Steamfunkateers

by Balogun Ojetade

  Your illusions aren’t projections; they’re hallucinations you make people have. This means your Illusions Cause a Mild, Lasting Mental Condition.

  You spin your illusions together out of shadows. Indoors or at night they’re perfectly serviceable, but your Illusions Dissipate in Daylight.

  Collateral Damage Effects

  Mass Hysteria: You can fill an entire zone with disturbing images: ghuls, rampaging chimpanzees, the worst things you or anyone else can imagine. The illusion remains until you will it away or you leave the zone. Everyone who enters your zone or ends their turn in your zone must surmount an obstacle with Will (at -2d penalty) or gain a mild, sticky mental condition.

  Virtual Possession: By focusing on someone in your zone or an adjacent zone, you can completely control what they see, causing them to confuse friend for foe. You force your target to make one attack against another target of your choice, after which they will snap out of your influence. Unfortunately, in their confusion, your quarry will usually favor an over-the-top attack that leaves a lot of collateral damage.

  Influence

  You are a natural people person—whether people like it or not. You can’t control minds outright, but you can make them malleable.

  Basic Influence: You can use Rapport to attack, which is defended against with Will. If you succeed against a nameless NPC, you may give them a task, which they will then attempt to fulfill. Against a named NPC or a PC, they may follow your order or suffer a mental condition from the attack, their choice. Anyone you give a task to will try their best to accomplish it until they succeed or the scene ends, whichever comes first. The tasks you assign are short-term objectives, such as “Give me that gun,” or “Go home.” Because even the weakest-willed are driven by self-preservation, you cannot force someone to directly harm themselves or put themselves in an inevitably fatal position, such as jumping off a building, but you can force them to take riskier actions than they would like to—”Spit in your boss’ coffee,” or “Tell your husband he is not nearly as attractive to you as your neighbor is.”

  Enhancements

  Master Influence: You are very convincing. Gain +2d to Rapport when using your special ability.

  Overwhelming Voice: You inflict a mild, sticky mental condition on someone using your special ability.

  Convincing: Because people tend to believe what you say, you gain +2d to Deceive when lying to someone.

  Familiar Presence: Your special ability makes you seem vaguely familiar to everyone. As a result, as long as you don’t interact with them directly, sentries, overseers, constables and other official personnel will assume that you have the right to be wherever you are—they won’t question you, or demand identification or manumission papers. If you draw attention to yourself, or are forced to speak to personnel—for instance, because they are guarding a door you are trying to go through—the effect will wear off.

  Common Ability Synergies

  Telepathy: Your special ability already lets you rewire someone’s brain. Might as well pick up some information while you’re there.

  Drawbacks

  Something about always being able to get everything you want has left you a little dead inside. You have No Empathy.

  While you can direct your special ability, you can’t turn it off. You have an incessant aura of likability, so you always wind up Surrounded by Admirers.

  Collateral Damage Effects

  “DIE!”: Normally your orders are limited to things your target might be willing to do, but if you’re mad enough, you can instruct an entire zone to just die. Nameless NPCs are taken out instantly, while named NPCs and PCs must use Will to successfully surmount an impediment at -2d penalty or take a moderate, lasting physical condition as their own body tears itself apart.

  Puppetry: You can attempt to control someone else’s body entirely. They can still take actions in a conflict as normal, but on your turn you may either take an action yourself or have your target take an action. You cannot make someone attack themselves or cause themselves purposeful harm—for instance, by leaping off a rooftop when they can’t fly—but you can have them target their allies and move into disadvantageous positions. Collateral damage tends to stem from the imperfect control you have over their body, or the psychological damage you cause to the both of you.

  Invisibility

  You possess the power to render yourself unseen to the naked eye.

  Basic Invisibility: You can completely fade from view, including your clothes and anything you’re carrying. Cameras and similar devices cannot detect you at all and you gain +2d to Stealth against being seen by living targets.

  Enhancements

  Master Invisibility: You gain an additional +2d bonus to Stealth against being seen.

  Sharable Invisibility: You can render other objects invisible along with you. This includes other people, pieces of furniture, or even walls. You must maintain contact with the invisible object.

  Precise Invisibility: You don’t need to turn invisible all at once; you can make parts of yourself invisible, like your head or arms, or keep objects you’re holding invisible while you can be seen.

  Common Ability Synergies

  Phasing: When you’re invisible, you’re practically a ghost, able to walk through walls.

  Illusion: You are the master of what is seen and unseen.

  Drawbacks

  Your invisibility is not actually visual; your special ability works by effectively writing yourself out of the minds of those around you. Unfortunately, you still have a Completely Visible Reflection.

  Your special ability is a reflection of your personality: you were always a meek, background sort of person, even before you learned to fade from view. You are Easily Forgotten, even by your companions.

  Unfortunately, your invisibility is only skin deep, it Doesn’t Work on Clothes.

  Collateral Damage Effects

  Hyper-Visibility: You can apply your special ability in reverse, turning the world dim and making you the most visible thing around for several minutes. During this time you are extremely noticeable; anyone in your zone or an adjacent zone must surmount a level-2 obstacle with Investigate to see anything other than you.

