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Table of Contents

BASIC RULES 2

ANTICIPATION 6

SOCIAL INFLUENCE 7

COMBAT SYSTEMS 8

HAZARDS 20

CHARACTER CREATION OUTLINE 22

BASELINE TRAITS 25

BODY MODIFICATIONS 54

NOVA TRAITS 71

MEGA-ATTRIBUTES & ENHANCEMENTS 78

QUANTUM POWERS 100

WEAPONS AND ARMOR 149

VEHICLES 167

EQUIPMENT 171

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 176

ALLIES AND ANTAGONISTS 181

CRITTERS AND CONSTRUCTS 183

QUICK REFERENCE 188

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BASIC RULES The systems in this chapter provide a structure by

which matters of chance are resolved in the Aberrant setting. These rules are quite simple, but even then, you shouldn’t feel constrained by them. Be flexible with your adjustments, and be consistent when you make changes.

The Golden Rule

The primary rule of Aberrant is simple: If you don’t like it, change it. The story is more important than any rule. If the systems get in the way, ignore them or change them. These rules are merely guidelines; feel free to use, alter or dis-regard them as you see fit. After all, it’s your story. Note that the Storyteller is the final arbiter of any rules questions.

Actions

Over the course of a game, a character will do many things. Some of these tasks are considered actions, while oth-ers aren’t. Actions are anything that might produce an interest-ing outcome to the direction the story takes. Trying to use Te-lepathy on a Directive agent, hacking Project Utopia’s comput-ers or throwing a car at another nova - these are all examples of actions. One action typically takes one turn to complete.

In most cases, speaking and conversations aren’t considered actions. Although interesting developments may certainly arise from things that novas say, talking is typically free in terms of game mechanics. The Storyteller may rule oth-erwise, such as whether a character manages to scream out the location where the kidnapped victim is being held, before he becomes possessed by a nova with Domination, but for the most part, the game places as few limitations as possible on communication among players and characters.

It’s easy enough to attempt an action — just tell the Storyteller what your character’s trying to do and how she plans to go about it. Most actions — crossing the street or load-ing a pistol, for instance — are easy enough to be considered automatically successful. However, if you’re trying to cross a four-lane highway full of speeding trucks, or trying to reload while you’re hanging from a fire escape by one hand, there’s a chance you might fail. So when there’s reasonable doubt whether an action will succeed or not, you may have to roll dice to determine the results.

If you need only one success to accomplish an action, the action in question is called a simple action. Actions that re-quire more successes or longer periods of time to complete are called extended actions.

Reflexive Actions

In some cases, taking a particular significant action doesn’t actually take any appreciable amount of time. These actions often come as a result of or are triggered by other ac-tions. In game terms, these are called reflexive actions, and performing one may break the normal sequence of play and action resolution. A reflexive action doesn’t require “taking an action” as described above to accomplish. Your character can

perform one whenever the opportunity arises, and may also take his normal action, without any penalty. For instance, spending quantum points to max a power is con-sidered to take less than a second of game time — no dice are rolled, and your character can do this while doing something else. Soaking — withstanding the damage from an attack — is likewise a reflexive action. In most cases, the only prerequisite for performing a reflexive action is that the character be conscious (or otherwise capable of choosing to take the action, in the case of dream sequences or other deviations from consciousness that still allow choice) in order to choose to do so. Unless otherwise specified, a character may perform any number of reflexive actions, and they don’t get in the way of anything else she may want to do in a turn.

Extra Actions

Certain options, such as the Quickness Enhancement, can give characters extra actions. Extra actions do not suffer from multiple action penalties. On the other hand, an extra ac-tion cannot be split into multiple actions. Extra actions still count against the character’s action limit for the round. If a character’s actions on an extra action are invali-dated, the character may choose to change the action as nor-mal, or abort taking an extra action altogether, refunding any costs paid for the extra action.

Ratings

Although your character’s personality is limited only by your imagination, his capabilities are defined by his Traits — all of his innate and learned aptitudes and abilities. Each Trait is described by a “dot” rating of 1 to 5 (usually); a 1 in a Trait is barely competent, while a 5 is the pinnacle of human achieve-ment. Most people’s Traits range from 1 to 3; a 4 in a Trait in-dicates an exceptional person, while a 5 is nearly incomparable — among humans, at any rate. Think of this as similar to the “star” rating system of movie reviews and restaurants — a 1 is barely passable while a 5 is superb. It’s also possible to have a zero in a Trait, which usually represents a skill that the charac-ter never learned, but some exceptions (such as certain horrific nova aberrations) do occur.

x Abysmal • Poor •• Average ••• Good •••• Exceptional ••••• Superb

Dice Pools

When your character takes a dice action, you roll one ten-sided die for each dot you have in the Traits most suited to that task. The Storyteller decides which Traits are appropriate by choosing the Attribute and Ability that best cover the action being attempted. Adding them up creates a “dice pool” of ten-sided dice, which is then rolled to resolve the action. Novas’

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quantum powers have their own dice pools and behave in the same fashion.

Most dice pools will be a combination of Attribute + Ability, but there are some exceptions. In the case of attributes with temporary and permanent scores (such as Willpower), you always use the permanent score.

Reducing Large Dice Pools

Vehicle weapons and armor can achieve extremely high dice pool numbers, with munitions such as tactical nuclear weapons often requiring 90-100 dice to resolve. Similarly, no-vas may end up with massive dice pools, requiring 20 or 30 dice to resolve. In this case, one may convert a portion of that pool into automatic successes. Every 10 dice in a pool be-comes 4 successes (0.4 chance of success). With a relevant quality or dealing with heavy weapons that automatically reroll 10s, every 20 dice in a pool becomes 9 successes (0.4444... ~= 0.45 chance of success per die). Convert a dice pool into automatic successes until 10 dice or less are left, then roll the remainder. .If there are more than 10 but less than 20 dice re-maining, and the character may reroll 10s, convert 10 dice into 5 automatic successes and then roll the remainder. If a charac-ter counts 10s as 2 successes, add 1 additional success per 10 dice converted.

Bonus Dice

A character may gain bonus dice from various sources, such as Mega-Attribute Enhancements or Augmenta-tions. A character may also be able to get circumstantial or equipment bonuses from various sources. For example, a per-fectly tailored dress by a famous fashion designer may add bo-nus dice to Style, a master-crafted set of tools may add bonus-es to Engineering or Art rolls, and so on. These bonus-es generally should not exceed more than +3d or 1 automatic success.

Bonus dice from Enhancements or body modification Augmentations are even more powerful than equipment bene-fits, but are also limited by the character’s ‘natural’ stats. A character is limited to a maximum of (Attribute + 2) bonus dice from Enhancements and Augmentations. Heavy augmentation can make the incompetent competent and the masters super-human, but cannot take an incompetent and elevate him to su-perhuman ability.

Multiple Actions

Your character can also perform multiple actions in a turn. The total number of actions the character takes deter-mines how many dice are subtracted from the first task at-tempted in that turn. Each action after the first loses an addi-tional (cumulative) die beyond that amount. So if your charac-ter tries to perform three actions in a turn, you subtract three dice from the first task’s dice pool, four from the second and five from the third. If the total actions bring your dice pool for any one task to zero, that action cannot be attempted.

Because Mega-Attributes are automatic successes, they are not factored into the number of actions a nova can take. They are only factored into the result of successful ac-tions.

Action Limits

A character may not take more than (Dexterity + Wits) total non-reflexive actions in a round. A character may take any reasonable number of reflexive actions.

Extra Actions

Some powers, such as Temporal Manipulation, some Augmentations, and some Enhancements, such as Quickness, allow a character to take extra actions. These actions are like having additional turns in combat, with a few exceptions. First off, extra actions cannot be further split into multiple actions. Second off, extra actions are not penalized by any multiple ac-tions the character takes. If a character takes 3 actions and a quickness action, the first 3 actions are penalized -3/-4/-5, but the quickness action has no multiple action penalty.

As extra actions act as additional turns, the character may normally move further during extra actions, effectively

multiplying their total movement in one combat round by the number of extra actions taken, plus 1. At the ST’s discretion, augmentations and some enhancements may not allow a character to increase their total move distance past their sprint-ing distance, as they only increase the character’s ability to plan out actions and act, rather than actually making them faster.

Difficulty

When you roll your dice pool, you want each die to match or exceed the target number. Unless specifically indi-cated otherwise, the target number is always 7. So each die that comes up a 7, 8, 9 or 0 (10) is considered a success – a favorable resolution. Conversely, if all the dice you roll come up less than 7, your action fails.

All you have to know when you roll is the number of successes you need; if you get at least the minimum quantity, you achieve your goal. The standard number of successes necessary for any task is always one (unless the Storyteller says otherwise). Extra successes beyond the minimum can sometimes generate additional effects (at the very least, extra successes mean your character accomplishes the action in a superior and notable fashion). Net Successes Degree of Success One Standard Two Superior Three Remarkable Four Astonishing Five Phenomenal

Exceptional Difficulty

Most everyday tasks are successful when the charac-ter gets just one success. However, some tasks, like perform-ing a trick shot or disabling an encrypted lock, can be more challenging. The Storyteller makes that distinction when ap-propriate, designating a certain number of successes that you need to roll for your character to complete the task. The difficul-ty to a roll is always listed as a number of additional successes needed beyond the standard one. So a “difficulty penalty of two” (or “+2 to difficulty”) means you must get a total of three suc-cesses. The harder the action being attempted, the more suc-cesses are required. Any extra successes you get beyond the

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difficulty indicate that your character does an even more out-standing job than required.

Each +1 difficulty roughly increases the dice needed to have an identical chance of success by 3. Difficulties around +0 or +1 are not terribly difficult for trained professionals (pools of 4-6), but +1 difficulties will generally stop neophytes from succeeding with reliability. Difficulties around +2 require elite members of the occupation to accomplish, with pools from around 7-8. At difficulty +3, a character requires 9 dice to have an even chance of success, which is commonly achieved by having an Attribute at 4, an Ability at 4, and a relevant specialty.

Difficulty +4 means a person with 10 in a dice pool can accomplish the task successfully roughly 40% of the time. At difficulty +5, someone who is at the apex of human potential in the roll (attribute 5, ability 5, a valid specialty) will succeed less than 40% of the time. Difficulties past this tend to be re-served for tasks which are nearly impossible for humans to achieve (lifting 1 ton, staying up for 100 hours without sleep, reading the entirety of War and Peace in 30 minutes) and suc-cess in these endeavors is the purview of transhumans and posthumans (such as novas).

Failure

If you score no successes on a roll, your character fails his attempted action: He misses his punch. The file is en-crypted too well. His face is caught by a security drone. Failure, while usually disappointing, is not so catastrophic as a botch (below).

Storytellers, bear in mind that failure is simply that: failure. All it means is that the attempt didn’t produce the de-sired result. Judge the narrative accordingly, but a failure prob-ably doesn’t in itself result in any harm to the character unless the circumstances would dictate such. A failed attempt to jump the gap between two buildings probably doesn’t result in a breakneck plummet, but perhaps the character lands clumsily on a fire escape below the intended rooftop, or maybe she knocks the wind out of herself and is desperately hanging onto the ledge.

Botches

A character botches a roll if it fails with a margin of failure higher than the character's Ability or Quantum Power rating in that roll + 1 and the character rolls at least one '1'. Count each '1' rolled as +1 to the margin of failure. Therefore, if a character has an ability rating of 1, he botches with an ad-justed MoF of 2 or greater, while a character with an ability rat-ing of 5 will only botch rolls if his adjusted MoF is 6 or higher.

Some rolls may not have an ability or Quantum power governing them. In that case, a character botches if he rolls no successes and at least one 1.

The Margin of Failure (MoF) is the number of addi-tional successes needed for a failed roll to succeed. If a char-acter rolls no successes on a difficulty +0 roll, the MoF is 1. If a character rolls 3 successes on a difficulty +4 roll, the MoF is 2.

The specific circumstances of a botch are up to the Storyteller, but they should affect the character adversely and relate to the action being attempted.

Retries

If a character fails in a non-combat action (but does not botch), the character may often try again, time permitting.

As all the obvious and easy methods to success have already been tried and didn’t work, retrying a failed roll is somewhat more difficult, adding +1 to the roll’s difficulty.

The only limit on the number of retries is that a char-acter may not retry a botched roll, and each roll takes time. Otherwise, a character may try again and again until she botches or succeeds.

Automatic Suc-

cesses

In addition to rolling Traits, characters may some-times add automatic successes to their pool’s result. The au-tomatic successes only count if the character rolls at least one success from their dice pool; until that point, the automatic successes do not count for any game purposes. These auto-

matic successes often come from quantum powers, but may also come from other sources, such as Willpower. They usually represent a nova’s inherent ability to do things better than baselines; when they succeed, they succeed big. Automatic successes are noted with [brackets]; dice are either in (parentheses) or have no notation.

Complications

The preceding rules should be enough to get you go-ing, and for chronicles that favor storytelling over dice-rolling, they might be all you ever need. However, they don’t neces-sarily cover all instances — for example, what if you’re trying to do something while a Storyteller character is actively trying to stop you? What if a fellow nova tries to help you hack Project Utopia’s computers? The various ways to complicate matters below are intended to bring extra color to games.

Extended Actions

Some tasks require multiple successes to complete. These extended actions often take more than one turn to com-plete. The additional successes are cumulative, reflecting that sustained effort is needed to accomplish the action. You can keep trying to obtain successes until you gather the required amount or until you botch. If you botch during an extended ac-tion, the Storyteller may decide that you lose a “saved” success for each botch, or that you lose them all and must start again from scratch – or even that you messed up so badly that you can’t try again.

Extended actions are more complicated than stand-ard actions, and they should seldom be employed in the middle of intense roleplaying. The action in the game should reflect what types of rolls are needed, not the other way around.

Resisted Actions

Sometimes your character’s efforts oppose another’s, just like in a tug of war. During resisted actions, opposing play-ers roll using the appropriate Traits. If you score more suc-cesses than your opponent does, your character succeeds at her action before the other character does. Your total success-es are then reduced by the amount that your opponent rolled;

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the successes remaining then apply to the action itself. In this way, even if your opponent can’t beat you, she can diminish your efforts. Some actions are both extended and resisted. One opponent must collect a certain number of successes in order to win. All successes rolled above the opponent’s total number of successes in a single turn are added together. The first op-ponent to collect a designated number of successes wins the contest.

Teamwork

Characters can combine successes, generally during an extended action. At the Storyteller’s discretion, two or more players can roll separately and total their successes. While teamwork is effective in repairing devices, collecting infor-mation or combat, the tag-team approach can be confusing in social situations.

Time

Time is a fundamental element of Aberrant. There are four distinct ways to describe divisions of time within the game, progressing from the smallest to the largest unit.

Turn - The smallest unit of time in the game, considered long enough to take one action. A turn is defined as 2-5 sec-onds in most combat situations, although turns taking 1 minute or more may happen in some other situations.

Scene - One compact period of action and roleplaying that takes place in a single location. A scene is comparable to a scene in a movie. It takes as few or as many turns to resolve events as are necessary.

Episode - One independent part of a series, often played in one game session and made up of scenes connected by downtime.

Series - A complete tale, with an introduction, buildup and climax, that often takes several episodes to com-plete. Your series is the continuing narrative that your cast cre-ates. Also called the story.

Besides these four active time divisions, Aberrant stories sometimes include:

Downtime - Time between scenes or episodes that characters may spend resting, recuperating or possibly learn-ing new talents. Any time that characters are not actively par-ticipating in a story is considered downtime.

Distance

In Aberrant, distance is often important. Can a char-acter get to an event in time? How long does a character have to spend in transit while carrying a ticking time bomb? How far away is the plot-critical McGuffin?

In combat or dramatic scenes such as chases, dis-tance is more abstract and measured in successes on Dexteri-ty + Athletics rolls. Out of combat, distance is generally meas-ured in meters or kilometers. An Aberrant character normally can walk at (4 + Dexterity) kilometers an hour and run at (10 + [Dexterity x 2]) kilometers an hour.

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ANTICIPATION Oftentimes in Aberrant people will play characters

smarter than they are. Due to this, a player may not consider an element in the story or predict a turn of events which the character, by all rights, should have been able to predict and prepare for. This section covers how a Mega-Intelligent (or in certain cases, Mega-Witty or Mega-Perceptive) nova may be able to alter a situation to their advantage.

Requirements

To be capable of using Anticipation, the character must either have a relevant Mega-Mental attribute or be ex-tremely skilled at forward planning (they have a relevant Attrib-ute + Ability dice pool above 8). Being able to predict a situa-tion isn't just about raw intellect, after all. Someone superhu-manly perceptive can twig onto extremely minor changes in tone or disposition which might betray future plans, while someone with superhuman thinking speed and poise can run through a half-dozen scenarios with their merely human intel-lect. Characters without any Mega-Mental attributes must pay 1 WP to use Anticipation.

At the ST's discretion, having any mental ability at a low level may prevent the use of Anticipation without spending WP, or forbid it entirely. Planning is not all about perception, or thinking quickly, or thinking well. It requires all three elements. A character may use Anticipation a number of times per scene equal to (1 + Highest Mega-Mental Attribute).

Systems

During a situation where the player thinks their char-acter could have anticipated, the character may roll an Ability which makes sense. Examples would be Rapport to plan for a social encounter or predict the actions of a hated nemesis, Tactics or Intrusion to have a safehouse already set up when you're on the run, Computer to have infiltrated a virus into the security system ten minutes ago when you were at that unat-tended terminal, so on and so forth. Successes on that roll translate to points which can be used to access effects. These effects must make some degree of sense. Effects include bonus dice, inflicting penalties, having equipment accessible, so on and so forth. The opponent may attempt to counter as per the rules, either canceling out antici-

pation successes, or using his own anticipation successes to alter your desired outcome. Example Effects

1 success: Having a small item on hand ("I thought we might run into guys with guns, so I happened to be wearing a bulletproof vest")

1 success: +/- 1d on any one dice roll (yours or the opponents), cannot add more than +/-3 to any one roll ("I could see that he favored his right eye. If I made a run for it when he was only looking at me with his left, I'd have a better chance.")

1 success: Define a minor element of the scene ("There happens to be an abandoned building a block away which is pretty empty, we could hide there.")

2 successes: Having a larger item on hand ("I thought we might face that guy. Fortunately I have a RPG over here somewhere.")

2 successes: 1 temporary background dot (Allies, Followers, Resources/etc) for the scene

2 successes: reroll any one failed or botched roll for the scene.

3 successes: Define a major scene element ("You just happened to have stepped into a minefield." "I shut down the security five minutes ago.")

3 successes: Change an already taken action ("Okay, I read about the minefield and so I don't step into it, but hose the ground down with high-explosive 30mm shells in-stead.") Complications

Complications are added per effect, not as a total of all the changes one wants. An ST is in their rights to add additional difficulty if the sum total of the anticipation results is exceeding-ly unlikely, unbelievable, or just plain dumb.

+1-4: Desired effects are extremely unlikely ("You want me to believe that you, a law-abiding citizen, happen to have stashed a RPG and a half-dozen reloads in your car's trunk?")

+2: Repeating the same effect again and again. Don't be boring!

+2: Desired effect does not mesh with setting ("You're in an affluent neighborhood. An abandoned building nearby? Really?")

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SOCIAL INFLUENCE Making a character do what you want is simple, in

practice. Any logical combination of Attribute and Ability can be used to attempt to create Sway, which the subject may resist via straight Willpower and bonuses from Wits/Enhancements, or a related Attribute + Ability combination if so desired. Un-successful attempts to generate Sway create a cumulative +2 difficulty penalty for rolling the same attribute/ability combina-tion during the scene, and a cumulative +1 difficulty penalty for any other attempts to create Sway. Botching extends the pen-alty duration for the rest of the story, or permanently if the character was attempting to create Intimate Sway. By default, this roll is over the timeframe of one day, which co-vers several hours' worth of schmoozing someone. Reducing the time taken for this roll increases the difficulty, as shown be-low. Note that certain very trivial requests may reduce the diffi-culty and/or timeframe (asking someone to lend you a dollar or get you a drink are probably going to be closer to the 1 minute timeframe).: If Time Reduced To… Difficulty Increases By… Half-Day 1 3 hours 2 1 hour 3 Half-hour 4 10 minutes 5 5 minutes 6 1 minute 8

Each net success over the opponent's defense and the difficulty creates one point of Sway of the given type (Cas-ual or Intimate) which can be used to make the target take a desired action. The first action costs 1 point of Sway and each action past that costs 1 additional point (so the second costs 2, the third costs 3, etc.), so if you wanted for someone to "stop chatting, tell your friend to go home, and go help me with this project", that would cost 6 points of Sway, one for getting your lab partner to stop chatting, another to make him ask his friend to leave, and a third to help you with your stuff. The opponent may resist with Willpower, paying 1WP to cancel out 1 action. If canceled with WP, any attempt to demand a similar condition automatically fails for the rest of the scene. Extending the influence of any single action for a scene costs 1 additional point, extending them for a session costs 3, and ex-tending them for an entire story costs 5. Extending your influ-ence longer, to years or even permanently, can easily cost far more successes than that and is the result of weeks or months of constant influence.

