limitations, curses, or disabilities. Some severe or plot-related ailments are considered curses and cannot be treated with this power, tough it does give the first step; information on what needs to be done.
Curse of the Crone
Finisher
You can change the targets age to any age you want. This is a Curse. This is always a shock to the targets social life, making them hard to recognize and testing friendships and loyalties severely. Any contacts checks the target makes are Stymied. If you make the target into a child, you can reduce the target's Body down to 3 under their racial minimum and give them the Kid limitation. If you make the target elderly, you can reduce Reflexes down to 3 points below their racial minimum, body by up to three, and give them the Elderly limitation. This age change is real, and will affect the target's remaining lifespan. Living and adjusting to their new age removes the contact check limitation after a year.
Dispel Life
Limit Break
| Age of Effect |
Minimum Difficulty |
| Three days | 12 |
| One Month | 14 |
| One year | 16 |
| A decade | 18 |
| A century | 20 |
| A millennium | 22 |
| Ten millennia | 24 |
You can end the effects of other powers. You can only dispel powers you know of (though a vague description, such as "whatever is making Bert turn green" is ok). You can try to dispel a single Finisher, Limit Break, or any power that has been in effect for a week or more, or you can try to dispel all powers except those mentioned above on one creature or in an area with a diameter equal to your Mind. When dispelling several powers at once, you can choose to ignore some of them as long as you know of each power you want to make an exception for.
A power that has been dispelled cannot be used again by that creature in this scene, and another creature that tries to use the same power in the same general area must match your Know with the stunt the power is used with, or it fails.
This will not negate a Curse, but will tell you how to defeat the curse if the roll is successful.
Inherent powers cannot be dispelled.
The difficulty is the skill of the most skilled creature involved in making the effect. Effects that have been around a long time are harder to dispel: see the table. Use the highest relevant difficulty.
You can dispel any power of the Life form or that affects a plant or a natural, living creature. This is normally any creature that is Plant, Animal, or Folk.
Eternal Life
Trigger Action (Combo)
You do not age and have lived a very long time. For each schtick you take in Eternal Life, you have lived about about fifty years more than a typical character. You have great experience and have lived through many things, so whenever you are unsatisfied with a knowledge roll, you may roll again to represent things learnt during your long life. The GM should slant such information based on the time it is from. You can make a number of rerolls equal to your number of Eternal Life schtick picks.
Eternal Life has a drawback; you are less energetic and driven, causing you to do less in downtime.
Heal Wounds
Limit Break
You heal three Hits or remove the effect of a Damage Setback from a touched living creature. The difficulty is the damage value of the attack that caused the damage or the skill value of who or whatever caused the problem.
Requite Life
Basic Action or Finisher
Make a Know check against the target's Dodge to link a living target's life force to those around him. Whenever the target harms another living creature, he risks taking damage himself. He must make an opposed Body check against the creature he just damaged, on a failure he too takes the effect of the hit he just inflicted on that creature. This is Wounding damage. A creature resistant to Wounding damage can use his soak value against such damage to make the check. This effect lasts until the end of the next round. As a Finisher it becomes a Curse.
Maneuver Life
Attribute Focus
Stance
Select one attribute of Body, Mind, or Reflexes. Increase the chosen attribute by three. Reduce the other two attributes by 2 each.
Body Control
Limit Break
You can change your shape within the limits of your species, body mass, and Body. You can dislocate and elongate limbs, change your apparent gender, mimic the facial features, stance and other cosmetic traits of others, and do other changes as long as you respect the three limitations above. You can use your Maneuver instead of your Reflexes for Contortions, and such checks are Routine for you. You can also use this to adopt a Disguise, tough you still need social skills in order to make the act believable.
Gender Change
Finisher
You change the gender and/or sexual orientation of the target. You can also change how the target's species sexual dimorphism expresses itself (feminine, androgynous, masculine, hermaphroditic), the target's sex drive, and its fertility. The target remembers its previous gender and orientation and might have qualms about its new sexual orientation, but these are intellectual memories that have a hard time standing up to the target's new physical needs. This is a curse.
Growth
Stance
You grow to four times your ordinary weight (approximately 160% of your normal length), which gives you +3 Body, but reduces your Reflexes and Mind by one point each. You can take this power several times, multiplying the effect of the stance. Weight and size increase is exponential; three levels of growth makes you 256 times as heavy and four times as tall.