  Perfect Evasion: If you are in a conflict, you can duck briefly out of sight and turn invisible to evade everyone’s notice. On any subsequent turn of yours, you can appear in any zone. Furthermore, if you attack a target in your zone on the turn you reappear, you gain +4d to that attack. Alternately, you can just leave the conflict. Unfortunately, your sudden disappearance will make your enemies more paranoid, which may encourage them to call in reinforcements.

  Item Summoning

  You always have what you need close at hand.

  Basic Item Summoning: You can create simple items, such as hand tools or weapons, just by willing them into existence. If you want something with no moving parts that you can hold in one hand, roll Will against level-1 opposition (-1d to dice pool); larger or more complex items will increase that opposition. While the item you summon can have multiple parts—for instance, a sack of marbles—you can’t summon aether gadgets, explosives, or items that require precise manufacturing, like firearms.

  You may only summon one item at a time, but you can summon as often as you’d like. You can cause summoned objects to dissipate at will, but they’ll disappear on their own after a few minutes or the end of the scene, whichever comes first.

  Enhancements

  Master Item Summoning: You gain +2d to Will when attempting to summon items.

  All the Things: Why would you summon one object when you can summon a whole bunch? When summoning objects, only increase the opposition by 1 level for each other object you summoned in the scene.

  Complex Summoning: You can summon small functional gadgets, like a spyglass or a pocket watch.

  Common Ability Synergies

  Natural Weapon: You can summon a weapon right into your hands; you don’t even need to think about it.

  Shielding: By
summoning small walls or just piles of junk, you can create impromptu shields.

  Drawbacks

  You aren’t summoning physical objects; you’re actually constructing hard-light holograms. But the light isn’t that hard—your Summons are as Fragile as Glass.

  Your idle thoughts constantly create a stream of things. It disappears eventually, but you still Leave a Trail of Random Stuff.

  Collateral Damage Effects

  Sweet Ride: You can concentrate for a moment to summon forth a cool steam car, steam-powered mono-wheel, or steam-powered velocipede (choose which one upon attaining this ability). It’s destructive when it appears—cracking the ground, belching clouds of thick, black smoke, possibly knocking down walls and scattering people—but once it arrives, you can drive it wherever you need to go.

  Bad Ride: You can concentrate for a moment to summon forth a steam car, in midair, right above someone you don’t like. Gravity does the rest. The car is totaled, and the target must surmount an obstacle at -4d penalty. If the target ties or succeeds, they take a moderate, sticky physical condition that cannot be negated by any armor; if YOU win, they take an additional severe, lasting condition.

  Machine Control

  You have a powerful psychic bond with machines of all sorts. They do what you tell them to. You don’t even need a manual.

  Basic Machine Control: You can control machines up to one zone away without touching them. Most machines won’t resist you at all. You can only make a machine do something it’s capable of; while you couldn’t make a toaster float, for instance, you could make a car drive itself. This includes automatons, but more advanced ones might be able to use Will to resist.

  Enhancements

  Master Machine Control: You gain +2d to Empathy when telling machines what to do.

  Machine Language: You can communicate with machines psychically, although their intelligence is limited by their capabilities. For example, a toaster couldn’t tell you who all has passed through the room, but it could tell you if someone has made toast recently.

  Built-in Telegraph: Your brain is able to pick up signals of all sorts. You have a permanently active connection to telegraph systems, able to pick up on sent and received messages and you can hear radio signals, as well.

  Alarm Bypass: Technology has so great an affinity for you that security measures—from alarm systems to landmines—simply do not go off for you. They will, however, go off for anyone traveling with you.

  Common Ability Synergies

  Forge: Because machines listen to you—and you to them—you can create and repair devices much better than anyone else.

  Drawbacks

  Because you have a bond with machinery, it has a bond with you. In a technologically advanced city, that means The Machines Never Stop Talking!

  Your ability to control machinery is psychic in nature and tied into your emotional state. This can cause Unwanted Feedback.

  You might be able to sense machinery near you, and control it when it’s away from you, but the only way to access a psychic link is by physically touching the machine you want to influence. Your special ability Requires Physical Contact.

  Collateral Damage Effects

  Escape Plan: Wherever you are, whatever the situation, you can summon a vehicle, such as a steam car or helicopter, to take you and your allies to safety. Generally speaking, this vehicle will arrive by crashing through a wall or the ceiling.

  Overload: You can make any aether-powered (or the rare electric battery-powered) device overcharge itself to the point where it violently explodes. This counts as a +4d attack against everyone in the same zone as the exploding device.

  Material Mimic

  You are what you touch.

  Basic Material Mimicry: While in contact with any material—iron, stone, wood, and so on—you can alter your body to mimic that substance, turning into a living statue. To do so, get the upper hand using Physique with a -1d penalty. If you succeed, you gain a descriptor reflecting your new state, such as Body of Steel. You may only have one such descriptor at once, and it goes away if you break contact with the substance you’re mimicking.