Casual

Casual sway has no significant emotional component and is generally short lived. It is most useful for forming the ba-sis of a personal relationship, creating vague positive or nega-tive feelings, or getting minor favors done which might cause some trouble for the other character, but is not capable of do-ing anything more than that. Getting your captor to hand you his gun is not something casual sway can do, but it might let you stall him for long enough to build a rapport. Casual Sway cannot be extended past a scene, and fades at 1 point/day.

It requires (Willpower x2) successes worth of Casual Sway to start creating Intimate Sway. For most normal people,

that requires days of work, but a particularly capable Nova may be able to become your best friend in a handful of minutes.

Intimate

Intimate sway has an emotional component, and at-tempting to build it also renders you vulnerable to similar at-tempts, for it requires you to stay in close contact with that per-son, allowing them to build Sway over you as well. Intimate sway can allow you to make a target act against his morals or ideology, take actions which might cause them serious trouble, have them abandon long-held beliefs or change the target's opinion on an important issue, or even temporarily change the character's Demeanor. The few things it cannot do are change the character's Nature, make them take actions that directly lead to self-harm (such as jumping off a bridge or in front of a bus) unless they're already inclined towards that, or perma-nently change their personality.

Bonuses and Penalties

There are social "weapons" that can be used to give bonuses to Sway attempts, such as Influence, Backing, Fame, high appearance, having a loaded gun to the victim's head, threatening his children, so on and so forth. These bonuses tend to increase the dice pool of the person attempting to Sway others by their dot rating, or may alternatively increase the dif-ficulty of resistance by the same amount if they would be par-ticularly powerful in that situation. On the flipside, social "ar-mor" exists that protects against Sway. Having a ideological or ethical objection to the task requested (+1-5 difficulty), negoti-ating from a position of strength (+1-5 difficulty), being request-ed to perform an action which could be dangerous to life or so-cial standing (+1-5 difficulty) are all examples of potential "so-cial armor".

Similarly, if you're the one staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, difficulty penalties can often be insane. A Mega-Charismatic Nova with no non-social powers staring down the barrel of a shotgun (+3 difficulty to Sway) against fanatics who absolutely loathe the Nova and what he stands for (+5 difficulty to Sway) might still be able to talk his way out of the situation if he's good enough and has enough time... but if he's about to be executed in a minute (+8 difficulty) that's a total of +16 diffi-culty and the opposition can roll to resist beyond that and will almost certainly pay Willpower to resist your condition of "don't shoot me".

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COMBAT SYSTEMS Combat in Aberrant attempts to capture the larger-

than-life feats common to nova-level conflict without downplay-ing the grim reality of injury and death. What results is a sys-tem true to the dynamics, limitations and viciousness of real combat - particularly combat involving superheated plasma blasts and building-rattling punches - that leaves room for the spectacular elements that novas bring to it.

The Storyteller should be flexible when arbitrating combat situations; no rules can fully reflect the variety of situa-tions encountered in warfare. If any part of these systems slows the game or causes bickering, don’t use it. Combat sys-tems are meant to add depth to the game, not create out-of-game conflict.

Combat Areas

Fights rarely take place inside white rooms with no features whatsoever. A combat area should be defined with major features, important locations, and likely ranges. The game mechanics effects of a combat area are listed below.

Multiple Locations

An area does not have to be a single location. Fights can take place in multiple locations (for example: A gunfight that starts in an office building and spills out onto the streets in-to a wild car chase). Each of these locations can be defined as a set of ranges, cover, and complications. As a fight goes on, the locations relevant to the fight can expand and contract as necessary.

Range

Possibly the most important thing that a combat envi-ronment does is restrict possible ranges. Tanks in an open field can easily murder infantry as they seek to accumulate the doz-ens of successes needed to get into weapons range. However, in an urban environment where ranges are short, the tables are turned. See below for the maximum range at which combatants can engage and examples of such environments.

Maximum Range Examples

Melee Very small room, closet, bathroom

Thrown Average sized room, house

Handgun Large office building

Rifle-Support City, highway

Heavy Suburbs

Artillery-Theater Open plains

Orbital-Extreme Outer space

Cover

The second most important feature of a combat envi-ronment is cover. Cover is an important defense against ranged attacks, adding to the difficulty of ranged attacks made against the character. Examples of what environments provide what level of maximum cover are below. The rating given is the maximum difficulty increase the cover can provide. Utilizing cover is part of the movement rules (see Combat Movement).

Maximum Cover Examples

+0 Outer space, midair battle, undersea

+1 Open fields, grasslands

+2 Broken terrain, tall grass, swampland

+3 Destroyed city/village, rubble

+4 City, jungle, the inside of most buildings

Cover and Size

Very large and very small things interact with cover differently. Obviously, small things have a much easier time finding cover, while very large things have a much harder time finding cover. Many fights will take place in an environment with one or two types of combatants (humans and vehicles). Rarely, three types of combatants (humans, aircraft, and ground vehicles) will show up. In such a fight, it is important to define the kind of cover each combatant may use. For example, vehicles may only be able to take cover up to +1 difficulty in a destroyed city, but humans up to +3, while aircraft may not take cover (maximum +0 cover).

Complications and Benefits

Furthermore, terrain may also give special complica-tions or benefits to combatants. This represents, for example, rough terrain making it difficult to move, a lack of roads ham-pering wheeled vehicles, ubiquitous cover making it easy to take cover, darkness or smoke making it hard to see, and so on. Examples of these complications and their mechanical ef-fects are given below. STs are encouraged to make their own complications if none of the stock ones suffice.

Darkness: Poor lighting conditions (nighttime) can add +1 difficulty to movement rolls, Awareness rolls based on sight, and attack difficulties. Darkness (a moonless night) adds +2 difficulty to movement, sight-based Awareness, and attacks in-stead. Total darkness, rendering people completely blind, adds +4 difficulty to the aforementioned rolls. This may be mitigated by night vision systems.

Difficult Terrain: Difficult terrain adds penalties to movement rolls and prevents fast movement. Difficult terrain may add anywhere from +1 (rough ground) to +4 (swampland or quicksand) difficulty to movement rolls and multiply the number of successes needed to change range brackets or get to cover by anywhere from x1 (rough ground) to x4 (swamp-land, quicksand, similar extremely difficult environments).

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Environmental Hazards: Environments may be haz-ardous to the health of a character. See the “Hazards” section for potential environmental hazards.

Obstacles: Obstacles can limit movement in a direction. For example, a sniper might set up in an elevated tower, which makes it much harder (+2 difficulty, doubled successes need-ed) for non-flying characters to reach him. Or an area may be fenced off with barbed wire, requiring the character to crawl under it (2 total successes on crawling movement needed) or take 10L damage.

Smoke/Fog/Mist: Thick smoke or fog may block vision as Darkness with identical gameplay effects. Furthermore, de-pending on the type of smoke they may have additional harm-ful effects (see Toxins). Some forms of sensor, such as radar, may be able to see through concealing smoke.

Underwater: Being in shallow water (such as a swim-ming pool or river) limits vision like nighttime. Being deep un-derwater renders all characters blind. Neither nightvision equipment nor radar (or other electromagnetic senses) may mitigate this loss of vision. However, characters may still use sonar normally.

Walls and Doors: Walls and doors limit movement and lines of sight, limiting combat range for all participants and providing cover. Characters who are sufficiently strong or equipped with demolitions charges and similar equipment may take an action to breach a wall or door, allowing them to ignore movement penalties from such obstacles.

Combat Turns

In combat, many things happen at virtually the same time. Since this fact can make things a bit sticky in a game, combat is divided into a series of intervals called turns. Turns generally take about 2 to 5 seconds. Each combat turn has three stages - Initiative, Attack and Resolution - to make keep-ing track of things easier.

Stage One: Initiative

This stage organizes the turn, and it is the point at which you declare your character’s action. Various actions are possible - anything from leaping behind a wall to shouting a warning. You must declare what your character does, in as much detail as the Storyteller requires.

To determine a character’s Initiative for the turn, roll (Dexterity + Wits).The character with the lowest number of successes must declare his action first, with the remaining characters declaring their actions for the turn in increasing or-der. If two characters get the same total, the one with the lower dice pool declares first. If lnitiative ratings are also the same, roll again until the tie is resolved. (Note that novas with certain Enhancements may transcend the normal Initiative order.) At this time, you must also state if any multiple actions will be per-formed, or if Willpower points will be spent. You wait until the attack stage to implement your action.

Characters act in order according to their initiative-the character with the highest Initiative acts first, then the character with the second-highest Initiative, and so on until all characters have acted.

There is only one normal exception to this rule. If your character delays her action, her maneuvers happen when she finally takes action. Your character may act at any time after her designated order in the Initiative, even to interrupt another, “slower” character’s action. If two characters both delay their

actions, and both finally act at the same time, the one with the higher Initiative score for the turn acts first. Note that some En-hancements, powers, or other abilities may work outside of the normal Initiative order.

Stage Two: Attack

Attacks are the meat of the combat turn. An action’s success or failure and potential impact on the target are deter-mined at this stage. You use a certain Ability depending on the type of combat in which your character is engaged:

Close Combat: Use Brawl or Melee.

Ranged Combat: Use Athletics, Firearms, Gunnery, or the quantum power skill total.

Remember, if your character doesn’t have points in the necessary Ability, simply default to the Attribute on which it’s based (Strength for Brawl or Melee; Dexterity for Athletics, Firearms or Heavy Weapons; Perception for Gunnery).

Certain factors can adjust your attack’s accuracy (due to rate of fire or a targeting scope, for example); check the combat maneuver, weapon’s vital statistics or power descrip-tion for details. Attacks are usually standard actions, but a diffi-culty may apply depending on the circumstances of the attack. If you get no successes, the character fails her attack and in-flicts no damage. If you botch, not only does the attack fail, but something nasty happens; the weapon jams or explodes, you hit an ally or your power backlashes into your body.

It is at this stage that quantum points are usually spent (as this is when powers usually activate).

Stage Three: Resolution

You roll damage in this stage. Soak is subtracted from raw damage, then damage is rolled and applied to the un-fortunate victim. In combat, every success above the minimum needed to hit an opponent adds 1 or more (for weapons with Overwhelming) damage die to the damage roll. Normally, only 5 additional successes may be applied to additional damage in this fashion, as there are limits to how precisely you can aim at weak points and how weak those weak points are. Area at-tacks may not add attack successes to damage, as there is lit-tle opportunity for finesse when delivering such an attack.

Defenses

All characters in combat will generally attempt to pro-tect themselves from harm. These defenses come in various forms, which are listed below.

Soak

All characters can resist a certain degree of physical punishment; doing so is called “soaking” damage. Soak comes in three types:

Natural soak: Natural soak comes from Quantum, Stamina, Mega-Stamina, and certain body modifications. They represent a person’s inherent ability to withstand harm.

Stun/Bashing Soak: Stamina + (Mega-Stamina * 2) + Quantum

Lethal Soak: Stamina/2 + Mega-Stamina + Quan-tum

Aggravated Soak: Quantum/2 Power-Based soak: Power-Based soak is gained

from quantum powers.

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Armored soak: Armored soak comes from body ar-mor or eufiber, and some other body modifications.

Any character may only gain the full defensive value of one source of each soak type (normally the highest soak value). The second source of said soak is halved, the third source has its value divided by 4, and so on, to a minimum of +0L/0B from stacking. Round soak values down.

Example: A Nova with Eufiber 2 (+4B/4L soak), Ad-vanced Body Armor (+10B/9L soak), and a Hyperdense Skele-ton (+2B/1L soak) calculates his armored soak by taking the full value of his Advanced Body Armor (10B/9L), then halving the value of his Eufiber (4B/4L halves to 2B/2L), and then quar-tering the value of his body modification soak (for a final value of 0B/0L), giving him a total of 12B/11L soak from armor, rather than 16B/14L.

Round down all fractional soak.

Armor Piercing Attacks and

Soak

Certain weapons and several powers have an Armor Piercing rating, which represents their ability to pierce protec-tion such as armor plate. Each point of Armor Piercing reduces the target's non-natural soak by 1, down to a minimum of 0. The target's natural soak is not affected by armor piercing.

Other Defenses

Ablative defenses: Ablative defenses give external health levels, providing a pool of damage reduction that gradu-ally is used up. A character may only have one ablative de-fense ‘active’ in a turn. If a character has multiple powers, body modifications, or pieces of equipment that provide ablative de-fenses, only one is considered ‘active’ and allowed to absorb damage. All others are considered to be on ‘standby’, meaning that they can recharge themselves but will not absorb attacks. If a character has multiple ablative defenses, he may choose which one is absorbing damage and which ones are inactive as a reflexive action at the start of each turn.

Stacking Other Defenses: Defensive powers or benefits that do not provide soak or ablative defense, do not stack unless they are explicitly stated to. Simply use the most effective defensive power against the specific attack.

Damage

If a character or vehicle’s defenses fail, then the character takes damage. Damage can come in many types and, like any other roll may have automatic successes. Fur-thermore, there are some special rules related to dealing dam-age against large objects and damage which is fully resisted by soak.

Pulling Your Punches

Characters don’t have to hit at full force. A nova may subtract any amount she wishes from damage dice and/or au-tomatic successes when declaring her attack. With quantum powers, if this reduction takes the nova’s damage effect below half of its normal value, the nova pays only half the normal quantum point cost of the effect (round up).

Damage Types

There are four types of damage that apply to hu-mans: Stun, Bashing, Lethal, and Aggravated. EMP damage is a special case that applies only to vehicles.

Stun: Stun damage is momentary impairment that has negligible long-term effect, examples including the damage from tasers, the disorienting effect of flashbangs, and other such attacks. Stun damage may be painful or incapacitating but heals in relative moments.

Bashing: Bashing damage is a catch-all for any form of damage which is relatively superficial and unlikely to be instantly fatal. Blunt trauma blows are often Bashing damage, and so is superficial fire and most forms of electrical shock. Soft radiation, with low penetration, is also Bashing damage as it liberates most of its energy into surface tissues.

Lethal: Lethal damage is any penetrating damage, which can hit vital organs directly by piercing or ignoring the protective structures around them. If a character's health levels are fully filled with Lethal damage, they are dying and will likely expire if not quickly given medical aid.

Aggravated: Aggravated damage is a catch-all cat-egory which represents damage from attacks that are either absolutely overwhelming, such as the fireball of a nuclear war-head, or extremely difficult to heal, such as some chemical burns. In general, Aggravated damage is hard to soak and even harder to repair. Certain chemical weapons and chemical fires inflict Aggravated damage from a combination of poison and burning that is nigh-impossible to repair (although they tend to be soaked as Lethal damage). Hard radiation's genetic damage is also generally Aggravated, and loss of body mass is the most common method of dealing Aggravated damage.

EMP: Some attacks deal EMP damage. EMP dam-age, signified by an E for the damage tag, e.g. "10E" for 10d of EMP damage, represents the electronics-damaging ability of EMP grenades, HERF weapons, and the EMP technique of Magnetic Mastery. These attacks are not soaked by armor, alt-hough EMP hardened vehicles and computers may soak this damage. Generally only military vehicles and important infra-structure are hardened, and soak EMP damage with half of their normal soak. Each level of EMP damage rolled deals 1 Lethal level of damage to a machine. If a civilian vehicle, ro-bot, or electronic device takes more levels of EMP damage than its Size, it shuts down for 1 turn, while a military vehicle, robot, or electronic device requires [Size + 5] levels of EMP damage to be shut down. EMP damage does not affect hu-mans. Damage effects cannot botch; a botched roll simply means the attack glances harmlessly off the target.

Automatic Damage Levels

Certain weapons and most offensive powers have automatic successes (damage levels) on their damage rolls. However, unlike automatic successes on other rolls, automatic successes on damage rolls are not fully applied with even 1 success. Instead, a character applies 1 automatic damage lev-el per rolled success up to the maximum number of automatic damage levels. Attacks with higher numbers of automatic damage levels may apply more of those per rolled success, see below:

Damage Lev-els

Damage Applied (up to total automatic damage levels)

0 No extra damage per rolled success

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[1]-[9] 1 extra level per success

[10]-[19] 2 extra levels per success

[20]-[29] 3 extra levels per success

[30]-[39] 4 extra levels per success

[40] or more 5 extra levels per success

Therefore a weapon that deals 20L [10] will apply 2 extra damage levels per success rolled on damage, up to [10] extra damage levels (at 5 rolled successes). Past that point, each additional success on the damage roll deals 1 health level of damage, as with any other attack. A weapon that deals 40L [40] would apply 5 extra damage levels per success rolled, up to [40] extra levels (at 8 rolled successes), then behave nor-mally after that.

Ping Damage

If an attack fails to deal more damage than a target's soak, the attack rolls a single die of damage instead, "ping damage", representing the chance for a 'golden BB' or other form of lucky hit that causes some injury. However, ping dam-age is not of the same type of damage as the attack, but is downgraded one level of severity (Aggravated -> Lethal -> Bashing -> Stun). Stun damage, if fully soaked, deals no ping damage. Unconventional damage types such as EMP damage deal no damage if fully soaked.

Note that a weapon with damage reduced to 0 or less by soak does not apply automatic successes even if it deals ping damage.

Size

Objects have a Size, which represents how large they are. Size 0 is considered to be "human" or close to human, such as motorcycles or hovercycles. Each Size level is approx-imately 2 times the volume of the previous scale. Size increas-es the difficulty of attacking and defending against smaller tar-gets, but makes the attacks of smaller foes less damaging. A table of examples of each Size is below.

Size Examples

-8 Small pistol, hand grenade, baseball, hamster

-7 Tablet computer, pistol, kitten

-6 Basketball, Purse, SMG, Heavy Pistol

-5 Bowling ball, human head, small watermelon, purse, carbine

-4 Luggage bag, laptop, rifle, shotgun

-3 Housecat, small dog, large bird, desktop computer, light machine gun

-2 Large suitcase, duffel bag, rocket launcher, heavy ma-chine gun

-1 Young child, dog, midget, scooter

0 Human, large dog, bicycle, moped

1 Great cat, gorilla, large human, motorcycle, small bear, aircraft-dropped bomb

2 Bear, large moose, cow

3 Small car, dune buggy

4 Car

5 SUV, midsize truck, Humvee, small elephant

6 Large elephant, truck, small civilian helicopter

7 18-wheeler truck, military helicopter

8 Light APCs and IFVs,

9 Main battle tank, fishing boat, artillery vehicle

10 Trinity supertank, jet fighter

15 Bomber, pleasure yacht, jumbo jet

18 Battleship, large cruise ship, cruiser

20 Aircraft carrier, skyscraper

23 Trinity-era space cruiser

27 Leviathan Jumpship

Each point of Size difference reduces the post-soak damage the larger combatant takes by 1 health level, to a min-imum of 1, and increases the pre-soak damage any attacks in-flict on the smaller combatant by +1d, to a maximum of double damage. A Size 0 character shooting at a Size 9 tank reduces post-soak damage by 9 health levels unless using a weapon with its own Size.

Furthermore, every 2 points of Size difference alters the difficulties of attacking and dodging. The smaller combatant gains an automatic success on attack rolls for each 2 full points of Size difference, while the larger combatant suffers a +1 diffi-culty penalty on attack rolls for every 2 full points of Size differ-ence.

Size modifiers may not reduce an attack’s damage to less than 1 level nor may it more than double incoming dam-age. Size modifiers to attack difficulties may also apply to things such as Stealth rolls or rolls to fit into cramped spaces. .

Movement and

Ranges

Characters in a fight don’t generally stay still—they’re always in motion, whether it’s to pop out of cover and take a potshot or to flank an unsuspecting enemy.

Range Brackets

Ranges in Aberrant are given in rough categories, ra-ther than strict numbers in meters. The definitions and rough scales of each of these categories is given below. Some weapons or powers are extended-range, allowing them to at-tack enemies at longer-than-normal range at the cost of addi-tional difficulty. These weapons or powers have a “+” on their range.

Melee: Melee range covers a distance of anywhere from 0 to 2 meters between opponents, wherein fists, feet, blades, and other melee attacks are effective.

Thrown: Thrown range covers a range where thrown weapons, such as rocks, throwing knives, shuriken, and so on. Most thrown attacks are made at Thrown range. Thrown range typically covers any range past melee up to ~30 meters.