Improving Body places a strain on any weapons or other gear you use; it will break on a snakeyes result. Reducing Mind reduces the upper limit on daily expenditure of Fortune points while the stance is active. Reducing Reflexes costs you an equal number of shots.
Hamstring
Basic Action or Finisher
Make an opposed Maneuver roll, on a success the target's Move suffers a penalty of -1 until the end of the scene. This can be increased by various factors.
- If the attack scores an Outcome matching the target's Move, the penalty is increased by two.
- If performed as a Finisher, the penalty is increased by two and the effect is a Curse - including any previous Slow results.
The target also loses as many shots as the penalty, with a minimum of three shots lost.
Living Form
Limit Break
You assume the form of another creature decided when you gain the power. You must have created a variant form for yourself using your normal points and limits. If you do not have such a creature description ready, you cannot use this power. This creature cannot have higher value in any particular skill than you do. You can add powers of the same form the creature has and keep schticks and powers you already have, but you cannot otherwise add powers or schticks. This power cannot be used to imitate a specific individual; you remain yourself in mannerisms and detail while changing race, species, and creature type.
You remain in this form for a scene or until you fall asleep or unconscious or will yourself back to your normal form (a Basic Action). You can learn this power several times to learn to transform into several different creatures.
You can assume the form of any living creature using this power. This includes Folk, Animals, Plant Elementals, Fairies, Monsters, Mutants, and Supers.
Melee Life
Anti-Healing
Inherent
You can use your body to do melee attacks that do Mind +2 soaked by Body - or more if you are using an Implement to improve damage. This is Wounding damage which has special rules. Non-living creatures and objects (such as robots and doors) are immune, but Undead always soak this damage using Body alone - no armor or resist powers will work for them.
Fountain of Life
Limit Break
You release a burst of life energy than enlivens allies and shocks enemies. You affect all creatures who are within 2 meters of you. Make a Melee attack against each enemy in the area doing Body +2 Wounding Stun damage soaked by Body. Wounding damage has special rules. Allies in the area (but not you) recover one Hit as long as their Body is not higher than your Melee. Depending on style, this can have side effects like flower petals all over the area.
Life Attack
Basic Action
Make a Normal Melee Attack attack. The difficulty of this attack is always the target's base Dodge score - no defensive modifiers apply.
Shed the Unliving
Basic Action
You make a living body shed any non-living attachments it might have, removing armor, clothes (as far as the genre allows), and other equipment of your choice. Make a Melee attack; on a hit you can make the target drop one significant item or set of armor. The target can choose to keep holding the item by immediately sacrificing three shots. If your Outcome matches the target's Reflexes the item is lost with no chance to retain it, and the target cannot pick it up again for the rest of the scene as his body actually repels it.
Wounding Strike
Inherent
You can make melee attacks that do Body +4 Wounding damage, soaked by Body. Wounding damage has special rules. Non-living creatures and objects (such as robots and doors) are immune, but Undead always soak this damage using Body alone - no armor or resist powers will work for them.
Wounding Touch
Stance (Damage Boost)
You can imbue a Melee or Shoot attack with an additional type of damage. The damage of the attack increases by +2. Against a target that has different soak values against the two types of damage, use the lesser soak value but decrease the damage by 2. Wounding Touch does Wounding damage soaked by Body. Wounding damage has special rules. Non-living creatures and objects (such as robots and doors) are immune to this damage, but Undead always soak this damage using Body alone - no armor or resist powers will work for them.
Recon Life
Detect Life
Basic Action
You can sense the presence of living creatures within ten meters per point of Recon and pinpoint them within Mind meters. Against a creature that is Sneaking this requires an opposed roll, but you do not need line-of-sight in order to spot it. You must make an opposed Recon check to sense a creature that is Sneaking or an object in such a creature's possession.
Life Watch
Basic Action
Use this to monitor the health of another creature. Against an unwilling target, this takes an opposed Melee. The effect lasts for a story. You can maintain no more than Mind life watches at a time; if you would exceed this number your oldest ongoing life watch is cancelled. At any time, you can take a Basic Action to check on the health and condition of those you Lifewatch – you learn details about the target's physical health, and get general indications on changes in his general well-being in other ways, such as if he is cursed, mind-controlled, or otherwise impaired. If a creature under your Lifewatch dies, is reduced to zero hits, or otherwise incapacitated, you are immediately informed of this fact, with no need to spend an action.