  Enhancements

  Master Mimicry: You are skilled at converting your body into esoteric stuff. You gain +2d to Physique when using your special ability.

  Multiple Mimicry: If you concentrate, you can mimic multiple forms of matter at once, becoming, for instance, an iron-and-stone hybrid. You may have two Material Mimicry descriptors at once.

  Mimicry Memory: When you break contact with the substance you’re mimicking, you do not lose your Material Mimicry descriptor. Instead, the descriptor lasts until the end of the scene or until you begin mimicking a new substance.

  Common Ability Synergies

  Superb Toughness: You can be literally made of iron at a moment’s notice; of course you’re hard to hurt.

  Natural Weapon: When you change form, you can sharpen your hands into impressive blades or form them into a mighty war-hammer.

  Invisibility: Your ability to mimic the color and design of materials makes you a natural chameleon.

  Drawbacks

  You can’t turn into just anything you want; your special ability is Limited to Organic Materials.

  You often trigger your special ability without meaning to. You suffer from Involuntary Mimicry.

  Collateral Damage Effects

  Bulking Up: If you mimic something sufficiently massive—like a brick wall or the asphalt in the street—you can actually absorb the material. You become huge, up to eight feet tall, and gain +2d to Physique while you mimic that substance. This transformation lasts a few minutes before the extra mass begins to leech out, and the absorption does a lot of damage to whatever you stole the mass from.

  Untouchably Airy: If an attack would hit you, you can take on a body of air, allowing it to pass right through you. You take no condition and can move up to two zones away before you return to a solid state. The attack, however, still goes somewhere and causes collateral damage.

  Natural Weapon

  You come pre-armed for everyone’s inconvenience.

  Basic Natural Weapon: You have some sort of built-in weaponry, whether it’s claws, a tongue that lashes like a whip, or electricity that surrounds your fists. You gain +2d to Melee while brawling unarmed in close quarters.

  Enhancements

  Master Natural Weapon: Your weapon is deadlier than most. Gain an additional +2d bonus to Melee when unarmed in close combat.

  Critical Hit: You cause a mild, lasting condition using your natural weapon.

  Bloody Weapon: When you attack with your natural weapon and get Four Successes, Five Successes, or more, give the defender the situation descriptor Bleeding, with one free invocation. If they are already Bleeding, add another free invocation to the descriptor.

  Common Ability Synergies

  Energy Blast: Your natural weapon is just the close-up version of an energy blast, encasing your fists (or feet, or lips, or wherever) with energy rather than tossing it at distant foes.

  Superb Agility: Your favorite opening maneuver is leaping at your prey from a distance, claws first.

  Drawbacks

  You don’t know which came first, the retractable claws or the animal sensibilities, but you can’t have one without the other. While you’re armed with a natural weapon, you are also Half-Feral.

  Your weapon isn’t as simple as jutting bone spurs; your natural weapon generates a strange energy that you can’t entirely shut off. It makes you dangerous to foes, but you’re also A Danger to Anyone Nearby.

  Your natural weapon isn’t attached to your hands, but to your elbows, knees or forehead. It’s no less effective, but you’re Only Good Up Close.

  Collateral Damage Effects

  Eviscerate: If you are unconcerned with the damage you cause to the city, let alone the psyches of those around you, you can dive, weapons-first, into action. You can instantly take out a nameless NPC, or cause a moderate, sticky condition to a named NP
C or PC.

  Berserk: Of course someone like the vigilante Street Sparrow, the Honey Badger, with knives jutting from her fists, has a berserk mode. If you fall into an incomprehensible rage, you become an especially deadly combatant, healing one level of condition severity (from Severe to Moderate, Moderate to Mild, or Mild to no condition) and adding +1d to all attacks. Because you are in a berserk rage, though, you can’t stop yourself from causing collateral damage—you attack friend, foe and innocent bystanders. This rage lasts until the end of the scene or you choose to end it.

  Phasing

  Walls are something other people have to deal with. You’ve always found it easier to just walk through them, like a ghost.

  Basic Phasing: You can use Burglary to walk through walls and other physical barriers. A standard interior wooden door is a level-1 obstacle—you pass through it with a -1d penalty, while thicker barriers of sturdier materials provide more opposition.

  Enhancements

  Master Phasing: You gain +2d to Burglary when attempting to move through objects, so moving through a standard interior wooden door (normally a level-1 obstacle) would be done with a +1d bonus (-1 + 2 = 1).

  Tunneling: If you phase through a barrier, you can keep the path you created out of phase for a few moments more, long enough to let your companions through as well.

  Defensive Phasing: If you can see an attack coming, you can try to let it phase right through you. You get +2d to defense checks against attacks that originate from your zone.

  Common Ability Synergies

  Invisibility: When you go out of phase, everything passes through you, even light.

  Material Mimic: When you pass through an object, you retain some of its properties.

  Drawbacks

  Your control over your special ability isn’t as absolute as you’d like. You can keep solid most of the time, but Sometimes Things Drop Right Through Your Hands.

  If you’re out of phase with the world, you’re out of phase with everything, even the air. You Can’t Breathe While Phasing.