Handgun: Handgun range not only covers hand-guns, but also shotguns, light grenade launchers, and various muscle-powered ranged weapons such as bows, slings, and other medieval weapons. Handgun range generally reaches up to 150 meters.

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Rifle: Rifle range, defined as roughly up to 500 me-ters, is where most military infantry weapons can engage at ef-fectively.

Support: Infantry support weapons such as guided antitank missiles and light mortars, as well as light vehicle weapons such as autocannon, fall under the ‘support’ category, reaching up to approximately 2km ranges.

Heavy: Covering the majority of ranges vehicle weapons engage at, this range bracket touches approximately 10 kilometers.

Artillery: Reaching to about one hundred kilome-ters, artillery range covers the range at which modern artillery is generally capable of engaging at. It also covers anti-aircraft missiles and other

Theater: Theater weapons have hundreds of kilo-meters of range, up to nearly a thousand kilometers. Covering short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles and the majority of space combat weapons in the Trinity era, very few weapons reach beyond this level.

Strategic: Strategic weapons are capable of reach-ing thousands of kilometers, across continents or beyond that. Only very long-range nova powers, or weapons such as ICBMs, have this level of range.

Orbital: Only very rare weapons have “orbital” range, capable of reaching tens of thousands of kilometers. Anti-satellite weapons, space-to-surface bombardment weap-ons, and the longest-ranged starship weapons of the Trinity era reach into this range bracket.

Extreme: “Extreme” range weapons or attacks have range beyond orbital. This is almost exclusively the pur-view of high-level nova powers.

Combat Movement

Movement in combat, like most other combat actions, is done by rolling. To move in combat, a character rolls Dexteri-ty + Athletics if on foot or Dexterity + Drive/Pilot when in a ve-hicle. This roll is generally reflexive-characters in combat are generally assumed to be in motion and do not need to specifi-cally take an action to move around. Some powers may sup-plement this roll or replace it; look in the power descriptions and systems for further details. The table below lists the number of successes need-ed to change a range bracket in a normal, 3 second turn. Note that the number of successes to change brackets works the same way no matter whether a character is closing range or opening it. So, for example, going from Thrown range to Melee range needs only 2 successes, as does going from Melee range to Thrown range. A character may accumulate these successes over multiple turns if necessary. Moving multiple range brackets in a single action re-quires a total number of successes equal to the total number of successes to move each bracket. So moving from Rifle range to Melee range requires a total of (10 [Rifle to Handgun] + 5 [Handgun to Thrown] + 2 [Thrown to Melee]), or 17 successes.

Bracket Change Successes Needed

Melee-Thrown 2

Thrown-Handgun 5

Handgun-Rifle 10

Rifle-Support 20

Support-Heavy 30

Heavy-Artillery 40

Artillery-Theater 50

Theater-Strategic 60

Strategic-Orbital 70

Orbital-Extreme 100

Multiple Actors and Movement

In many fights, there will be more than two characters taking part. When multiple actors are moving, changing a range bracket with regard to any one character may change the range bracket you are in regarding all other characters. In this case, three new concepts must be introduced. Your start-ing range bracket is the range bracket you start movement at, and your ending range bracket is the range bracket you end movement at. Finally, sometimes the rules may ask for ranges with respect to the target. The target is the character you’re currently moving towards or away from. When moving away from a character, all characters who have a range bracket that is closer than your ending range bracket replace their current range bracket with your ending range. When moving towards a character, if any other char-acters have ranges with respect to the target greater than or equal to your starting range bracket but less than or equal to your starting range bracket, replace their current range bracket with your ending range bracket.

Positioning and Cover

Movement is also useful not just to alter range, but to alter positioning in combat. If a character wishes to get superior positioning on an enemy, the character rolls Dexterity + Athlet-ics, and the target may either reflexively roll Dexterity + Athlet-ics or Wits + Tactics to defend against the attempt. If the char-acter succeeds, each success up to a maximum of 5 adds +1 difficulty to the target’s defensive actions and +1d to the at-tacker’s attack rolls. This lasts for one turn. Furthermore, even 1 success eliminates any bonuses the character may get for cover. Characters may also attempt to seek cov-er/concealment. In this case, every success on a Dexterity + Athletics roll adds +1 difficulty to incoming ranged attacks, up to the limits of cover available in the area. This caps at a max-imum of +4 difficulty (total concealment against ranged attacks). If a character wishes to change positioning and/or seek cover while also changing range brackets, successes on the Dexterity + Athletics movement roll must be split between changing range brackets, taking cover, and also seeking an advantageous position.

Speed Bonuses & Automatic Suc-

cesses

Some vehicles, such as race cars, helicopters, fighter jets, and sub-orbital airliners, are extraordinarily fast. Novas with Hypermovement can also achieve such speeds. To repre-sent this, fast-moving vehicles and novas gain automatic suc-cesses on Movement rolls, via their Speed, making them faster and also harder to hit. These automatic successes may only be added to rolls to alter range brackets-they may not be used on rolls to achieve superior positioning or seek cover.

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As with all automatic successes, these only apply if the character rolls a single success.

Special Movement Rules

Crawling/Shimmying: Prone characters, or char-acters who have temporarily (or permanently) lost the use of their legs, may attempt to crawl around in combat. Crawling al-lows the character to roll 1d for movement for every 5 dots of Dexterity + Athletics they possess, +1d for every dot of Mega-Dexterity they possess. This pool is also used for movement while shimmying on ledges, climbing, or similar hand-based movement.

Jumping: A successful Str + Might roll allows a character to literally jump into the action, adding an automatic success (+1 success for every dot of Mega-Strength) to a movement roll. Jumping may also be used to scale vertical ob-stacles (a waist-high fence or chest-high wall is +0 difficulty, while scaling a 3 meter high wall is +4 difficulty and leaping a building in a single bound is easily +9 or more). In the case of jumping to scale an obstacle, Mega-Strength adds 5 successes per dot instead of 1 success per dot. Unlike most movement methods, jumping is not a reflexive action.

Sprinting: Characters may also sprint, sacrificing offense and defense for additional movement speed. The character gains +2 automatic successes on movement rolls while sprinting, but is at +3 difficulty to all other actions.

Swimming: Characters normally swim at their crawling speed. While swimming all-out, they may swim at their walking speed.

Walking/Prowling: The default pace of combat movement is a fast jog, but occasionally characters may wish to move more slowly (or be forced to, by injuries). While walk-ing, characters halve their movement dice pool (round up).

Maneuvers

These maneuvers give you a variety of choices in combat. Roleplaying combat is more entertaining if you can visualize your character’s moves instead of simply rolling dice. Most of these maneuvers take one action to execute. New ma-neuvers can be added with Storyteller permission.

General Actions

These maneuvers cover various combat-related ac-tions which do not generally relate to directly hurting an enemy.

Aborting: A character can attempt to abort from her declared action to another action if she has not acted in the turn. The character can only do so if her declared action was invalidated (such as shooting a gun that was knocked from her hand). The new action, and any others taken, will be at a +1 difficulty penalty. The character also reduces all her DVs by 1 for the turn.

Aiming: The attacker adds +3d to her accuracy on a single attack for each action spent aiming. Additional aiming on subsequent turns increases this bonus up to a maximum of (Perception + 2) dice. Aiming may be used with either ranged or close combat attacks. A character may not take non-defensive actions while Aiming.

Getting to your feet: Characters may rise from the ground in one turn without making a roll. If a character wishes to get to her feet while doing something else in the same turn, she must take a multiple action (see “Multiple Actions,”) with an Athletics roll to rise successfully.

Guard: A Guarding character takes some action to restore their DVs. They catch their breath, reposition their weapon to receive attacks, recharge their powers, so on and so forth. The character rolls Stamina + Endurance, with every 2 successes or fraction thereof restoring 1 point of lost DV to a chosen defense value. This is not a reflexive action, and if tak-en in conjunction with other actions, uses the multiple action rules.

Movement: Moving is a Dexterity + Athletics roll. See details on how movement works below, in the Movement and Ranges section.

Readying a Weapon: In most cases, readying a weapon requires no roll. If the character wishes to ready a weapon without multiple action penalties, the player must roll (Dexterity + Melee) at +2 difficulty to ready a melee weapon or (Dexterity + Firearms) at +2 difficulty to ready a firearm.

Reloading: Almost all ranged weapons require some form of reloading. Reloading out of combat is automatic. However, reloading in combat or stressful situations generally uses a “Dexterity + Firearms” roll. Larger weapons often need extended rolls to reload. Most ‘modern’ firearms use detacha-ble magazines, stripper clips, or speedloaders and can be re-loaded in a single success on a Dexterity + Firearms roll. Ener-gy weapons, using disposable capacitor/battery packs, reload in the same fashion. Weapons with ‘loose’ ammunition, like bows, crossbows, rifles using non-detachable magazines, and revolvers without speedloaders reload 1 shot per success on a Dexterity + Firearms roll. Support weapons such as light ma-chine guns use belt feeds or box magazines and require 5 total successes on an extended Dexterity + Firearms roll to reload. Breechloading or muzzleloading weapons, such as RPGs, gre-nade launchers, anti-tank missiles, tank cannon, artillery, and so on require 10 + Size total successes on an extended Dex-terity + Firearms roll to reload. This normally requires an action, however, certain Enhancements may allow a character to re-load reflexively.

Yielding: The character allows the character with the next-highest initiative to act. She may still act at the end of the turn. If all characters (player and Storyteller) yield during a turn, no one does anything that turn

Defensive Actions

Most characters in combat seek to avoid getting hit as much as possible, and thus take defensive maneuvers to avoid being hurt.

There are two basic types of defensive actions: dodge and parry. Some novas have access to a third defensive action: the power block. Using these two (or three) maneuvers, your character can defend against virtually any kind of attack. However, your character may not be able to avoid every single attack that’s directed at her. She can’t dodge when there’s no room to maneuver, and she can’t parry if she doesn’t know an attack is coming.

Each defensive maneuver uses the same basic sys-tem: The opponent’s attack roll is compared to the defender’s defense value, or DV. Unless the attacker gets more success-es, he misses. If the attacker gets more successes, those that he achieves in excess of the defender’s successes, if any, are

ABERRANT

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used to hit (the attacker doesn’t necessarily use all the suc-cesses he rolled). So even if the defender has fewer successes than the attacker does, the defender’s maneuver can still re-duce the effectiveness of the attack, even if the maneuver can’t counteract it completely. Difficulty modifiers from any factors, such as Size, impairment, or so on, are added or subtracted from the defense value when it is compared with the attack roll. Dice penalties from wounds and other factors are also sub-tracted from DV directly, as if they were difficulty modifiers. Furthermore, every non-defensive action the character is plan-ning to take or has taken subtracts 1 from the character’s DV temporarily.

However, defending against attacks is tiring, and eventually a point is reached where a character may no longer effectively defend. Any attack which is dodged, parried, or power-blocked reduces the all of the character’s DVs by 1 as long as the attack rolls even a single success. Every 5 suc-cesses rolled further reduce the DV the target used by 1. These reductions are not until the end of the turn, and last until a Guard action is taken or until the end of the combat.

Dodge: An Athletics, Drive, or Pilot maneuver use-ful for avoiding attacks of all types. Your character (or the vehi-cle she’s driving/piloting) bobs and weaves to avoid Brawl or Melee attacks. This can be used against both melee and ranged attacks, although there are a few exceptions. If there’s no room to maneuver, she must block or parry instead. No characters can dodge an area attack without moving out of its area of effect. The Dodge DV is (Dexterity + Athletics) for char-acters and (Wits + Drive/Pilot + Handling) for vehicles.

Parry: A Brawl or Melee maneuver using a weapon to block a Brawl or Melee attack. If a character makes a Brawl attack and the defender parries with a weapon that normally causes Lethal damage effects, the attacker can actually be hurt by a successful parry. If the defender rolls more successes than the attacker does in the resisted action, the defender rolls the weapon’s base damage plus the parry’s extra successes against the attacker as automatic damage. Characters using their bare hands to parry attacks that deal Lethal damage re-duce their DVs by 2. The Parry DV is (Dexterity + Brawl/Melee + Weapon Defense) dependent on the type of parry (hand to hand uses Brawl, melee weapons use Melee). The character generally, but does not have to, use the weapon with the high-est defense for parrying. Reduction in Parry DV from blocking multiple attacks or from non-defensive actions applies equally to all weapons, not just to the weapon used to block the attack.

Power Block: Many quantum powers can be used as part of defensive actions. Barrier is the most likely power for such a feat, but Gravity Control, Elemental Mastery and similar powers can also provide protection against certain attacks. Some attack powers can literally shoot an incoming projectile out of the sky.

To perform a power block, the player takes a defen-sive action as normal, then simply substitutes her Dexterity + power rating skill total for the normal parry or dodge roll. Each success on the power block roll subtracts one from the attack successes, as normal.

A power might be able to perform a power block against some maneuvers, but not against others. For example, Magnetic Mastery can certainly pull bullets off their trajectories, but it is useless against a flamethrower attack. The Storyteller must arbitrate power blocks on a case-by-case basis. The Power Block DV is (Power Dice Pool). Reduction in Power Block DV from blocking multiple attacks or from non-defensive actions applies equally to all powers, not just to the power used to block the attack. Some powers explicitly enhance dodges or

parries. Use those DVs instead if those powers are used in conjunction with a defense.

Close Combat Actions

A character attacking in close combat may make a simple Brawl or Melee attack. However, she may choose to use one of the following maneuvers to modify her attack. These maneuvers work only with unarmed attacks, unless the text specifies otherwise. The statistics for these maneuvers may be modified at the Storyteller’s discretion, depending on the combat style the character uses. As always, drama and ex-citement take precedence over rules systems.

Touch: Touching an opponent when he or she doesn’t

want to be touched is much easier than actually hitting them with any level of force, but not guaranteed. However, a touch does no damage, and so this “attack” is only used when acti-vating Touch-range powers on unwilling targets. Touching a character may use Strength + Brawl or Dexterity + Brawl at the attacking character’s discretion even if the character lacks Mar-tial Arts.

Accuracy: +5 Damage: None Defense: +0 Grab: Grabbing a target deals no damage but initiates a

grapple attempt. Grappling rules are listed below, in “Grappling Maneuvers”. Grabs can also be used to attempt to grab onto a speeding vehicle or swinging rope.

Accuracy: +3 Damage: None Defense: +0

Basic Attack: Basic kicks and punches have two stats-

one for quick, fast attacks and another for heavy, powerful at-tacks. The statistics before the slash are for fast attacks, the statistics after the slash are for slow, powerful attacks.

Accuracy: +2/+0 Damage: Strength + 1B/3B Defense: +0 Disarm: When facing an armed enemy, turning the tables

on the opponent by stealing their weapon is often advisable. A Disarm rolls the character’s attack pool (normally Strength + Brawl) versus the opponent's Strength + Might, Strength + Me-lee, or Strength + Brawl (the opponent may choose). If the character succeeds, the weapon is flung away from the oppo-nent. If the character succeeds with 5 or more successes, she may immediately take possession of the weapon. Disarms may be done with a weapon, in which case they use the weapon's attack pool and inflict half normal damage in addition to disarm-ing.

Accuracy: N/A (see text) Damage: N/A (see text) Defense: N/A Tackle/Ram: Tackles (on foot) or Rams (when in a vehi-

cle) involve running into the target at full speed, dealing fairly impressive amounts of injury to both parties. Tackling uses Strength + Brawl to hit, while Ramming uses Dexterity + Drive/Pilot to hit. In both cases, the target takes damage as listed below. The person or vehicle who initiated the Tackle or Ram takes damage equal to the victim’s Strength + the tackling character’s Dexterity or the ramming vehicle’s Speed.

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Accuracy: +0 Damage: Strength + Dexterity (Tackle), Strength + Speed

(Ram), Self-Damage (see text) Defense: N/A Trip: Bringing the opponent to the ground is often useful.

This may take the form of a sweeping kick, a shove, or some-thing more graceful. A trip rolls (Strength + Brawl), and if an opponent fails to roll more successes on a (Dexterity + Athlet-ics) roll than the attacker rolled (with difficulty equal to the at-tacker's Strength), the opponent is knocked prone.

Accuracy: +0 Damage: Strength Defense: N/A Smackdown: Smackdowns require 1 WP to use or a turn

to wind up. A successful smackdown either knocks the target prone (unless they succeed a reflexive, opposed Stamina + Resistance roll with a difficulty of the attacker's strength) or grapples the target in addition to the normal effects.

Accuracy: +2 Damage: Strength + 6B Defense: N/A

Grappling Actions

Attempting to grapple a target uses slightly different rules than attemping to hit one. To grab a target one must ini-tially successfully hit with a grab attempt, which puts both par-ties into a contested grapple if the opponent is aware of the at-tack, and into a grapple with the attacker having total control if the opponent is not. Grapples may be in three states: Contest-ed, Controlled, or Total Control. While grappled, both charac-ters move in unison, and neither character may move faster than a walk. To move from one state to the next, both parties roll to control the grapple using the Wrest Control maneuver. This maneuver can be used at any time in a grapple, no matter what the situation. In addition, a character may seek to escape a grapple, using the Escape maneuver. Like Wrest Control, a character may escape at any time.

Wrest Control: Wresting control of the grapple involves contested Strength + Brawl rolls (having Finesse allows Dex-terity + Brawl to be used instead). A character must accumu-late (opponent’s Strength) total successes to shift the grapple one category in their favor (for example, if the opponent)

Escape: The character attempts to escape the grapple. A

successful Dexterity + Athletics or Strength + Brawl roll will break the character out of a grapple. If the opponent wishes to contest the escape, they roll Strength + Brawl. A successful escape attempt ends the grapple. If the opponent contests the escape attempt and fails, the opponent is knocked prone. Es-caping a grapple does not deal damage.

Attacking Grappled Targets

Oftentimes characters may wish to hold down an en-emy while the character’s allies pound on the foe, or characters may attempt to free an ally from a grapple by attacking the grappler. This is somewhat risky, however. While a grapple is contested, both fighters’ DVs are halved and they may not

normally parry attacks (although they can dodge). However, any attack which rolls even 1 success but misses its intended target hits the other participant of the grapple. A character may attempt to make this easier on his allies at the cost of giving up control. Every +2 difficulty on his next roll to maintain or wrest control reduces both parties’ DVs by 1 until the end of the turn. Contested: At this point, neither of the two grappled fighters can do much against each other, as they’re too busy trying to break . During this state, the only move either party can at-tempt is to wrest control from the other or escape the grapple.

Controlled: One of the characters has control over the grapple and can proceed to deal damage to the other. The character who has control over the grapple is at +2 difficulty to wrest fur-ther control over the grapple or contest the opposition’s at-tempts to achieve control and gains an automatic success on Escape rolls, while the character who lacks control is at +1 dif-ficulty to escape. The character with Control may attack the other with any hand-to-hand attacks, halving the opponent’s DV. Total Control: Total Control means one of the fighters in a grapple has complete and total control over the other, even if momentarily. The character who possesses Total Control is at +4 difficulty to contest the enemy wresting back control and gains 2 automatic successes on Escape rolls, while the charac-ter who is controlled is at +2 difficulty to escape. If a character has total control over a grapple, they may use any one of the moves below. These attacks automatically hit.

Pound: Pounding someone in a grapple is a great way to

inflict damage. This may involve mounting someone and whal-ing on them, slamming their face into nearby hard objects, or other methods of causing pain. Pound damage is normally Bashing but can be lethal if the victim is slammed into sharp objects.

Damage: Strength +5B/Strength +5L Choke: Targets which require breathing or blood circula-

tion can be disabled while grappled by cutting off blood flow and breath. Choking a target is far less effective if they do not require oxygen circulation (i.e. they have Dispersed Organs). In that case, one must suffocate them, and they only start taking damage when they can no longer hold their breath.

Damage: 1 unsoakable Bashing/level turn. Coup De Grace: A finishing blow with a weapon or melee

attack. Coup De Graces cannot be done with a weapon that the character cannot conceal in a pocket, as those weapons are too long to effectively use in the tight confines of a grapple.

Damage: As attack + 5 Throw: Throwing someone requires sufficient strength to

toss them. Throws can be used to launch unfortunate victims into dangerous objects, or simply send someone somewhere else. Skilled characters may throw their grappled opponents in-to other characters as well, which deals full damage to both targets. Unlike other attacks against a grappled foe, throws do not halve enemy soak. The damage of a throw is for a throw in-to a hard object like a rock or the ground. Throwing a character into something soft changes its damage to Stun, while throwing them into something edged (spikes, an industrial grinder), damage is Lethal. Throwing someone off a cliff does standard

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fall damage instead. Obviously throwing a character ends a grapple.

Difficulty: +2 (if aimed at a small target such as another person or a spike), +0 otherwise Damage: Strength + 4B.