Sense Life
Basic Action
Allows you to see the flow of life energy in an area. Life energy exists not only in living creatures; it is what animates plants and even flows trough natural environments and ecosystems. This has the effects of a Scan stunt, and you automatically spot creatures in this area who are not Sneaking, even if they would be impossible to sense with your normal senses. You can also sense and pinpoint places of power and any powers currently in use in the same area, but you cannot identify which power. By using the power again and focusing on a particular creature, you learn it's attribute scores. You can scan an area at a distance, with normal range penalties.
Ride Life
Absorb Pain
Basic Action
You can transfer health problems from a touched creature to yourself. You transfer Hits, Damage Setbacks, or any other type of ailment from the target to yourself. This power can kill you or knock you out; if you absorb more damage than you can survive, the patient is still cured of that damage.
Fetus Theft
Finisher
You transfer a fetus from one carrier to another or between two carriers, who must be within 5 Body of each other. A carrier can either be a female creature, a fertilized egg from a creature of the appropriate size, or a specially prepared container. In this way you can move a fetus from a mother to another, between two expectant females, to, from, or between eggs or even artificial containers.
The transference process itself is instantaneous and does no bodily harm. The fetus will adapt to its new conditions, and can be carried to term normally there (though the mother might be very surprised at what she gives birth to). If the fetus is transferred into a container, it remains alive inside the container, ready to be transferred again or carried to term within the container.
Life Support
Inherent
You are inherently resistant to extremes of environment, surviving conditions such as extreme temperature, pressure, chemical environment, and radiation. You can survive in any environment where life can survive, but you may have to suspend your body functions to survive in truly exotic locales.
Mobility
Stance
Select a living creature you touch; its Move is increased by +2. You need not continue to touch it to maintain the stance.
Transfer Pain
Finisher
You can transfer health problems from a yourself or a creature you touch to a third party. You transfer Hits, Damage Setbacks, or any one other ailment per use of the power. This power can kill the target; if you transfer more damage than the target can survive, any extra damage is not transferred. A creature with a Body 3 less than yours is too frail to absorb one of your damage setbacks, while a creature with Body 5 less than you is too frail to take on any but the most minor conditions.
Shoot Life
Clothing Explosion
Basic Action
You make a living body shed any non-living attachments it might have, removing armor, clothes, and worn items, but not something carried in hand. Make a Shoot attack; on a hit you can make the target drop one significant item or set of armor. The target can choose to keep holding the item by immediately sacrificing three shots. If your Outcome matches the target's Reflexes the item is lost with no chance to retain it, and the target cannot pick it up again for the rest of the scene as his body actually repels it. If you choose to affect the target's clothes (not gear or armor, just clothes), a stripped target who would be humiliated by exposure Grants an advantage.
Sleep Cloud
Limit Break
You can blast everyone in a globe with a diameter equal to your Mind in meters. Damage is Mind +2, or more if you are using an Implement. Make a separate attack roll against each target, including friends and bystanders.
Mass Soporific causes Neurotoxin damage. A target defeated this way falls into a deep sleep and is harmlessly knocked out. A target suffering a damage setback from Soporific, and who is in a situation where he could reasonably fall asleep (guard duty, tending the fire, sedentary work) falls into a light slumber from which he can be woken by loud noises, such as nearby combat or shouting. He can be tied up without waking up as a limit break, an all opponents are assumed to be Sneaking against him while dozing.
Sleep Spores
Inherent
You can make a Ranged Attack - either the basic stunt or using some other stunt, schtick, or power. Damage is Mind +2, or more if you are using an Implement to improve damage. Sleep Spores causes Neurotoxin damage. A target defeated this way falls into a deep sleep and is harmlessly knocked out. A target suffering a damage setback from Soporific, and who is in a situation where he could reasonably fall asleep (guard duty, tending the fire, sedentary work) falls into a light slumber from which he can be woken by loud noises, such as nearby combat or shouting. He can be tied up without waking up as a limit break, an all opponents are assumed to be Sneaking against him while dozing.
Wounding Ray
Inherent
You can make a Ranged Attack - either the basic stunt or using some other stunt, schtick, or power. Damage is Mind +2, or more if you are using an Implement to improve damage.
Wounding Ray does Wounding damage. Non-living creatures and objects (such as robots and doors) are immune.
Wounding Sphere
Limit Break
You can blast everyone in an area with a diameter equal to your Mind in meters, centered on yourself. You never damage yourself with this power. Make a separate attack against each target in the area, including friends and bystanders. Damage is Mind +2, unless you are using a weapon or technique to improve damage.
Wounding Sphere does Wounding damage. Non-living creatures and objects (such as robots and doors) are immune.