Ranged Combat Actions

Autofire: Automatic fire is limited by weapon rate of fire, and does differing things depending on the number of rounds fired. Bursts may either add automatic successes to damage (if your bullets can't penetrate, firing off more is kind of pointless) or increase accuracy (if you fire enough bullets one of them will hit).

Three-Round Bursts add +2 Accuracy or +[1] Damage. They cost three shots/bursts worth of ammunition.

Short Bursts add +4 Accuracy or +[2] Damage. They cost 10 shots.

Medium Bursts add +6 Accuracy or +[3] Damage. They cost 15 shots

Long Bursts add +8 Accuracy or +[4] Damage. They cost 30 shots.

Very Long Bursts add +10 Accuracy or +[5] Damage. They cost 50 shots.

Sustained Bursts add +12 Accuracy or +[6] Damage. They cost 100 shots.

Indirect Fire: Some weapons, such as artillery pieces or grenades, are primarily used for indirect fire. This re-quires one character to spot the target and designate it, and another to operate the artillery piece. The two characters can, but rarely are, the same character. To designate a target, the spotter rolls (Perception + Gunnery). The artillery operator then makes his own attack roll. Indirect Fire ignores cover.

Strafing: Weapons that are firing bursts or fire mul-tiple shots per “attack” may attempt to engage multiple targets with one dice roll. This is known as ‘strafing’. Attempting to at-tack multiple targets adds +1 difficulty to the attack for every target past the first but applies the attack successes against all targets, which defend individually. An attack may not normally target more enemies than it fires bullets, for obvious reasons. When making a strafing attack in conjunction with autofire, the autofire must be used to increase accuracy.

Suppression Fire: Gunfire is scary, and people without training in dealing with it tend to panic when under fire, reducing their ability to effectively respond to the opponents’ actions. Suppressive fire takes advantage of this. A character fires his weapon (whether as a single shot or as a burst), and rolls his weapon’s accuracy with whatever bonuses to accuracy the burst grants. Suppression may be used against multiple targets, adding a cumulative +1 difficulty for each target after the first the character seeks to suppress.

The character then rolls his weapon’s attack pool (typically Dexterity + Firearms + weapon accuracy + burst bo-nuses) and divides any successes gained among the sup-pressed targets. Each success translates into a -1d penalty to all non-defensive actions the next time the suppressed charac-ter gets to act. This penalty applies to all actions the sup-pressed character takes, even multiple or extra actions. Char-acters resist this attack via Wits + Resistance. Furthermore, characters with Tactics add +1 difficulty for every dot of Tactics to suppression attempts. A character may alternatively pay 1 WP to ignore suppression for a turn, or may alternatively ignore the penalty by allowing the attack to hit.

Suppression requires the weapons used to be capa-ble of actually harming the character. If the base damage of the

suppressing weapon is lower than the target’s soak, the sup-pression attempt automatically fails.

Vehicular Actions

Disabling Shots: Disabling a vehicle is generally done by called shots to the wheels/tracks (for ground vehicles only) or engines (for all vehicles). Wheels are assumed to have half the Armor rating of the vehicle (round down) and 4 health levels (8 for run-flats), while the engine or vehicle tracks have (7 + vehicle’s Size) health levels and the vehicle’s full Armor score. Each destroyed wheel halves the speed of the vehicle and adds +1 difficulty to Drive rolls, and if more than half are destroyed the vehicle is immobilized. Destroying the engine of a ground vehicle immobilizes it. However, most aircraft have multiple engines, and destroying 1 only halves its speed and adds +2 difficulty to Pilot rolls. Most cars and trucks have 4 wheels, while tanks have 2 tracks. Wheeled military vehicles generally have 6 or 8 wheels. All military vehicles and armored vehicles (used for VIPs) have run-flats.

Multiple Crewmembers: A vehicle with multiple crewmembers or passengers may take multiple actions without penalty. Each passenger or crewmember may act normally with their own dice pools to, for example, fire a weapon out a window or use one of the vehicle’s weapons. Military vehicles generally have 2 or more crew.

Ramming: Ramming uses the same rules as tack-ling, as seen above, save that ramming attacks use Dexterity + Drive/Pilot to aim.

Complications

Certain events or situations may further complicate combat. Complications are usually not actions in themselves. The most common of these are listed here.

To abort, the player must make a successful Wits + Tactics roll (or may simply spend one point of Willpower). If the Wits + Tactics roll fails, the character must carry out the action that the player declared during the Initiative Stage if possible. If a character had split their action, using the multiple action rules, aborting costs her all of the actions (i.e. the multiple actions are considered all part of one action for the purpose of this rule).

However, aborting will not affect the character’s Extra Actions. Airborne Targets: Airborne targets gain a few ad-

vantages due to maneuvering in three dimensions. They may bypass any cover which does not provide protection from above, are effectively immune to melee attackers unless they willingly close into melee range (which is done by attempting a melee attack on a target) or are attacked by another flight-capable character, and can evade in three dimensions instead of two, adding +1 difficulty to attacks against them from non fast-tracking attacks. On the flipside, airborne targets normally cannot find any sort of cover.

Ambush: Ambushes involve surprising a target to get in a decisive first strike. The attacker rolls Stealth in a re-sisted action against the target’s Awareness. If the attacker succeeds with 5 net successes or more, she can stage a free attack on the target, who may not attempt to defend. Otherwise, the defender may defend normally, but the attacker is assumed to have the most advantageous position possible (+5 difficulty to defensive actions to defend against the attack, +5d for the attack accuracy). If the defender wins, he spots the ambush, and both parties roll Initiative normally. Targets already in-volved in combat cannot be ambushed.

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Area Attacks: Area attacks have an Area rating representing their blast radius, which adds to the difficulty to dodge them by +1 per level of area. In addition, area attacks hit everyone close to the primary target (the primary target is the target the attack is initially aimed at). An Area attack hits all characters, friend or foe, at a range bracket with respect to the primary target that would require fewer total successes than the Area rating to move to. However, distance does provide limited protection-each success worth of distance reduces the effective Area rating of the attack by 1 for the purposes of dodging the blast.

Area attacks do not gain additional damage from successes on the attack roll.

Blinded: Blind characters suffer a +4 difficulty pen-alty to all actions where sight plays a part, including movement and dodging.

Close Combat With Firearms: Ranged weapons are often difficult to use up close. Pistols are at normal difficulty to use in melee range, but SMGs are at +1 difficulty. Long arms such as rifles and shotguns are at +2 difficulty, and heavy weapons such as rocket launchers are at +4 difficulty. Most explosive weapons have safeties which ensure they don’t ex-plode close enough to harm the user. Explosive weapons deal halved damage and have no Area rating if the user is in their blast radius and does not explicitly remove the safeties.

Cover: Cover increases an attacker’s difficulty to hit a target with ranged attacks (and often the target’s ability to fire back). Cover ranges from a +1 to +4 difficulty penalty to incom-ing attacks, and penalizes the character’s own ranged attacks by half that value, rounded down. Seeking cover is described in the Movement rules, above.

Fast Moving Attacks: Fast moving attacks are harder to evade than slow ones. Bullets and similar attacks add +2 difficulty to dodge attempts, and light-speed weapons such as lasers add +5. Mega-Dexterity reduces the difficulty in-crease for attempting to evade fast-moving attacks. Parrying these attacks is even more difficult: Double the difficulty penal-ty if one seeks to parry a bullet or a laser. Arrows are parried at +2 difficulty.

Fast Moving Targets: Fast moving targets are harder to hit than slow ones. Every 5 automatic successes on speed rolls that a character or vehicle has add +1 difficulty to attacks made against the character as long as the character is moving at full speed.

Knockback/knockdown: Attacks which deal more than (Stamina) levels of damage in a single blow have a chance to knock a target down. The victim of such an attack must roll (Dexterity + Athletics), at +1 difficulty for every level of damage taken above the minimum threshold for knockdown, or be knocked down. If the character was hit by a ramming attack from a vehicle, or a character with automatic successes on strength rolls, the attacker may choose to knock the character back as well. In this case, the attacker rolls Strength + Might to move the character.

Immobilization: Characters who are immobilized but not paralyzed (held but still struggling, feet stuck in quick-sand, etc) may not dodge, although they may apply other de-fensive abilities at half effectiveness. Characters that are para-lyzed may not defend themselves.

Multiple Actions: Characters may use the Multiple Action rules as normal during combat. For example, a charac-ter could split their action to kick somebody, fire two pistols, un-leash a mental blast, throw a barrel (assuming he had a free hand), and prepare a dodge (ie. a single action split into six ac-tions). Remember that actions split this way still count as a

single action for the purpose of aborting to a defensive maneu-ver.

Multiple Opponents: A character who battles mul-tiple opponents in close combat suffers attack and defense dif-ficulties of +1, cumulative, for each opponent after the first (to a maximum of +4).

Multiple Weapons: If an attacker uses multiple weapons, the attacker reduces multiple action penalties by 1 if making an attack with both weapons. However, the attacker suffers a +1 difficulty for any attacks not made with her domi-nant limb, unless she’s ambidextrous; if the attacker has Mega-Dexterity, she is automatically considered to be ambidextrous. The character must be strong enough to wield both weapons one-handed. Two-handed weapons with strength requirements below 10 simply add +2 to their strength requirement, while weapons with strength requirements above 10 add +10 to their strength requirement when being wielded one-handed.

Prone Stance: Characters are normally considered to be standing. A character may reflexively go prone during his turn. A prone character adds +1 difficulty to ranged attacks but subtracts -2 difficulty to melee attacks made against him. Get-ting up from prone requires no roll but requires an action. Do-ing so without taking an action (“kip-up”) requires an Athletics roll at +1 difficulty.

Surprise Attacks: Characters find it extremely hard to defend against attacks which they can’t perceive easily. An attack that comes from an area a character can’t easily see (for example, a flank attack) halves the defender’s DVs, while an attack that comes from a blind spot or is otherwise undetected (for example, a surprise attack or an attack from the rear) ne-gates enemy DVs entirely.

Targeting: Aiming for a specific location incurs a difficulty, but it can bypass armor or cover, deal additional damage, damage a specific object without injuring the wielder, or cripple a target. All called shots add +4 to the attack difficulty, although this penalty can be reduced by 1 for every turn spent aiming. This is a special property of called shots and aiming does not normally allow difficulty reductions. In addition, the ef-fect of a called shot adds to difficulty—this difficulty increase cannot be reduced by aiming. For bypassing armor, the difficul-ty of a called shot that bypasses armor is given alongside the armor list (see “Armor”). If a called shot is used to deal addi-tional damage, each +1 difficulty on the roll adds +2 to damage. If a called shot is used to cripple, each +2 difficulty on the at-tack roll adds +1 difficulty to rolls involving the crippled limb or organ if the attack deals more than (target’s Stamina) levels of damage. This crippling is healed when the damage from the shot is healed. No combination of crippling effects may add more than +4 difficulty to any single roll.

The difficulty to hit a carried or attached object with a called shot is +1 for every 2 points of Size or fraction thereof the object is smaller than the target itself.

The ST has the final say in whether a called shot is allowed and should prohibit a character from taking nonsensi-cal called shots.

Inanimate Objects

Sometimes characters may want to destroy inanimate objects. Doing so uses the normal attack resolution rules, with a handful of exceptions.

Accuracy: Attack rolls generally automatically suc-ceed against non-moving targets such as walls and buildings. Occasionally very small objects like guns, apples resting on a

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person's head, and bulls-eyes will require an attack roll, with difficulty ranging from +0 to +4 depending on the circumstanc-es, before factoring in range. Attacks against inanimate, non-moving objects never get bonus damage from accuracy.

Size: Many buildings/etc are very large and as such are extremely hard to destroy via directed attacks.

Damage: Most inanimate objects do not have dam-age penalties as they tend to be solid slabs of stuff, and there-fore only have two values-armor and structural levels. Some inanimate objects, such as firearms, may have their perfor-mance impacted with damage. It is up to the ST if he or she wishes to track this level of detail.

Example Objects

Window: A glass windowpane is easily shattered with sufficient force. The value after the slash is for armored glass. This is roughly representative of an office window which extends from roof to floor. Smaller windows such as those in houses or cars may have anywhere from half (3/10) to one-fifth (1/4) the structure levels. Armor 2/8, 5/20 Structure Levels, Size 1

Drywall: Weak materials like drywall and sheetrock are extremely easy to punch through, but they are also ex-tremely useful for building because they are compact, cheap, and light. The Health Levels of damage required are for creat-ing a hole large enough to push a human through. Armor 2, 15 Structure Levels, Size 2

Structural Wall: Load bearing walls are much harder to knock down, being generally made of brick or con-crete. Again, it requires this many health levels of damage to make a gap large enough to move a person through. Armor 12, 30 Structure Levels, Size 4

Armored Wall: Generally only used for secure buildings like bunkers or hardpoints, these walls are solid metal and reinforced concrete, designed to take bomb blasts, artillery bombardments, and RPGs. Armor 20, 60 Structure Levels, Size 4

House: Your average one-bedroom one-bathroom house. Larger houses may have 5 to 15 more health levels on average. Houses are very large and require area attacks to deal significant damage to. Shooting through a house, rather than attempting to knock it down, is much easier, as most parts are merely made of drywall. "Armor" 10, 30 Structure Levels. Size 12

Bunker: Made of concrete and steel, armored bun-kers tend to be rather hard to destroy, and often contain armed soldiers who may vigorously oppose demolitions attempts. Generally, taking out a bunker by killing its occupants is much easier than actually destroying one. Armor 20, 60 Structure Levels, Size 15

Skyscraper: Buildings reaching 100m or more to-wards the sky, skyscrapers are hard to destroy without power-ful area of effect weapons. Even when destroyed, their ex-tremely durable frames will tend to persist, monuments to hu-man engineering. Armor 10, 100 Structure Levels, Size 20

Minions

Some characters are not particularly important in your game. They’re nameless, faceless, and exist largely to give the environment character or to face the player characters in com-

bat in large numbers and get beaten up with little trouble. These characters are called minions.

When to Use Minions

Minions should be used whenever the character type you’re using for them is not a significant individual threat for the players in question and thus will be found in very large num-bers. This may vary drastically due to power level and gritti-ness. In a gritty Quantum 1 mean streets game, the only mi-nons may be barely-trained gangbangers, with even the base-line enforcers of gangs treated as normal characters. On the flipside, in a Quantum 6+ 4-color game, fleets of space battle-ships might be considered minions. It’s all about the theme and scope of the game.

Minion Initiative

A Minion group never rolls for initiative. Instead, its in-itiative is calculated by (Dexterity of a typical member + Wits of a typical member) + 5, if the minion group is well-trained and organized, or (Dexterity + Wits + 1), if the minion group is not well-trained or organized.

Minion Offense

A Minion group uses the dice pool of its average member to attack and the statistics of the weapon they’re using (whether that’s fists, guns, or anti-tank rockets), but the addi-tional attackers add to the attack accuracy and damage. Each minion past the first adds +1 accuracy and +1 damage to the attack, up to a normal maximum of +10 accuracy and +10 damage. Minions past that provide no bonus to damage or ac-curacy-there’s already too many people engaging one target and you aren’t going to hurt Cestus Pax with 9mm bullets even if you have a lot of bullets.

However, minions past that allow a group to attack multiple targets at once. A group of 50 minions may make 4 at-tacks at +10 accuracy and +10 damage, and a fifth attack at +5 accuracy and +5 damage, each targeting a different opponent.

Well-trained and organized Minions in advantageous terrain may, at ST discretion, increase their accuracy rating by more than +10, possibly even by +20 or +30 (use the ‘reducing large dice pools’ rules to then reduce this pool to a managea-ble number). This makes platoons of well-trained soldiers a significant threat to Mega-Dextrous speedsters who depend on agility rather than durability. On the flipside, poorly-trained min-ions or terrain with plenty of chokepoints may reduce the ability of minions to apply their weight of numbers, reducing the max-imum accuracy/damage bonus they get. The most obvious form of this is minions armed predominantly with melee weap-ons, who may only apply a maximum of +5 attack accura-cy/damage due to crowding.

Minion Defense

Minions do not have DVs, instead an abstracted score represents how hard they are to hit. Attacking a minion group has a difficulty equal to the minions’ highest combat abil-ity. Thus barely trained rabble (with Firearms/Melee/Brawl 1) are attacked at difficulty +1, while elite forces (Firearms 4) are attacked at difficulty +4. Minions do not suffer penalties to their

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defenses from attacking, nor do they suffer penalties from be-ing attacked.

Attacking Minions

Attacking minions is done just like attacking another character with a few exceptions, listed below.

A character with a rapid-fire weapon or attack (de-fined by having a Rate/RoF higher than 1) may take out more than one Minion in an attack, up to the maximum Rate of a weapon. This does not use the normal multiple action rules-instead, the attack is at +1 difficulty for every minion after the first that it attempts to hit, like a Strafing attack. The character must use one round of ammunition per minion attacked in this way if the weapon uses ammunition, and may combine this with bursts for additional dice on the attack roll.

Area attacks are particularly effective against Minion groups. An Area attack will apply its damage and effects to up to ([Area rating x Area rating] – Minion Group Tactics) minions per attack, with a minimum of 1 Minion. Mobs will generally have a Tactics of 0, while trained Squads of soldiers will have a Tactics ranging from 1 (barely-trained conscripts) to 4 (elite forces).

Taking Damage

Minions do not roll for post-soak damage. Instead, every 2 dice of post-soak damage or fraction thereof becomes 1 health level of damage of the appropriate type (Stun, Bashing, Lethal, or Aggravated).

Minions also only rarely fight to the death. After a few health levels of damage, a minion is generally left bleeding out on the floor, has decided “fuck this” (actually saying “fuck this” is optional) and flees from battle, or is too panicked to do more than shoot wildly and miss with every shot they fire to actually contribute to combat. These minions are eliminated from com-bat. Generally, mass minion casualties will only happen from use of area-of-effect attacks with high damage.

Minion types and their health ratings are listed below. These health levels can be affected by armor for more ‘realistic’ minions but for more cinematic games this is not recommend-ed.

HLs Minion Type

1 Action movie mooks, disorganized protes-tors

3 Most soldiers, really angry mobs, police

5 Special forces, ninjas, Ghurkas, other hard-core elite soldier types

7

Human-size combat robots, fanatics, com-bat-drugged soldiers, vehicles in action movies

8-15 Post-human warriors, somewhat bigger combat robots, weaker psions or novas,

Vehicle HLs/4

Light Minion Vehicles (Cars, trucks, techni-cals)

Vehicle HLs/2

Heavy Minion Vehicles (Tanks, attack heli-copters)

Psyche Damage

Groups of Minions are dangerous because they are a coherent foe. If that coherence breaks, so does the mob. Men-tal attacks deal Psyche Damage to such groups. Instead of us-ing the standard resolution rules, a Mob or Squad is given an average Psyche rating, which is essentially an abstracted “re-sistance roll” against these abilities. A character rolls their power dice pool with the Psyche rating as difficulty: A success means removing a single member of the Mob or Squad from the fight for the scene.

Like rapid-fire weapons, using multiple morale-damaging powers in a round allows the character to eliminate multiple attackers. Instead of using the standard multiple action rules, use the same rules for attacking multiple minions.

Mega-Social Enhancements such as The Voice or Awe-Inspiring may be used as Psyche Damage attacks against Mobs at +3 difficulty, or +6 difficulty if the Mob’s average Will-power is 5 or more. A Mega-Charismatic character may be able to sway an angry mob but will probably have far more problems swaying a squad of commandos with a kill order.

Psyche Rating

Average Willpower Rating

+0 1-3 (normal people, angry mobs)

+1 4-6 (trained soldiers)

+2 7-9 (elite operatives)

+3 10 (Human pinnacle)

+4 or more Superhuman mental defenses

Additional +1

Every additional crewmember in a Squad/Mob made out of vehicles (so tanks with a crew of 4 get +3)

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HAZARDS

Environmental Hazards

Environmental Hazards is a catch-all term for damag-ing conditions such as being inside a fire, a horrible sandstorm with hurricane-strength winds, being shoved into a electrical junction-box face-first, and so on. Most of the rules for these are the same (they deal damage and generally ignore armor under most conditions) although all of them have their own quirks. These quirks are listed below, as well as a table with damage ratings and examples of the type of hazard which deals such a level of damage. All environmental hazard dam-age ignores Size.

Electricity: Electrical hazards ignore uninsulated, ungrounded armor, but someone in an insulated, grounded suit of armor is immune. Electrical sources can lock muscles in place, although security systems like electric fences are typi-cally designed to prevent that from happening. To move locked muscles requires a Stamina + Resistance roll, difficulty equal to +1 for every 4 dice of damage the source does, rounded down.

Fire: Fire is soaked as Lethal damage even if it deals Bashing or Aggravated damage. Fire ignores un-fireproofed armor but any fireproofed or sealed armor provides normal soak.

Radiation: Only ‘armor’ specifically intended to pro-tect against radiation provides soak against radiation. Radia-tion damage ignores all other armor. Radiation damage may also cause radiation sickness.

Damage Effect Source Examples

2

Negligible Threat: Campfire, light-er, frayed extension cord, exposed plutonium

4

Minor Threat: BBQ pit, Toaster in bathtub, unshielded industrial X-Ray generator

6 [2]

Moderate Threat: electrical vehicle charger, vehicle fire, nuclear bomb crater

10 [5] Severe Threat: Junction box, wild-fire, inside of a nuclear reactor

15 [8]

Terminal Threat: Nuclear melt-down, conflagaration, third rail/main line, lightning bolt direct hit

Bashing Damage Low lethality: Paper fire, alpha ra-diation, everyday electrical current

Lethal Damage Moderate lethality: Gasoline fire, napalm, beta radiation, lightning

Aggravated Dam-age

Extreme lethality: Gamma radia-tion, chemical fire, chlorine trifluo-ride

Damage x 2 victim engulfed in effect

Falling

A character can safely fall ([Stamina -1] x2) meters without taking damage. Past that, falling damage is one die per two meters or fraction thereof for the first 20 meters and then one die per ten meters past that, up to 25d pre-soak damage from a fall (at ~170m) for a normal-sized character. Fall dam-age is Lethal if the damage equals or exceeds the character's (Stamina + Athletics). So a character with Stamina 5 and Ath-letics 5 considers fall damage Lethal only from falls of 28 me-ters or more, but an old granny with Stamina 1 and Athletics 0 considers all fall damage Lethal. A character may attempt to reduce damage from a fall via a proper landing, rolling (Dexteri-ty + Athletics), reducing fall damage by 1 die per success. Hit-ting trees and soft ground halves this damage.

Armor does not protect against fall damage, nor do most defensive powers. The ST is the final judge of what pow-ers may protect from fall damage. Powers which work post-soak, such as Absorption, function normally. Size does not af-fect falling damage, although very small characters should be immune to falling damage.

Gravity

Operating in nonstandard gravity is often difficult due to lack of familiarity. High gravity saps strength, while low gravi-ty and microgravity are extremely disorienting. A character op-erating in a gravity field which is significantly different from what she is familiar with is at +1 difficulty to all physical actions, and +2 difficulty to anything which requires precise movement. This difficulty is doubled in zero-gravity. Characters who spend more than a day or two in an altered gravity field may acclima-tize to it, at the ST’s discretion, eliminating the difficulties. Characters who have Gravity Control ignore these penalties. When in an area with altered gravity, characters mul-tiply the mass of any carried or lifted objects by the strength of gravity there. So for example, in a 2G environment, everything weighs twice as much, while in a 0.5 G environment, every-thing weighs half as much. This affects throwing distances, en-cumbrance, and just about everything else. The actual mass of an object is unchanged, so any powers or abilities which affect a certain amount of mass do not have altered effects in areas with differing gravity. Furthermore, the character also has to carry her own body weight. In low gravity, this means a character is effective-ly stronger, while in high gravity a character is much weaker, frailer, and prone to exhaustion. Every decrease of 0.5 Gs in-creases a character’s Strength by 1. Every increase of 0.25 Gs decreases a character’s Strength and Stamina by 1. Charac-ters reduced to 0 Strength by these penalties are rendered bedridden, and characters reduced to 0 Stamina suffer from life-threatening complications and will die if left in the high-G environment for extended periods. A character with any level of Mega-Strength is immune to the strength and stamina loss from high-G environments, while a character with Augmented Strength effectively reduces any gravity increases by (number of Augmented Strength purchases)G for these purposes, due

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to their extremely high strength-weight ratios. These losses or increases are temporary and the character will return to normal when removed from the altered gravity. In fact, spending an ex-tended amount of time in a high-G field is a good reason to in-crease Strength and Stamina. Falling damage in altered gravity is calculated by mul-tiplying the falling distance by the strength of the G-field; thus, a character falling 20 meters in .5-G gravity would take dam-age as though she’d fallen 10 meters, while a character falling 20 meters in a 2-G field would take damage as though she’d fallen 40 meters. The maximum damage a character can take from falling is also multiplied by the strength of the field. This also applies to falling or dropped objects; the damage they in-flict is multiplied by the local G-field. Microgravity, or “zero-G”, has special movement rules as well. In zero-G, a character cannot move or change di-rection without some sort of flight capability. Instead, a charac-ter must ‘jump’ from a solid object. Doing so means the charac-ter moves at a speed equal to their horizontal jump distance every turn in that same direction until they hit another solid ob-ject. Similarly, because of Newton’s Laws, unarmed and melee combat is extremely difficult. Swinging a knife means you also start spinning in the opposite direction, and if you try to punch someone your fist goes forward, you go backwards, and the other person doesn’t get hurt. Without a specialty in Zero-G fighting, all melee and brawl attacks in zero-G are at +2 difficul-ty. Needless to say, most people in zero-G prefer ranged weapons. A character without any ability to fly in zero-G may not dodge incoming attacks without a wall or other solid object to leap off from, as she is traveling in an utterly predictable path. Non-heavy firearms do not provide any meaningful thrust. A character using heavy weapons (such as autocannon) in ze-ro-G may change their trajectory (accelerating or decelerating) by up to 6 meters per round (0.2 Gs) by firing their weapons at maximum fire rate in the opposite direction.

Oxygen Deprivation

Characters who no longer have access to oxygen and require it start to suffocate. Normally, a character can hold their breath for (Stamina) minutes if doing nothing, or (Stamina x 5) combat rounds while engaging in strenuous activity. After this, a character starts to take damage from lack of oxygen.

Every 3 rounds, the character suffers an unsoakable level of Bashing damage due to oxygen deprivation. This may spill over to Lethal.

Characters who start taking Lethal damage from oxy-gen deprivation may suffer losses to Mental Attributes due to brain damage. If the ST wishes to use these penalties, every (Stamina) lethal health levels of oxygen deprivation damage will reduce one of the character’s mental attributes by 1. This brain damage can be healed naturally by novas when the Le-thal damage heals, or by therapy and neural implants in base-lines. Obviously, characters who do not need to breathe do not suffer from oxygen deprivation.

Harsh Environments

A character takes damage in harsh environments if they have insufficient Stamina + Endurance to tough out the conditions. The Adaptability enhancement gives a Nova effec-tively infinite resistance to hostile environments such as this. The penalties for more extreme environments than a character can tolerate are below: Note that these effects are cumulative-a character in difficult conditions, for example, also suffers all effects of a character in marginal conditions.

Vacuum

A character can survive vacuum for a brief period without se-vere injury if they make sure to take actions to prevent immedi-ate trauma. Characters who grew up in a colony on an airless world (such as the Moon or in space are automatically as-sumed to know how to minimize injury from vacuum. Otherwise, a character must have an additional dot in an ability that relates to space somehow to do so. Characters with this knowledge only suffer from oxygen deprivation. However, as they cannot hold their breath, they suffer oxygen deprivation as if engaging in strenuous activity, no matter what they’re doing.

Characters who do not know to immediately empty their lungs, avoid embolisms, and protect their eyes take dam-age from vacuum immediately. Sudden decompression deals 4 unsoakable Lethal health levels, while more gradual decom-pression deals 1. After that point, they are affected by vacuum like characters who know how minimize injury from vacuum.

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CHARACTER CREATION OUT-

LINE

Baseline Phase

Step One: Choose Base-

line Tier

Choose the baseline tier of the character. This de-termines most of the character’s starting traits. Player charac-

ters are expected to be of the same tier, unless the Storyteller approves of an exception. Set character’s starting Willpower. All Specials are in effect.

Step Two: Concept

Choose Concept, Personality, and Allegiance

Tier Attributes Abilities * Merits Willpower Special Child 2/1/0 (yes, 0) 6 (1)[1] 3 1 +3 difficulty on most social rolls

with adults; Sickly and Small aber-rations

Adolescent 4/3/2 12 (2)[4] 5 3 +1 difficulty on most social rolls with adults

Average Adult 5/4/3 20 (3) 6 3 N/A Elite 7/5/3 30 (3) 7 4 N/A One-Percenters 8/6/4 36 (3) 10 5 N/A Great (Wo)men 10/8/6 45 12 8 One (Ability) prodigy *(#) is the Abilities cap when spending Ability points. [#] is the Abilities cap after spending Ability points. If no [#], assume cap is 5.

Step Three: Select At-

tributes

Prioritize the three categories: Physical, Social, Men-tal. Your character automatically has one dot in each Attribute.

Rate Physical Traits: Strength, Dexterity, Stamina. Rate Social Traits: Charisma, Manipulation, Appear-

ance. Rate Mental Traits: Perception, Intelligence, Wits.

Step Four: Select Abili-

ties

Spend points on Abilities. Ability points can be split into 3 specialties per Ability point.

.

Step Five: Select Merits

Spend points on merits and flaws.

Step Six: Spend Bonus

Points

Characters are typically given 15 additional Bonus Points for customization, although this number can be in-creased or decreased as desired (10-30 is the recommended

amount-below that, customization of characters is limited, while above that spending bonus points may become too time-consuming). Bonus points can be used to buy or improve most traits. The primary exception is traits which come from a char-acter’s ability to channel Quantum (i.e. Mega-Attributes, Pow-ers, Quantum, and Quantum Pool).

Players may be able to gain more bonus points to spend by taking Flaws if the ST so desires. This should be lim-ited to at most 5-10 Bonus Points.

Bonus Points

Trait Cost per dot Attribute 4 Ability 2 (1 ability dot can be trad-

ed for three specialties) Merit 1 Flaw Gives 1 bonus point (de-

fault) Willpower 2 Augmentation 1 per 3 XP of Augmenta-

tions Aberration Gives 1 per 3 XP of Aber-

rations

Nova Phase

Step One: Nova Tier

Choose the nova tier of the character. This deter-mines the character’s nova points during character creation,

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how high they can raise their Quantum with bonus points, and the character’s maximum Quantum during actual play. Player characters are expected to be of the same tier, unless the Sto-ryteller approves of an exception. In this case, exceptions should generally only be allowed downward-i.e. the character is a lower Nova Point tier than the others, instead of All characters begin with Quantum 1, even before spending nova points. If characters are playin

Tier Nova Points

Max Start-ing Quan-tum

Max Quan-tum w/ XP

Mean Streets

15 1 1

Just Your Average God

30 2 3

Exemplars 45 4 5 World Shak-ers

60 5 10

Living Leg-ends

75 10 10

Step Two: Eruption

Define Desires, Worldview and Manner of Eruption

Step Three: Spend Nova

Points

Spend nova points. Nova points can be used to buy or improve all traits, especially Quantum traits. A ST may re-quire explanations for (or outright prohibit) using NP to pur-chase certain Merits which are external to the character, such as Backing, Influence, Resources, Sanction, and Sanctum.

Reminder

When a nova first purchases a Mega-Attribute, she may select one enhancement to go with it. It does not matter how many dots she purchases; she gets only one free en-hancement. All enhancements after the first must be pur-chased.

Nova Points

Trait Cost per Dot Attribute ½ Ability 1/6 (1 ability dot can be

traded for three special-ties)

Willpower 1 Augmentation* 1 per 8 XP of Augmenta-

tions Aberration Gives 1 per 8 XP of Aber-

rations Mega-Attribute 2

Enhancement 1 per enhancement (2 for every enhancement be-yond [Relevant Mega-Attribute x2])

Quantum 5 Level 1 Power 1 Level 2 Power 2 Level 3 Power 3 Level 4 Power 4 Level 5 Power 5 Level 6 Power 6 Power Strength ½ Extra 2 Merit 1/3 Flaw Gives 1 NP for every 3 Permanent Taint Gives 3 NP** *These Augmentations must be derived from the nova condition. In other words, they cannot be cybernetic or just “natural”. **Can be spent on anything except Merits

Character Ad-

vancement

During the course of a game, your character learns more and more about himself, and what he needs to work on. These insights and the character’s ability to improve himself are abstracted into experience points. The Storyteller should award experience points at the end of every session. It is rec-ommended that characters be given more or less the same number of experience points per session, and kept at roughly the same experience totals throughout the game.

The categories below describe areas in which char-acters can gain experience. Each category is worth one expe-rience point. No character should ever fulfill every single cate-gory at one time, although multiple characters may qualify for the same award.

Automatic - Each character receives one point at the end of every session.

Discovery - The character understands something new and significant about himself, his fellow novas or the uni-verse.

Exceptional Roleplay - The player roleplayed his character particularly well. This behavior should be appropriate to the character; points should not be awarded for outlandish, out-of-character antics.

Heroism - The character risked life, limb and repu-tation to save the day. Only the most dramatic situations qualify for this award - stupidity does not count.

Wisdom - The character discovered a way out of a trap or learned the truth behind a mystery. The group often de-duces solutions together, in which case everyone should be awarded. However, if one character pieces everything together by himself, only he gets the award.

Creativity - This point is reserved for players who add to the story’s enjoyment without detracting from the game. This includes, but is not limited to, well-developed backgrounds, character journals or introducing new story elements. This bo-nus is highly discretionary and should be awarded infrequently.

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Cohesion - The characters worked exceptionally well together, defeating their opponents or strategically investi-gating all avenues of information.

TRAIT INCREASE XP Cost Attribute Current x 4 Ability Current x 2 Background Current x 2 M-Attribute Current x 5 Q-Power (L1) Current x 2 Q-Power (L2) Current x 5 Q-Power (L3) Current x 7 Q-Power (L4) Current x 9 Q-Power (L5) Current x 12 Q-Power (L6) Current x 15 Willpower Current x 1 Quantum Current x 8 Quantum Pool 2 XP / point

NEW TRAIT XP Cost Attribute 6 Ability 3 Specialty 1 (3 max / Ability) Merit 2 Enhancement 5 M-Attribute 6 Q-Power (L1) 3 Q-Power (L2) 6 Q-Power (L3) 9 Q-Power (L4) 12 Q-Power (L5) 15 Q-Power (L6) 18 Extra 10 Power Strength 3 Augmentation See Body Modifications

Chapter

Special Costs

Below are several modifications to how experience is gained during character creation and/or actual play.

Buying Field Skills

Certain Abilities are actually Field Skills, and the indi-vidual fields must be bought separately. However, if a charac-ter has at least three branches of a Field Skill (see Abilities) at 3+, most further purchases of that Field Skill’s branches cost half (round down) during play and are purchased at the rate of 2 dots per 1 ability dot during character creation. The exception is the character’s highest-rated branch, which must always be bought at full price.

For example, a multitalented musician has Perfor-mance (Singing), Performance (String Instruments), and Per-formance (Wind Instruments), all at 3. If he wished to buy Per-formance (Standup Comedy), he would pay only 1 XP for it, but he would have to pay the full XP cost to raise Performance (Singing) to 4 (6 XP). If he had Performance (String Instru-ments) at 5, he would pay only 3 XP to raise Singing to 4 in-stead.

For more details on Field Skills, see the Baseline Traits chapter.

Buying Tainted

If you take a level of a power or Quantum Tainted, you pay half cost (rounding up). However, you automatically acquire a point of permanent Taint each time you do so.

Buying Enhancements

When a nova first purchases a Mega-Attribute, she may select one enhancement to go with it. It does not matter how many dots she purchases; she gets only one free en-hancement. All enhancements after the first must be pur-chased.

A character may support up to (Mega-Attribute x2) enhancements per attribute at normal cost. Every additional enhancement purchased beyond this amount costs double (10 XP, or 2 NP). This XP is refunded when the attribute is raised.

Trading Up Quantum

Powers

If a nova’s power(s) could be seen as weaker ver-sions, or techniques, of a higher level power, the nova may trade in the experience point value of his current related pow-er(s) to offset the cost of purchasing the higher level power. For example, a nova with Premonition could trade it in to offset the cost of purchasing Pretercognition. In some cases, this might even be done with certain Enhancements. For example, a character may trade in Ap-pearance Alteration to offset the cost of Shapeshift.

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BASELINE TRAITSBaseline traits are traits that all characters have in

common, whether a mere mortal or a godlike nova. Although all characters have these traits, certain options within those traits are available only to novas.

Concept

Characters don’t spring fully formed into the Aberrant universe. Your character had a life before play. You must de-cide what she did, how she lived and what was unique about her. This concept may describe her profession, her personality or her interests.

Virtue and Vice

Your character’s personality is defined by two things: Virtue and Vice. Virtue and Vice are the positive and negative expressions of certain personality traits, or Natures. Each Na-ture can be expressed as a Virtue or a Vice. Virtues and Vices aren’t all that a character is about. Rather, they serve as a basic guide to your character’s perspective on the Aberrant universe and how to act in and react to that universe.

While personality helps describe who your character really is on the inside, it may not be the façade he presents to the world. A person’s mood and demeanor can change de-pending on whom he’s with and what situation he’s in. Your character’s outward personality is handled entirely through roleplaying (although his true personality, as defined by his Vir-tue and Vice, should accent his general disposition).

In game terms, Virtue and Vice enable the character to regain Willpower Points (WP); Vice can also lead to losing Willpower. A character regains two Willpower points when act-ing in accordance with his Virtue or one Willpower point when he indulges his Vice. If a character has an opportunity to in-dulge his Vice, but does not want to do so, the player must spend a Willpower point for the character to resist the urge. If he is out of Willpower, the character is compelled to fulfill his Vice in that instance (also, see Willpower). A character may regain Willpower from either Virtue or Vice only once per scene, and needs to spend only 1 WP to resist his Vice for a scene.

Asking the character to indulge in or resist his Vice should only happen when dramatically appropriate. A Bravo shouldn’t be asked to indulge every time someone refuses to listen to them, but if an important NPC is stonewalling the character he should pay the WP or lash out.

Virtue and Vice are grouped together by Nature. Alt-hough every Nature has both a Virtue and a Vice associated with it, the character’s Virtue and Vice do not need to match; in other words, he might have the Virtue of one Nature and the Vice of another. For example, James Bond’s Virtue might be Bravo, but his Vice is probably Hedonist.

Below is a list of Natures, with their corresponding Virtues and Vices. The archetypes listed here are a small sam-ple of the many faces of humanity; feel free to create new Na-tures.

Natures

Analyst

You approach the universe as a riddle to be an-swered. You live by logic and deduction; any problem can be solved in a rational manner. Your goal is to uncover the truth, to understand everything. However, your intense interest in finding the answers to questions can be distracting, since you get caught up by minutiae and may lose sight of the larger is-sue. Physicists, mathematicians, and the emotionally dead are Analysts. A nova Analyst may be working out the answer to the meaning of life, or be calculating how to cull the human popula-tion for the benefit of the planet.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you resolve a situa-tion with rationality and logic.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to factor in emotion and feelings into your decisions. Regain 1 WP when ignoring such “petty” things would be harmful to yourself or others.

Architect

The Architect has a sense of purpose even greater than herself. She is truly happy only when creating something of lasting value for others. People will always need things, and the Architect strives to provide at least one necessity. Inventors, pioneers, town founders, entrepreneurs, and the like are all Ar-chitect Archetypes. A nova Architect might seek to establish a business catering to other novas’ superhuman talents, or es-tablish a sovereign nation of, by, and for novas.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you take a concrete step towards realizing a goal.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist getting angry at some-one who points out flaws in your plan, or following someone else's great plan. Regain 1 WP if ignoring such criticism or fol-lowing someone else's agenda would benefit you in the long run.

Bravo

Bravos believe that nothing in the world means quite as much as strength does. Without strength, you cannot de-fend your views. Without strength, you cannot fight back against those who would oppose you. Some with this viewpoint are heroes, fighting for a cause, for the oppressed, for the downtrodden, providing strength to those who lack it. Others are bullies, who take the ideology of “might makes right” to an extreme. Paladins, challenge-seekers, bullies, and social Dar-winists are all Bravos.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you defeat a seemingly equal or superior foe or force him to back down.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist taking by force some-thing you desire and have asked for "politely". Regain 1 WP if you do so and it has significant negative long-term conse-quences.

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Bureaucrat

Laws were created for a reason, and your primary concern is to follow them. No matter what the crisis, you follow the proper procedure. If people don’t obey the System, chaos will run rampant. You take comfort in established processes, confident that they are the key to victory. Strict adherence to policy may blind you to better options. Police officers, EMTs, and office workers embody the Bureaucrat Nature. A nova Bu-reaucrat may be a poster boy for Team Tomorrow, or an utter control freak who destroys “glitches” in the “system” of the world.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you accomplish a goal “by the book” or some other formally established way of doing things.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to “break the rules” you’ve estab-lished about a situation. Regain 1 WP when adhering to your system would be dangerous or stupid.

Capitalist

You are the ultimate mercenary, realizing that there is always a market to be developed — anything can be a com-modity. You have a keen understanding of how to manipulate people into thinking that they need specific goods or services. Appearance and influence are everything when it comes to the big sale, though you’ll use anything to your advantage. Sales-men, soldiers of fortune, and bootlickers all adhere to the Capi-talist Archetype.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you convince somebody of accepting something they actually need.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist selling somebody some-thing harmful (whether a product or an idea). Regain 1 WP when doing so is to your own detriment.

Caregiver

Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. A Caregiver takes her comfort in consoling others, and people often come to her with their problems. Nurses, doctors, and psychiatrists are examples of potential Caregivers. Caregiver novas are of-ten great counselors or healers, but others use their gifts to get to the root of society’s problems; a disproportionate number of nova vigilantes, municipal defenders, and Team Tomorrow agents are Caregivers.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you receive tangible proof that you have helped another.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist giving aid to anyone who seems like they need it. Regain 1 WP if giving such aid ends up causing you more trouble than it's worth.

Celebrant

The Celebrant takes joy in her cause. Whether the character’s passion is battle, religion, foiling her rivals, or read-ing fine literature, it gives the Celebrant the strength to with-stand adversity. Given the chance, the Celebrant will indulge in her passion as deeply as possible. Unlike the Fanatic, the Cel-ebrant pursues her cause not out of duty, but out of enthusi-asm. Crusaders, hippies, political activists, and art enthusiasts are Celebrant Archetypes. Celebrant novas may champion the Saisho of Japan, or be the face of Teragen.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you convert some-one to your cause or indulge in your passion.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to put your cause on the back-burner. Regain 1 WP if putting your cause at the forefront hurts your long-term goals.

Chameleon

The Chameleon hides herself in the shadows, pre-senting a façade to everyone at large. She plays roles, chang-ing herself to suit the situation. Nova Chameleons make excel-lent actors, but some entirely forget what they were originally like.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you solve a problem or get something you want via your adaptability.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to snap yourself out of an identi-ty. Regain 1 WP when revealing your true self would be a good idea-but you still lie.

Charmer

A charmer knows just what somebody wants to hear. They make fast friends with people, but rarely do they stay that way for long. For a charmer is the sort of person who thrives on short-lived relationships with others, moving from person-to-person as their gratis is expended and their platitudes revealed for what they are. Of course, some people love having Charm-ers around, enjoying the ego boost while ignoring the warnings of their real friends and advisors. Corporate yes-men, grifters, and lobbyists have many Charmers amongst their ranks. A no-va Charmer may be everybody’s best friend, or leech off the ego of the truly powerful.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you clearly provide com-fort and good cheer to another.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to tell someone something they don't want to hear. Regain 1 WP if you don't tell them some-thing they don't want to hear and not doing so has potential negative consequences to you.

Child

The Child still has much to learn about how the world really works. This says nothing about biological age (how many times have you heard of the term “psychopathic man-child”?) but it does say a lot about their emotional maturity. Some peo-ple with this Demeanor are innocent and see the world through the undespoiled naïveté of youth, while others see the world through the selfishness of the young. Children can take many forms. Actual children, 4-color superheroes, spoiled primadon-nas, and naïve optimists are all Children.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when your innocent demeanor or naiveté win someone over to your side.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist acting in a petulant fashion (tantrums, complaining, assassinating someone in a fit of pique, etc.) after a major setback or personal snub. Regain 1 WP when it would be a major problem to do so.

Competitor

The Competitor takes great excitement in the pursuit of victory. To the Competitor, every task is a new challenge to meet and a new contest to win. Indeed, the Competitor sees all interactions as some sort of opportunity for her to be the best — the best leader, the most productive, the most valuable, or whatever. Corporate raiders, professional athletes, and im-passioned researchers are all examples of Competitors. Nova Competitors have any number of resources and accomplish-ments over which to assert themselves, from countless follow-

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ers and creature comforts to massive toy lines and blockbuster movie titles based on their real life exploits.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you come out ahead in a difficult situation that puts you to the test.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist trying to show up some-body else. Regain 1 WP when competing would be dangerous or embarrassing.

Conniver

Why break your own back when you can talk some-one else into breaking his for you? You always try to manipu-late others before applying yourself. You advance your cause by coordinating your friends’ efforts and sowing dissent among your enemies. You fear that others may be doing exactly the same thing to you, making it difficult for you to trust anyone. Criminals, con artists, salespeople, urchins, and entrepreneurs might be Connivers. Many Mega- Intelligent or Social novas are Connivers because they cannot help seeing people as toys and chess pieces.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you convince someone else to do your bidding, or ruin someone else, without your manipulations being brought to light.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist manipulating others, ei-ther for fun or to your advantage. Regain 1 WP when doing so would ultimately distance you from potential allies, or create new enemies.

Critic

You find purpose in revealing weaknesses and faults, whether in artwork, an organization or a person’s habits. You strive to perfect others by pointing out their shortcomings. You do this for their own good, whether they want your help or not. You can do your job too well, convincing someone that he isn’t just flawed but worthless, perhaps driving away even those closest to you. Reviewers, educators and personal train-ers might be Critics. (Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you give constructive criticism that somebody genuinely plans to act on, or point out a significant flaw that would have been harmful had it been overlooked. (Vice): Spend 1 WP to refrain from criticizing some-body’s performance. Regain 1 WP if doing so would make you look bad or get you in trouble.

Cynic

The world may seem perfect, but it isn’t. There are too many flaws, and some of them are growing deeper by the day, as everybody pretends they don’t exist. A Cynic knows these flaws exist, and so often isn’t surprised when everyone else is caught off-guard. However, Cynics also tend to lead rel-atively unhappy lives, as they always look for the worst, even in the best. Many scholars, soldiers, and thieves are Cynics. A nova Cynic might have a hundred countermeasures in place against World War III, or may delight in exposing corruption if only to show people how naïve they really are.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you have a backup plan when things go sour, because of your cynicism.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to take advantage of a lucky break (rather than dismissing it due to clearly being a trap/a worse choice/etc.). Regain 1 WP if doing so puts you into a worse situation later.

Dabbler

The Dabbler is interested in everything but focuses on nothing. He flits from idea to idea, passion to passion, and project to project without actually finishing anything. Others may get swept up in the Dabbler’s enthusiasm, and be left high and dry when he moves on to something else without warning. Most Dabblers have high Intelligence, Charisma, and Manipu-lation ratings, but not much in the way of Wits or Stamina. No-va Dabblers often wished they could do everything before they erupted; now they can.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you try a new pas-sion and get good results.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist trying something you’ve never done before. Regain 1 WP when doing so interrupts something important you were working on already.

Deviant

The Deviant is a freak, ostracized from society by unique tastes or beliefs that place her outside the mainstream. Deviants are not indolent rebels or shiftless “unrecognized ge-niuses”; rather, they are independent thinkers who don’t quite fit in the status quo. Deviants often feel that the world stands against them, and as such reject traditional morality. Some have bizarre tastes, preferences, and ideologies. Extremists, eccentric celebrities, and straight-up weirdoes are Deviants. Nova deviants are usually those that glory in the power of Taint.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you succeed in a goal by flaunting social mores or convince someone that the old ways are inferior to the new.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist publicly displaying your eccentricity. Regain 1 WP if doing so would significantly im-pede your plans.

Enigma

Your actions are bizarre, puzzling, and inexplicable to everyone except yourself. To the rest of the world, however, your erratic actions suggest that you’re eccentric if not com-pletely crazy. Conspiracy theorists and deep-cover agents em-body the Enigma Nature. Nova Enigmas might literally be crazy, or they might just be tuned into some aspect of the universe they cannot explain to others.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever your unpredictable nature ensures your success.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to calmly, rationally explain yourself, your actions or your theories. Regain 1 WP when fail-ing to do so alienates others.

Expert

Some people latch onto a hobby or field of interest; they cling to it so firmly that it defines who they are. Experts are people who are always associated with their field before any other qualifier. Professors, martial arts instructors, and coaches are likely to be experts. A nova Expert may teach powers at a Rashoud Facility, or might be a muse for talented baseline stu-dents.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you make a particularly impressive showing with an ability or teach your chosen skill to someone.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist showing your expertise off in a valid situation. Regain 1 WP if doing so is taking an un-reasonable risk.

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Explorer

The prospect of finding new places, people and things - whether it’s a new natural resource, an untapped pow-er or a musical style - gives your life meaning. Discoveries are your passion, and you devote a great deal of time and effort to keeping up with current events. The routine and commonplace bores you, and learning of someone else’s discovery fills you with envy. You constantly set your sights on the horizon, some-times at the expense of the here and now.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you discover some-thing new and useful, either for yourself or your community.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist examining something new or fascinating. Regain 1 WP if the thing is obviously dan-gerous.

Fanatic

The Fanatic has a purpose, and that purpose con-sumes his existence. The Fanatic pours himself into his cause, and he may even feel guilty for undertaking any objective that deviates from his higher goal. To the Fanatic, the end justifies the means — the cause is more important than those who serve it. Players who choose Fanatic Archetypes must select a cause for their character to further. Revolutionaries, zealots, and sincere firebrands are all examples of Fanatic Archetypes. Nova Fanatics are often champions for or against a particular nova-related cause, such as creating a world ruled by novas, or “curing” Taint.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you advance your cho-sen cause.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to avoid making any sacrifice to the cause that is demanded. Regain 1 WP if accepting this could possibly lead to grievous harm.

Follower

Leaders need followers, and you await your orders. Taking charge isn’t your style. It isn’t in your nature to rebel. In fact, your strength comes from your ability to cooperate with a variety of personalities toward a common cause. Yet, while you might follow your commander into the sun, you tend to lack the self-esteem to question such a suicidal act. Many soldiers, cultists, and sports players are Followers. Nova Followers are rare, but some might be found in Team Tomorrow or as part of large ecological reformation projects.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when your carrying out your assigned duty is a significant factor in the group's success.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to take charge or disagree with orders. Regain 1 WP if the orders are blatantly bad or ineffi-cient and you follow them anyways.

Gallant

You are one of the noticeable ones, and others had better damn well recognize it! Your ego thrives on recognition and the admiration of others (though you’ll settle for less desir-able sorts of attention). You love being in the public eye, and nothing beats performing before an awestruck crowd. While you are certainly flamboyant and full of vivacity, others often see the potential in your overconfident approach to lead you to disastrous misjudgments. Performers, only children, and those with low self-esteem often embody the Gallant Nature. Many nova media icons are Gallants.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you successfully im-press another person.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist showing off. Regain 1 WP when doing so makes you look foolish or puts you in dan-ger.

Hedonist

Life is too important to waste, so have as good a time as possible. You only go around once, after all. You don’t mind a little hard work as long as a good time awaits you at the end of it. Pleasure is its own reward, and you pity those who take life too seriously to realize it. Even so, your pursuit of a good time can take you too far. The nouveau riche, sybarites, and dilettantes are all examples of the Hedonist Archetype. A nova Hedonist may surround himself with countless adoring fans, or he may spend his time experimenting with radical nova drugs like Soma.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you have a truly good time (and bring others for the ride)

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist indulging in your chosen pleasure. Regain 1 WP if indulging in such is obviously a bad idea.

Idealist

The Idealist believes — truly, madly, deeply — in some higher goal or morality. The object of his idealism may be something as pragmatic as peace between novas and base-lines or as amorphous as the ultimate good, but the belief is there. Nova idealists, especially those who were idealists be-fore they erupted, often have the power to achieve their goals.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP any time an action in pursuit of your ideals furthers your goals and brings your ideal closer to fruition.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to take a course of action anti-thetical to your ideal. Regain 1 WP when staying the course does more harm than good.

Jester

The only sane defense against an insane universe is to laugh at it all. Sorrow and pain are your enemies, and humor is your weapon. You act the fool to take others’ minds off gloom and despair. In your pursuit to spread smiles, you may cross the line, distracting and irritating those whom you mean to entertain. Class clowns, pranksters, and obsessive comedi-ans all fit the Jester Archetype. Nova Jesters may find it hilari-ous to screw with world economies, or might bring joy to mil-lions as the world’s greatest comedian.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you lighten a mood or ease a tense situation.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist shooting your mouth off in inappropriate circumstances. Regain 1 WP if you do so and it ends up greatly inconveniencing you (insulting a world leader on national TV, etc.)

Judge

The Judge perpetually seeks to improve the system. A Judge takes pleasure in her rational nature and ability to draw the right conclusion when presented with facts. The Judge respects justice, as it is the most efficient model for re-solving issues. Judges, while they pursue the “streamlining” of problems, are rarely visionary, as they prefer proven models to insight. Engineers, lawyers, and doctors are often Judges. No-

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va Judges might gravitate toward enforcement roles in global society, or they might wrong slights that nobody else can per-ceive, such as the balance between man and nature.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you correctly solve a problem by considering the evidence presented, or when one of your arguments unites dissenting parties.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to show favor to one side or an-other, or consider anything other than hard facts in your calcu-lus (“opinions and character are irrelevant”). Regain 1 WP when this victimizes someone.

Leader

You’re meant to be in charge. You excel at organizing, and others look to you for direction. You trust your own judgment implicitly, and you have no qualms about taking over a project and shaping it the way you see fit. There are two ways to do a job: your way and the wrong way. While you may be a master of direction, ignoring others’ suggestions could be your down-fall. CEOs, military commanders, and priests all fit the Leader archetype. A nova Leader may want to control a conspiracy (or the world), or he may wish to be recognized as the leader of a team.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when one of your plans suc-ceeds.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist taking charge when you are not in charge. Regain 1 WP if doing so is a terrible idea.

Loner

Even in a crowd the Loner sticks out, because he so obviously does not belong. Others view Loners as pariahs, re-mote, and isolated, but in truth the Loner prefers his own com-pany to that of others. For whatever reason, the Loner simply disdains others, and this feeling is often reciprocated. Criminals, radicals, and free thinkers are all Loner Archetypes. Nova Lon-ers often have some unique insight into the world that makes them uncomfortable around “normal” people, or else have eve-rything they could ever want, and so are comfortable being hermits.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you accomplish some-thing by yourself, yet which still benefits your community.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to coordinate with others. Regain 1 WP when working as a team would have been the better op-tion.

Machine

Ordinary humans are just piles of meat and bone. They are unacceptably weak. You must be more than human, and you do your best to achieve that goal. You’re probably an obvious cyborg or Teragen member, seeking out ways to fur-ther alter your body and mind to your own liking. However, some Machines seek a path to become more than human without body modifications, pushing themselves past their lim-its without ever seeking a single augmentation. As a rule, you never ask for help, rarely take breaks, and push yourself to the limit. If humans are truly outdated, it’s up to you to set an ex-ample of what the next generation can do.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you overcome your own human weaknesses and achieve something you thought you could not do.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to indulge in a trait you consider “human weakness”. Regain 1 WP when doing so will hinder you.

Martyr

You’re ready to put yourself at risk so that another person or a cause succeeds, even when the sacrifice isn’t nec-essary. You drive yourself twice as hard as anyone else does, expecting no reward other than recognition of your efforts. De-spite this suffering, you endure, clinging firmly to the belief that you make a difference. In your blind desire to throw yourself in-to the breach, you could sacrifice yourself for nothing. Many revolutionaries, staunch idealists and outcasts are Martyrs. Nova Martyrs give everything they have for their cause and of-ten more; some end up Taint-ridden beyond belief.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you harm yourself to protect others or promote your cause.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist endangering yourself for the sake of others or your cause. Regain 1 WP when the sacri-fice is meaningless.

Masochist

The Masochist exists to test his limits, to see how much pain he can tolerate before he collapses. He gains satis-faction in humiliation, suffering, denial, and even physical pain. The Masochist defines who he is by his capacity to feel dis-comfort — he rises each night only to greet a new pain. Certain extreme athletes and urban tribalists exemplify the Masochist Nature.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you succeed in a task by pushing yourself beyond your limits.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist putting yourself in harm’s way to prove a point (to yourself or others). Regain 1 WP when doing so is meaningless.

Monster

The Monster knows the world is a terrible place, and to survive in it sometimes you have to do what’s necessary, not what’s right. Atrocities might be something people repudiate in public, but in private no great deed has ever been done without creating a trail of tears and corpses. Even at their best, Mon-sters are people you don’t want to associate with-the serial kill-er who only targets rapists and pedophiles, the assassin who kills terrorists and dictators in the name of security, the terrorist who strikes blows on a civilian populace for tacitly supporting atrocities. At their worst, Monsters are cruel men and women with no greater purpose, no noble goal, merely a love of pain and suffering. Nova Monsters often appear to be demons or actual monsters, or else have incomprehensibly sadistic minds. With such unfortunates, one often follows the other – Nova Monsters are capable of anything.

(Virtue): The Monster knows the world is built on op-pression and atrocity. When a Monster achieves something great by brutal or disturbing means, she regains 2 WP. This goal is often, but does not inherently have to be, something somewhat noble.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist demonstrating the cruel-ty of the world to another via atrocity and horror. Regain 1 WP when the noble path was the wiser course.

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Muse

Your purpose in life is to help others find their pur-pose in life. Muses are insightful, and often gifted in whatever field they instruct on. They may be hard on their students, but it’s only to make them better. Drill sergeants, clinic instructors, and motivational speakers are all Muses. A nova Muse might instruct students at a Project Utopia Rashoud facility, teaching them how to better control their powers; or a Teragen member enlightening young novas on how to control their evolution. (Virtue): Regain 2 WP when someone succeeds in a major goal because of your advice. (Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist helping someone who seeks your help. Regain 1 WP when doing so is for a goal you consider immoral or when doing so is significantly detrimental to yourself.

Paragon

You have lofty and concrete ideals about what is right and noble in human nature, and you strive to embody those ideals. You consider your powers a great gift and a tremen-dous responsibility, and you feel duty-bound to use them in the pursuit of righteousness and altruism. Though you aspire to be a role model, you are not a Gallant - public display is not as important as the knowledge of good deeds accomplished. Some might see you as self-righteous, but you are your own worst critic. You are completely intolerant of human foibles (especially your own), and this lack of acceptance might well drive you over the edge one day. Spokespeople, philosophers, and diplomats fit the Paragon Archetype. Nova Paragons may be the impossibly virtuous – seeming to have no flaws socially or otherwise; or they might be great heroes, fighting a non-stop battle against crime and injustice, whether in the social or the physical sphere. Either way, people may think of the Paragon as something more than human (a state of affairs that many Paragons find grating, as it undermines their goals).

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you accomplish a task by sticking to your enlightened ideals.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist your self-righteousness and accept a compromise. Regain 1 WP if compromise would be a far better idea than self-righteous one-true-way moralizing.

Pedagogue

The Pedagogue knows it all, and desperately wants to inform others. Whether through a sense of purpose or a genuine desire to help others, the Pedagogue makes sure his message is heard — at length, if necessary. Pedagogues may range from well-meaning mentors to verbose blowhards who love to hear themselves talk. Instructors, the overeducated, and “veterans of their field” are all examples of Pedagogues. Nova Pedagogues often have “the” solution to all the world’s ills, whether scientifically or socially. Whether they are correct is a matter of opinion.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when someone listens to and intends to act on your message.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist preaching your mes-sage when given an opportunity (often broadly interpreted by Pedagogues). Regain 1 WP if preaching would actually hinder your message.

Penitent

The Penitent exists to atone for the grave sin she commits simply by being who she is. Penitents have either low

self-esteem or traumatic past experiences, and feel compelled to “make up” for inflicting themselves upon the world. Penitents are not always religious in outlook; some truly want to scourge the world of the grief they bring to it. Repentant sinners, per-sons with low self-esteem, and remorseful criminals are exam-ples of the Penitent Nature. Penitent novas include those who were horrified when their eruptions caused widespread death and destruction, Taint-ridden novas seeking salvation and those who believe their condition is a curse from god.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you feel that you have achieved absolution for a given grievance. This redemp-tion should be of the same magnitude as the transgression — the greater the crime, the greater the penance. The Storyteller is the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes a reasonable act of reparation.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to keep composed when faced with evidence of your sin. Regain 1 WP when your breakdown causes a scene.

Perfectionist

Perfectionist Archetypes demand flawless execution. A half-hearted job gives the Perfectionist no satisfaction, and she expects the same degree of commitment and attention to detail from others that she demands from herself. Although the Perfectionist may be exacting, the achievement of the end goal drives her, and often those for whom she is responsible. Prima donnas, artists, and architects exemplify the Perfectionist Ar-chetype. A Perfectionist nova might believe all novas can achieve fantastic potential, and become angry when others do not seem to be “evolving” quickly enough; or always expects more from her team mates.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when your painstaking perfec-tionism covers even an unforeseen complication.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to trust a hastily-put-together plan or jury-rigged system. Regain 1 WP when you end up go-ing without because of this insistence on a perfect plan (or mechanism) or none at all.

Rebel

You’re the ultimate free-thinker. Whether you cham-pion a cause or simply feel contrary, you choose your own path. Others are welcome to join your march to a different drummer, but only if their beat matches yours. You defy authority in prin-ciple and deed, even if you have similar views. Teenagers, in-surrectionists, and nonconformists all exemplify the Rebel Na-ture. Nova Rebels often don’t buy into Project Utopia’s claims.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP whenever you strike a solid blow against “the man”.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to conform to society’s expecta-tions. Regain 1 WP if rebelling will get you into serious trouble.

Rogue

Only one thing matters to the Rogue: herself. To each his own, and if others cannot protect their claims, they have no right to them. The Rogue is not necessarily a thug or bully, however. She simply refuses to succumb to the whims of oth-ers. Rogues almost universally possess a sense of self-sufficiency. They have their own best interests in mind at all times. Prostitutes, capitalists, and criminals all embody the Rogue Nature. Nova Rogues take what they want, when they want it, no matter what it is; or else hook up with whatever or-ganization best suits their goals that day.

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(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when your self-sufficient na-ture leads to success.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist screwing over someone when you could get some advantage out of it. Regain 1 WP if you’d make enemies by doing so.

Survivor

No matter what happens, no matter the odds or op-position, the Survivor always manages to pull through. Whether alone or with a group, the Survivor’s utter refusal to accept defeat often makes the difference between success and failure. Survivors are frustrated by others’ acceptance of “what fate has in store” or willingness to withstand less than what they can achieve. Outcasts, street folk, and idealists may well be Survivor Arche-types. A nova Survivor might be a renegade nova who has joined the Aberrant faction, or a vigilante keeping the streets safe while dodging the police and the criminals who want him dead.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you survive a dangerous situation via your own cunning and perseverance.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist taking any action which would prolong your own survival or increase your chances, no matter what it is. Regain 1 WP if you take an action that alien-ates or hurts friends and close allies for personal survival.

Thrill-Seeker

The Thrill-Seeker lives for the rush of danger. Unlike those of arguably saner disposition, the Thrill- Seeker actively pursues hazardous and possibly deadly situa-tions. The Thrill-Seeker is not consciously suicidal or self-destructive — he simply seeks the stimulation of imminent dis-aster. Gangbangers, petty thieves, and exhibitionists are all examples of the Thrill-Seeker Archetype. Nova Thrill-Seekers might take casual strolls through warzones to see “what hap-pens”, take control of a city because they can, or play as many sides of a conspiracy as possible to see how long they can maintain their cover.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you survive a dangerous situation you deliberately entered.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist indulging in an obvious foolhardy venture. Regain 1 WP for taking the "hard way" when doing so has no benefits and great danger.

Traditionalist

The orthodox ways satisfy the Traditionalist, who pre-fers to accomplish her goals with time-tested methods. Why vary your course when what has worked in the past is good enough? The Traditionalist finds the status quo acceptable, even preferable, to a change that might yield unpredictable re-sults. Conservatives, judges, and authority figures are all ex-amples of Traditionalist Archetypes. Traditionalist novas, being part of a race with a very short history, sometimes turn to reli-gion to see the proper behavior of “gods”, or else cling to the first nova fad they find and treat that as “the way things are done”. Others, however, steadfastly cling to the behaviors they had in baseline life, seeing no reason to change their lifestyle just because they can alter reality.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when your insistence on ad-herence to tried-and-true methods proves effective.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP or disregard intuition, non-traditional deduction, or the bleeding edge. Regain 1 WP if your refusal to accept new ideas hobbles a plan.

Visionary

You have a goal that only you can see, something to which you’ve dedicated your life. You may be a spiritualist, phi-losopher or inventor, but whatever you are, you search for something more. You create new possibilities by seeing be-yond the bounds of conventional imagination. Though you are full of new ideas, your head is often among the stars.

(Virtue): Regain 2 WP when you take a concrete step toward realizing your ultimate goal.

(Vice): Spend 1 WP to resist an opportunity to further your goals. Regain 1 WP when furthering your vision would lead to tragic results.

Allegiance

In the world of Aberrant, everybody wants a nova on their side. Even the most mundane nova usually still has some-thing she can offer to a group. These organizations, in turn, have benefits they can offer the novas. Below are some of the most common affiliations for player characters:

Aeon Society

Corporate

Criminal Organization

Elite (DeVries, Janissaries, etc.)

Independent/Individual

Municipal Defender

Nation

Nova Organization

Project Utopia

Religion

The Directive

Other

Attributes

Attributes are your character’s essential qualities, translated into numerical ratings. Ordinary humans’ Attributes range from one to five dots, with two being average. It is ex-tremely rare for a normal human to have five dots in an Attrib-ute. Attributes above 5 are generally unheard of outside of people with artificial enhancement or novas. The eruption of the Mazarin-Rashould node often awakens unheard-of poten-tial in people; as a result, novas frequently have Attribute rat-ings of 5 (or even higher!).

Many novas have Mega-Attributes; think of a Mega-Attribute as a modifier to your character’s normal Attribute, granting him superhuman capabilities. Mega-Attributes are dis-cussed in the Mega-Attributes Chapter.

Qualities

If an Attribute is rated 4 or higher, then it automatical-ly has a Quality. A Quality reflects a particular aspect of that At-tribute that the character is best at (or known for). Not every Strength or Intelligence 5 character is the same. Some strong people are athletic and good at sports, others are massive weightlifters, while some are deceptively weak-looking but wiry.

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Likewise, some intelligent people are amazingly logical or wiz-ards at math, while others are widely read or have an amazing memory. A character may have only one Quality per Attribute. On any roll involving an Attribute and its Quality, you get to reroll any 10s. Any successes gained on the additional rolls add to your total, and if any of the additional rolls come up 10s, you get to reroll them too! Example: A Strength 5 (Athletic) character climbing a rock face, or an Intelligence 4 (Logical) character trying to figure out a puzzle. If a Quality applies for a static value, simply have it add +1 to the relevant attribute. There’s no hard and fast rule for when the Quality applies. The Storyteller determines when and if a Quality ap-plies in any given situation, but there’s no reason you can’t suggest ways your Quality can help you out. You can also try to play to your strengths and find ways to use your qualities in different situations. A quality serves to both describe and define your character’s high Attribute rating, so go for a Quality that’s de-scriptive and fits your view of the character. Ask yourself “in what way is this character strong / intelligent / charismatic / etc.?” Use the Quality in descriptions of your character to get the idea across to others, such as “my character is highly intui-tive, cunning and eloquent.” The Qualities give everyone an immediate image of your character, and the reroll bonus helps reinforce this image through play. See each Attribute for a list of sample qualities.

Physical

Physical Attributes indicate a character’s raw strength, build, agility and sturdiness. Characters adept at physical com-bat or athletic activities have high Physical Attributes.

Strength

Strength rates physical power, including the capacity to lift objects and cause damage. This Attribute is used to re-solve jumps, leaps or other actions that draw on raw physical power. Strength also determines the base number of damage dice rolled for successful physical attacks. Qualities: Athletic, Brawler, Broad-Shouldered, Brut-ish, Compact, Huge, Power-lifter, Rugged, Stout, Well-Built, Wiry

Dexterity

Dexterity measures both agility and hand-eye coordi-nation. It describes how fast a character runs, how precisely he aims at a target and everything else that relates to speed, grace and control. Many combat pools use Dexterity to deter-mine the accuracy of the attack, and it is combined with Wits to calculate Initiative. Qualities: Acrobatic, Agile, Coordinated, Delicate, Fast, Flexible, Graceful, Nimble, Quick Fingers, Rhythmic, Steady Hand

Stamina

Stamina indicates your character’s health, tolerance for pain and how long she can maintain physical exertion. It encompasses endurance, physical will to live and sheer tough-ness. Stamina determines the character’s base soak pool and higher levels of Stamina provide additional Health Levels. Most novas develop reasonably high Stamina during eruption, as a side effect of channeling quantum energies.

Qualities: Determined, Enduring, Energetic, Healthy, Long-winded, Resilient, Stubborn, Tenacious, Tireless, Tough, Unflagging

Mental

Mental Traits cover a character’s perception, mental capacity, imagination and quick wits. Creative and intellectual individuals have high Mental Attributes.

Perception

Perception covers alertness and comprehension. It determines not only your character’s attentiveness to the world around him, but how clearly he interprets it as well. Qualities: Alert, Astute, Attentive, Detail-oriented, Gut Feeling, Insightful, Intuitive, Keen Eye (Ear, Nose, etc.), Nitpicky, Observant, Patient, Sensitive

Intelligence

Intelligence measures raw mental processes – memory, retention, judgment, reasoning and imagination, as well as your character’s ability to find connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of information or analyze complex ideas. The Attribute is not a measure of how fast your charac-ter thinks, but of how clearly he thinks. Qualities: Bookworm, Bright, Clearheaded, Discern-ing, Excellent Memory, Imaginative, Pragmatic, Rational, Thoughtful, Trivia, Widely Read

Wits

Wits ranks how quickly your character reacts to new situations and indicates general “grace under fire.” This Attrib-ute describes inherent common sense and how well your char-acter thinks on the fly. It also governs creativity. Wits combines with Dexterity to determine base Initiative. Qualities: Clever, Creative, Cunning, Graceful, In-genious, Iron Nerves, Jaded, Level-headed, Sharp Tongue, Shrewd, Unfazeable

Social

Social Traits describe a character’s influence, force of personality and looks. They often define interactions with oth-ers, from first impressions to leadership to dealing with people in general.

Appearance

Appearance is a measure of how memorable your character is. It can represent physical attractiveness, but it could also represent distinguishing features, like an unusual build, peculiar facial features, or an interesting voice; even an ugly person can have a high Appearance if there is something fascinating about her hideousness. Appearance is your char-acter’s ability to make a strong first impression or simply to generate an instinctive response in others. A character with low Appearance is simply neither memorable or fascinating. Qualities: Alluring, Exotic, Honest Face, Imposing, Luminous, Photogenic, Pleasant, Sensual, Sultry, Statuesque, Stunning, Wholesome

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Manipulation

Manipulation measures your ability to influence oth-ers by appealing to interests and personality, instead of your own natural appeal. This ability represents an aggressive per-suasiveness, and it can be subtle or blatant. Manipulation co-vers everything from leading others to tricking them, from being sly to dominating. No one likes being fooled, though, so failing a Manipulation roll has risks. Qualities: Authoritative, Cunning, Devious, Domi-neering, Inspiring, Persuasive, Slick, Sly, Way With Words, Witty

Charisma

Charisma is used to charm others and to gain trust through natural appeal, as opposed to appealing to them; your character’s “force of personality”, if you will. It reflects an air of confidence or social grace when dealing with people. Charisma defines how likable your character is to others and whether they actively seek her company. Qualities: Charming, Cool, Eloquent, Genial, Polite, Public Speaker, Quiet Confidence, Rebellious, Suave, Sympa-thetic, Telegenic

Abilities

Skill starts with raw potential (represented by an At-tribute), combined with training or education designated by an Ability). When you perform an action, your dice pool is the combination of the appropriate base Attribute and the Ability most suited to the task; for simplicity’s sake, each Ability is matched with its most relevant Attribute. However, these are only guidelines - the Storyteller may allow characters to use Abilities with other Attributes. This combined rating is called the skill total.

Abilities default to a rating of 0. Baselines can raise Abilities as high as 5. One dot represents novice proficiency; a rudimentary understanding of the fundamental principles. Three dots represents a professional level of competence. Five dots in an Ability represents the peak of human potential in an ability; these are the handful of people who define a field. Some characters can raise their Abilities beyond this cap, rep-resenting superhuman facility with that Ability.

Abilities Above 5

The normal maximum for any Ability is five dots, rep-resenting the pinnacle of human potential in any given field. But there are some who exceed this-the once-in-a-century grandmasters, the people who define Athletics, or Martial Arts, or Drive, or Firearms.

Such facility may be gained with either (Ability) Prodi-gy(increasing the maximum number of dots in an ability by 1) or “simply” by practicing the Ability intensively for an extensive period of time with superhuman attributes and lifespan.

If a character wishes to gain a superhuman Ability score via practice and use, an Ability has a cap of the charac-ter’s Attribute rating (or 5, whichever is higher) and requires decades of training and constant use (a quick rule of thumb will be 100 years of practice and use to be able to gain the sixth dot and another 50 years of practice after that for each addi-tional dot).

Abilities may not be increased above 10 dots.

Untrained Use

Characters with no dots in an ability are considered untrained. This is not to say they cannot do anything related to the ability, it just means they know no more than a layman in the field. A character with no dots in Drive may still have a driver’s license (but little understanding of defensive driving or more complex driving), while a character with no dots in Fire-arms probably still knows that you point a gun in the direction of the bad guy and pull the trigger to dispense bullets.

A Storyteller may use any of these below options to differentiate unskilled characters from skilled characters. At the Storyteller’s discretion they may well apply to characters with low ability levels or who lack certain Specialties: A character with Medicine 1 probably doesn’t know how to do brain surgery.

Roll Requirements: An unskilled character must roll to attempt actions that a skilled character could do without rolling. A character with Athletics could easily scale a 2 meter high fence quickly, while a character without it must roll Dexterity to do so.

Increased Difficulty: An unskilled character rolls at an increased difficulty (either adding +1 to the difficul-ty of the roll or doubling the difficulty at the ST’s dis-cretion). Someone with firearms training might find it much easier to shoot someone, but even an un-trained firearms user is dangerous.

Impossible Tasks: An unskilled character simply may not attempt the task-they have no idea where to start and how to accomplish it. In general, any task that is at more than +1 difficulty should probably be impossible unskilled, and for some esoteric tasks like brain surgery, impossible even with a low level in the ability.

Related Skill: The character instead has to default to another, similar skill but at a higher difficulty (normally +1 difficulty) or a reduced rating (typically half rating, rounded down). This is most common with Field Skills (someone who knows Biology probably has a basic education in Chemistry and Physics, after all).

Field Skills

Certain Abilities are actually Fields: several related Abilities (branches) grouped under one heading; in the follow-ing list of Abilities, such Abilities are followed by the tag: (Field). The individual Abilities must be bought separately; for example, Science includes Biology, Chemistry, and other branches of Science. However, instead of buying “Science”, the player buys “Science: Biology” or “Science: Chemistry”, gaining proficiency only in that category.

If an Ability is a Field Skill, a list of Branches will fol-low. This list may be exhaustive, but creative players may come up with new branches, or Storytellers may want to divide Branches into their component parts. Storytellers are cautioned that, if branched too far, the Branches can be reduced to Spe-cialties.

If an Ability that is normally a field is not heavily em-phasized in a game, the Storyteller can treat it as a normal abil-ity rather than a field. For example, in a 4-color game (where Science and Engineering are less likely to change the world), they may be treated as standard abilities instead of fields.

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Likewise, an ability that is heavily emphasized can be convert-ed into a field.

Specialties

Each Ability represents a fairly broad field of knowledge; it’s unlikely that an individual would be equally skilled in all aspects of an entire category. To reflect this variety of specialization, Abilities have Specialties, or areas of exper-tise. Specialties differ from qualities in that the former are areas of special training, while the latter are simply innate aspects of the individual.

You may purchase a maximum of three Specialties for each Ability normally. You can buy any given specialty only once. In other words, you could not take the “Inclement Weather” specialty twice. If you buy your character a specialty, write it after the Ability on your character sheet.

Once purchased, a Specialty allows your character to add an extra die when applicable. A character with Drive (In-clement Weather) adds an extra die when making maneuvers in rain or snow.

See individual Abilities for example Specialties.

Dramatic Systems

The only things limiting your actions are your imagi-nation and your character’s skill. During a game session, char-acters - both player and Storyteller personalities - attempt nu-merous diverse and complicated activities. The Storyteller is responsible for keeping all of this action organized while de-termining success or failure for all characters.

Dramatic systems simplify the Storyteller’s job by supplying rules for a number of common activities. See the in-dividual Abilities for write-ups of their dramatic systems.

Storytellers should, and will undoubtedly have to, in-vent their own dramatic systems for new situations. The list of systems below is in no way exhaustive, but it pro-vides a solid foundation on which to base events. Bear in mind that characters lacking a specific Ability may default to the At-tribute on which the Ability is based, unless stated otherwise.

A number of these systems may be tried again if the first attempt is unsuccessful. At the Storyteller’s discretion, however, subsequent tries may increase the difficulty of the ac-tion. Some example Dramatic Systems are included with the following Abilities.

Strength Abilities

Brawl

A character skilled in Brawl knows how to use her body to effectively hurt people. Such characters often refine this skill with a Martial Arts style.

Specialties: Blind Fighting, Combinations, Dirty Ma-neuvers, Multiple Opponents, Fighting in Flight

Melee

This character knows how to properly hold a melee weapon, where to strike, and how to judge their reach, amongst other finer points of such combat.

Specialties: Ax, Chain, Club, lmprovised Weapon, Knife, Nunchaku, Staff, Sword, Automobile (novas only)

Might

This ability improves a character's ability to push, pull, lift and throw objects, and perform other feats of strength. Might is unconcerned with finesse, so accurate throwing is not encompassed by it (see Athletics).

Specialties: Dead Lift, Leap, Throw

Encumbrance: The temptation to carry loads of equipment to satisfy every situation can be overwhelming. The Storyteller should make life difficult for players whose charac-ters have extensive equipment and weaponry lists.

A character is unencumbered if he carries up to 5 kg per dot of Strength + Might. This has no negative effects. Gen-erally this state requires a character to travel extremely light.

Light Encumbrance occurs when the character is car-rying more than that, up to 10 kg per dot of Strength + Might (so a character with Strength + Might 4 can carry up to 40 kg at light encumbrance). A lightly encumbered character adds +1 difficulty for all rolls involving long-term physical endurance and reduces her Dexterity by 1 for the purposes of movement. The Dexterity penalty may not reduce a character’s walk speed to less than three meters per turn.

A character is moderately encumbered if he carries up to 15 kg per dot of Strength + Might, adding +1 difficulty to all physical actions involving movement or endurance, and subtracts 2 from Dexterity for effective movement speeds. The Dexterity penalty may not reduce a characters walk speed to lower than three meters per turn.

Characters carrying 20 kg or more per dot of Strength + Might are heavily encumbered, and suffer +2 difficulty to all physical actions involving movement or endurance, -2 to Strength and Dexterity for movement, and +1 difficulty to all other physical actions. The Dexterity penalty may not reduce a characters walk speed to lower than three meters per turn. Heavily encumbered characters may not run or sprint.

Characters with Mega-Strength multiply their encum-brance limit by staggering amounts. See Mega-Strength for de-tails.

This system is a guideline; the Storyteller should not call for an inventory check every time your character picks up a pen.

Lifting: By default, a character can lift (30 x [Strength + Might]) kg, or drag twice that much (60 x [Strength + Might]) kg horizontally on a relatively flat surface. Having wheels on the object to make it easier to move (such as a cart) doubles the character’s weight capacity again, to (120 x [Strength + Might]).

Lifting weights or dragging objects above your lifting capacity requires a Willpower + Might roll, with each success adding +1 to that total for the purposes of lifting and carrying objects.

Characters with Mega-Strength multiply their lifting limit by staggering amounts. See Mega-Strength for details.

Example Weights: Lawn chair (15 kg), grown person (100 kg), empty cargo bin (240 kg), motorcycle (360 kg), girder (480 kg)

Reminder: The teamwork rules do apply here. Lifting is all or nothing - if you fail the roll, nothing

happens. On a botch, your character may strain something or drop the object on her own foot.

Opening/Closing: Opening a door with brute force calls for a Might roll. A standard interior door requires only two or three successes to bash open. A reinforced door or airlock generally takes at least 15 to 25 successes at difficulty +2 or +3. A magnetically locked blast door might take 100 or more successes and is rarely at a difficulty lower than +10. These

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successes may be handled as an extended action. While teamwork is possible (and recommended), a door can still be forced open through a single individual’s repeated hammering. Obviously, a door not held in some way can be opened without resorting to force. A botch causes a level of unsoakable Bash-ing damage to your character’s shoulder.

Throwing: Objects (grenades, knives) with a mass of one kilogram or less can be thrown a distance of the charac-ter’s Might skill total x 5 in meters. For each additional kilogram of mass that an object has, this distance decreases by five me-ters (particularly heavy objects don’t go very far). As long as the object’s mass doesn’t reduce throwing distance to zero, your character can pick up and throw it without having to make a Might roll. A character with 5 Might skill total can throw a 1 kg object 25 meters. He can throw a 2 kg object 20 meters and a 5 kg object five meters. If an object can be lifted, but its mass reduces throwing distance to zero, the object can be hurled aside at best - about one meter’s distance. Obviously, if an ob-ject can’t be lifted, it can’t be thrown at all (refer instead to “Lift-ing”).

The Storyteller may reduce throwing distances for particularly unwieldy objects, or increase them for aerodynamic ones. On a botch, your character may drop the object or strike a companion with it.

Characters with Mega-Strength may throw objects staggering distances. See Mega-Strength for details.

Dexterity Abilities

Athletics

Athletics governs movement, evasion, swimming, gymnastics, accurate throwing, riding animals, and most other feats of physical prowess where finesse is of primary im-portance. Athletics also covers the use of vehicles where the character’s body movements play a significant role in the oper-ation of the vehicle: bicycles, hang gliders, skateboards, surf-boards, water skis, etc. If a mech’s movements are based on the pilot’s, then it uses this Ability. Basically, if a device relies strongly upon the user’s body to steer its functioning (including Archery), it is probably Athletics.

Specialties: Acrobatics, Dodge, Gymnastics, Specific Sports, Tumbling

Climbing: When your character climbs an inclined surface (rocky slope, cargo container or building), roll Athletics. For an average climb with available handholds and nominal complications, your character moves three meters per success. The Storyteller adjusts this distance based on the climb‘s diffi-culty (easier: four meters per success; more difficult: two me-ters per success). The number of handholds, smoothness of the surface and, to a lesser extent, weather can all affect rate of travel. A short, difficult climb may have the same difficulty as a long, easy climb. The extended action lasts until you’ve ac-cumulated enough successes to reach the desired height. On a mild botch, your character may only slip or get stuck; on a more severe one, she may fall.

If your character has the Claws power, each level adds one die to all climbing attempts unless your character’s “claws” are really discharged kinetic energy or the like. A char-acter with the Adhesive Grip body modification may climb with-out a die roll.

Pursuit [Athletics, Drive, Pilot]: Catching some-one who’s trying desperately to avoid your character involves several different rolls, which can include Investigation or Sur-

vival. Basic pursuit is an extended action. The target starts with a number of free extra successes based on his distance from pursuers. This system breaks down as follows: on foot, one for every two meters ahead of pursuers; with mounts, flight, or ve-hicles, one for every 10 meters ahead of pursuers. Exception-ally long foot chases might involve Endurance tests.

If one participant has Hypermovement or Enhanced Movement and the other does not, or if one participant has Hy-permovement at a higher level than the other, the faster char-acter always escapes/ catches up unless the Storyteller dic-tates otherwise. In all other cases, the target and pursuers roll the appropriate Ability (depending on the type of pursuit) each turn, adding new successes to any successes rolled in previ-ous turns. When the pursuer accumulates more total success-es than the target, she catches up and may take further actions to stop the chase. As the target accumulates successes, he gains distance from his pursuers and may use that lead to lose his opponents. Each success that the quarry accumulates be-yond the pursuer’s total acts as a difficulty penalty of one to any Awareness rolls that pursuers have to make to remain on the target’s tail. The Storyteller may call for the pursuer to make an Awareness roll at any time (although not more than once per turn). If the pursuer fails this roll, her target is consid-ered to have slipped away (into the crowd, off the sensor screen). On a botch, the pursuer loses her quarry immediately. If the quarry botches, he stumbles or ends up at a dead end.

Riding: See Driving

Swimming: Anybody can swim. However charac-ters without Athletics can only dog paddle, at 1 meter/round if lightly equipped (or drown if more heavily laden). As for charac-ters swimming in general, long-distance or long-duration swimming requires successful Endurance rolls. The first roll is necessary only after the first half-hour of sustained activity, and it requires only one success. A cumulative difficulty penalty of one applies for each subsequent half-hour. If a roll fails at any time, your character tires; she may float, but she is too ex-hausted to swim. Your character can rest by floating, but the current difficulty doesn’t drop until she can get to solid ground and recuperate. On a botch, your character sinks and, if she doesn’t have Adaptability or an appropriate Body Modification, begins drowning.

Drive

Drive is a character’s ability to maneuver through traf-fic, take advantage of road conditions, pull off Stunts, and other impressive feats. Drive encompasses all sorts of ground-based vehicles: cars & trucks, commercial, heavy machinery, motor-cycles, scooters, tanks, certain types of mechs, etc. Every character is assumed to have basic proficiency with one type of vehicle, defined at character creation. Most people know how to drive a car, but somebody might have learned how to ride a motorcycle or has always used a skateboard. Just don’t be surprised if your Storyteller vetoes your request to choose “mech” as your native vehicle.

Specialties: Car, Tank, Motorcycle, Controlled Colli-sion, Inclement Weather, Narrow Streets, Off-roading, Vehicu-lar Manslaughter, Traffic

Driving: A Drive, Pilot, or Athletics roll isn’t needed to steer a vehicle or mount under normal circumstances - as-suming your character has the appropriate skill. However, bad weather, the vehicle or mount’s speed, obstacles and perform-ing complex maneuvers can challenge even the most compe-tent drivers and riders. Specific difficulties based on these cir-

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cumstances are up to the Storyteller, but they should increase as the conditions become more hazardous.

For example, driving in heavy rain increases the difficulty by one, but going fast while also trying to lose a tail jumps the penalty up three. Similarly, piloting a plane through artillery fire is +1, but adding a breakneck pace while avoiding pursuit bumps it to +3. A failed roll indicates trouble, requiring an addi-tional roll to avoid crashing or losing control. Players of charac-ters in control of a vehicle or mount, but who have no dots in the appropriate Ability, must roll for almost every change in course or procedure. On a botch, the vehicle or mount may go out of control or worse.

Pursuit: See Athletics

Firearms

This ability covers the use of personally aimed kinetic and energy weapons, from pistols to heavy autocannon ripped off their mountings by Mega-Strong novas. It does not cover the use of guided ordinance, such as missile launchers, nor does it cover the use of vehicle-mounted weapons, which re-quire different skills to aim and are often computer-assisted. The Firearms Ability also covers the care and maintenance of firearms, as well as identification of different weapons models.

Specialties: Pistols, Rifles, SMGs, Blind Fire, Heavy Weapons, Energy Weapons, Aimed Shots, Automatic Fire

Identify Firearm: To identify a firearm, the character rolls Perception + Firearms. The difficulty of this roll is normally +0, but is +1 for weapons the character has little familiarity with (for example, a hunter looking at cutting-edge railguns), and may increase to up to +4 for weapons that are extremely rare (prototype guns or decades-old discontinued designs).

Maintain/Repair Firearm: Characters roll Intelli-gence + Firearms to maintain and repair personal weapons. Firearms tend to be relatively simple to maintain and mainte-nance rolls are rarely higher than +0 difficulty. However, preci-sion firearms such as sniper rifles may be more difficult (+1 dif-ficulty), as are experimental weapons (+1-3 difficulty) or exotic firearms such as railguns (+1 difficulty). Difficulty increases are cumulative-an experimental railgun sniper rifle is maintained at +3-5 difficulty. Although firearms repair requires some tools, they are relatively common (outside of experimental or exotic weapons)

Pilot

Pilot covers the piloting of more exotic craft than con-ventional ground-based vehicles. Despite the name, piloting in-cludes vehicles that move along sand, water, through the ocean, and in space, in addition to traditional three-dimensional movement vehicles, such as airplanes and helicopters. It also governs mech piloting.

Specialties: Avoiding Obstacles, Choppy Waters, Emergency Landing, Inclement Weather, Narrow Passages, Tsunamis

Piloting: See Drive

Pursuit: See Athletics

Stealth

Stealth is the art of not being seen, whether it in-volves camouflage or keeping out of lines of sight or blending into crowds.

Although under Dexterity, Stealth often is used with Wits for shadowing people, or other tasks where control over one’s body takes a back seat to quick thinking and creativity.

Specialties: Ambush, Camouflage, Hiding in Shad-ows, Sneak, Trail

Shadowing: Shadowing someone requires that your character keeps tabs on the target without necessarily catching her – and while not being noticed by her! The target’s player can roll Awareness whenever she has a chance to spot her tail (the Storyteller decides when such an opportunity aris-es); the pursuer opposes this roll with a Stealth roll. The target must get at least one more success than her shadow does to spot the tail; if so, she may act accordingly. This resisted action is handled individually for each person shadowing the target (if the target is being followed by three people, her player makes three separate Awareness rolls, one against each target’s Stealth roll.

Sneaking: Rather than fight through every situation, your character can use stealth and cunning. A sneaking char-acter uses Stealth as a resisted action against Awareness rolls from anyone able to detect her passing. Unless observers re-ceive more successes than the sneaking character does, she passes undetected. Noise, unsecured gear, lack of cover or large groups of observers can increase Stealth difficulty. Secu-rity devices, scanners or superior vantage points may add dice to Awareness rolls. On a botch, the character stumbles into one of the people she’s avoiding, accidentally walks into the open, or performs some other obvious act.

Stamina Abilities

Endurance

Endurance reflects special training to extend the hu-man body’s limits to endure physical hardship. Characters with Endurance can push on despite fatigue, exertion, and pain. Specialties: Fasting, Holding Breath, Long-Distance Exertion, Sleep Loss, Resist Poison, Resist Disease

Poison Resistance: Diseases and toxins are re-sisted via a (Stamina + Endurance) roll.

Feats of Endurance: Endurance determines how well and for how long your character can run beyond her nor-mal capacity, stay awake after a day of activity or hold her breath for an abnormally long time. Sustaining such acts de-pends on your character’s Endurance skill total, and it requires Endurance rolls after that point. The frequency of the rolls can range from every hour for trying to stay awake, each half-hour or so for maintaining physical activity or every few seconds to keep holding breath. Characters with Mega-Stamina find such feats exponentially easier, perhaps even automatic.

The Storyteller should add one to the difficulty (cumula-tive) to each subsequent roll after the first to reflect the increas-ing strain on your character’s vitality. Botches should suit the feat attempted (e.g., stumbling, reflexively gasping for air, nod-ding off, lunging for the nearest available food).

Perception Abilities

Awareness

The Awareness Ability covers a character's aware-ness of his surroundings. A character with high Awareness can easily see if he's walking into an ambush, spot even small or

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faraway objects, and finds other such feats of sensory prowess easy.

Specialties: Acute Hearing, Keeping Watch, Sharp Sight, Smell, Spot Ambush, Track

Awareness: This feat involves picking a face out of a crowd, keeping an eye on someone and being aware of one’s surroundings. Awareness covers anything that doesn’t require specific training in observation, as Investigation does. Awareness is often used in resisted rolls against Abilities like Stealth.

Gunnery

The Gunnery Ability determines a character's ability to use computer or mechanically-assisted weapons, such as missile launchers or vehicle weapons still attached to the vehi-cle. It also covers designating for artillery and airstrikes, main-taining said weapons, and troubleshooting them.

Specialties: Missiles, Artillery, Vehicle Weapons, Sur-face-to-Surface, Surface-to-Air, Air-to-Air, Air-to-Surface, Hu-man (Nova) Targets

Designate Artillery/Airstrike: A character who wishes to designate a target for artillery or air strikes uses Per-ception + Gunnery. Success on this roll means the incoming ordinance strikes what it was aimed at in dramatic systems. This roll is normally at +0 difficulty, but things such as adverse weather, lacking military-grade laser designators, poor com-munication, and poorly-trained artillery or aircraft crewmen may add anywhere from +1 to +4 to the difficulty per factor. Failure means the bombs or shells are off-target, while botching means that they hit something you don’t want them to hit. The rules for designating for incoming fire in combat are in the combat chapter.

Maintain/Repair Crew-Served Weapon: Charac-ters roll Intelligence + Heavy Weapons to maintain and repair crew-served weapons. The difficulty of this ranges from +0 for mounted machine guns to +4 or more for tank railguns and tac-tical lasers. Maintaining and repairing these weapons also re-quires specialist tools which are generally only found in maintenance depots.

Investigation

Investigation covers a character's ability to find clues, put together pieces of disparate evidence, fill in holes via read-ing between the lines, and otherwise find the facts in a mud-dled situation. Investigation may be quick or it may be a pro-cess, depending on the nature of the investigation.

Although under Perception, Investigation often is used with various other Attributes depending on the method of investigation.

Specialties: Analysis, Deduction, Interviews, Re-search

Investigation: Any search for clues, evidence or hidden contraband involves Investigation. The Storyteller may add a difficulty to investigations involving obscure clues or par-ticularly well-concealed objects. One success reveals basic de-tails; multiple successes provide detailed information and may even make deductions possible based on physical evidence. On a botch, he may miss or accidentally destroy obvious clues.

Tracking: Unlike shadowing, tracking requires you to follow physical evidence to find a target. Discovering foot-prints, broken twigs, blood trails or other physical signs lead the tracker right to the subject. Following such a trail is a standard action; multiple successes provide extra information

(subject’s rate of speed, estimated weight, number of people followed). The quarry can cover her tracks with a successful Survival roll. Each success on a Survival roll modifies any tracking difficulties by one. Abnormal weather, poor tracking conditions (city streets, installation corridors) and a shortage of time also add to tracking difficulty. On a botch, your character not only loses the trail, but he runs the risk of destroying the physical signs of passage as well.

Intelligence Abilities

Academics (Field)

Academics covers social fields of formal study, such as sociology, psychology, economics, history, and anthropolo-gy.

Branches: Anthropology, Economics, History, Law, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Sociology

Specialties: Ancient Mesoamerican History, Nova Psychology, Global Markets

Research: A character performs research when searching computer databases for historical Facts, when look-ing for obscure loopholes in anti-terrorism laws or when trying to learn a device’s function or origin. In all cases, the number of successes achieved determines the amount of information dis-covered; one success gives you at least basic information, while extra successes provide more details. The Storyteller may apply difficulties for particularly obscure data. On a botch, your character may not find anything at all, or he may uncover completely erroneous information.

Bureaucracy

A combination of political know-how, the understand-ing of how to write forms and fill in reports, and how govern-mental and business systems work, bureaucracy covers a character's ability to manage, manipulate, or destroy a large organization of bureaucrats for whatever purpose.

Specialties: Administration, Corporate, Governmental, Military, Procedures, Regulations, Requisition, Rumors

Computer

The Computers ability covers computer hacking, computer programming, and computers usage. Someone with Computer 0 may be able to use a computer, but without any skill in the area they will be completely lost when it inevitably fails. Specialties: Drive Wiping, Hacking, Programming

Hacking: A person seeking to hack into a computer system makes an extended roll using the Computer Ability. The difficulty can be normal (or an ordinary PC) or up to +8 (for hacking into military mainframes). Likewise, the number of successes needed can range from five or so up to 50 (or even more!).

Actively blocking a hacker is a resisted action; the adversary with the most successes wins. On a botch, you may trip a flag or even reveal your identity to the system you’re try-ing to breach. Hacking requires the Computer Ability; your character cannot perform it as a default task. Note that charac-ters with the Cyberkinesis power may substitute that power for these rules.

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Engineering (Field)

Engineering covers applied sciences, such as aero-space engineering, bioengineering, metallurgy, environmental engineering, or so on.

Branches: Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Mechanical Specialties: Power, Control, Electronics, Nanotech-

nology

Demolitions: Characters with an Engineering field that relates to the object they wish to demolish (Civil engineer-ing or Mechanical engineering for most structures and terrain features, Aerospace for planes, space stations ,and other ob-jects) may use Engineering to scuttle or otherwise destroy said objects with minimal footprint. Demolition rolls take anywhere from a few turns to scuttle a small yacht or airplane to several hours to destroy a skyscraper, require access to the proper tools (such as explosives), and although basic demolition is possible untrained with sufficient firepower, anything more complex than just “making the object in question blow up” re-quires a relevant ability.

Repair: Before repairing a device that’s on the fritz, your character must identify its problems (accomplished as a standard research roll). The Storyteller then sets the difficulty of the repair roll, if any. This difficulty depends on the problems’ severity, whether the proper tools or any replacement parts are on hand and if adverse conditions exist. An inspired research roll may offset these factors somewhat. A simple tire change is a standard action, while rerouting power through a secondary system is more difficult. Basic repairs take at least a few turns to complete. More complex ones are extended actions that last 10 minutes per success needed. On a botch, your character may simply waste time and a new part, or may make the prob-lem worse.

Research: See Academics

Medicine

Medicine covers diagnosing and treating ailments. Medicine is primarily focused on physical treatment, and when it dips into psychology it tends to be when psychological ail-ments have physical causes that can be treated via surgical or chemical means, or mitigated by lifestyle choices. For counsel-ing and mental analysis, a character should acquire Academics (Psychology).

Specialties: Emergency, First Aid, Novas, Pharmacy, Specialized Fields (Neurology, Oncology, etc.), Surgery

Science (Field)

Science covers pure and theoretical sciences, such as mathematics, physics, biology, geology, computer science (versus Computers), so on and so forth. Branches: Astronomy, Geology, Mathematics, Phys-ics Specialties: Entomology, String Theory, Volcanology

Research: See Academics

Strategy

Where tactics governs the small stuff, strategy gov-erns the big picture. Although primarily military, strategy is not entirely useless out of it-plenty of businessmen and CEOs have at least a dot or two of strategy, as it covers a host of concepts such as utility, operations planning, and game theory. Specialties: Delays, Hostile Takeovers, Supply Lines

Wits Abilities

Art (Field)

The Art skill generally covers one of several forms of non-performance art.

Branches: 3D Art, Calligraphy, Drawing, Painting, Sculpting

Specialties: Realism, Oils, Environments

Business

Applied economics and finance, the Business skill is more practical than economics, involving a knowledge of ad-vertisement, marketing, branding, and practical law. The Busi-ness Ability covers any attempt to amass wealth, from interna-tional banking to licensing oneself to a toy company. Specialties: Controller, Down Market, Merchandising, Positioning, Stocks & Bonds

Gambling: Business can be used to gamble on a short-term investment for temporary gain. Once per story, a character may roll Business with a difficulty penalty equal to her current Resources rating. The payoff happens at the start of the next story. If successful, the character’s Resources rat-ing is effectively one dot higher for one purchase next story. If the character botches, the character’s Resources rating is ef-fectively one dot lower for the entirety of the next story.

Permanently increasing Resources is better repre-sented via roleplaying.

Intrusion

Whether it involves low-tech locks or high-tech secu-rity systems, Intrusion covers the identification, subversion, and disabling of the system in question, to access whatever a per-son may own.

Specialties: Countermeasures, Electronic Infiltration, Lock Picking, Security Procedures

Intrusion: lntrusion covers breaking and entering, evading security devices, picking locks, bypassing keypad and retinal countermeasures – and preventing others from doing the same. When bypassing active security, your roll must suc-ceed on the first attempt; failure activates any alarms present (opening manual locks may be attempted multiple times, though). lntrusion rolls are usually standard actions, but they may be extended actions depending on a security system’s complexity (the Storyteller decides the actual difficulty). On a botch, the clumsy break-in attempt goes horribly awry.

Setting up security measures is a standard action, but multiple successes achieved in the effort increase the system’s quality (essentially adding to its difficulty to be breached).

Rapport

Rapport is the skill used to understand another per-son's motivations and desires, and connect to them on a per-sonal level. This knowledge can be used for mutual benefit, or for one's own selfish advantage. Specialties: Discern Motivation, Discern Truth, Emo-tional State, Instruction, Intent

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Resistance

Resistance represents the character’s mental training in overcoming psychological and physiological imbalance, in-vasion, and pressure. It is often used to resist torture or other “enhanced interrogation techniques”, maintain self-control in the face of temptation, and frustrate psychic probing.

Specialties: Mental Blank, Resist Temptation, Resist Pain, Resist Torture

Ignore Pain: A character who is suffering from penalties due to health damage, disease, or other similar det-rimental conditions may roll Resistance with a difficulty equal to half their total dice penalty, rounded up. Success reduces this penalty by 1, while an exceptional success (5 or more suc-cesses above difficulty) reduces it by 2. Penalties may not be reduced below 0.

Resistance: Resistance is used to resist various forms of coercion or mind-altering powers.

Streetwise

Streetwise is an overall understanding of the seedy underbelly of society and covers "street smarts" as opposed to "book smarts", covering the acquisition of illegal goods, an un-derstanding of good hidey-holes or where one can find an in-formant, gang culture, and other miscellany. Specialties: Black Market, Customs, Fence, Infor-mation, Scrounge, Street Trade

Carousing: See Style

Survival

The ability to live off the land, navigate with nothing more than a compass and the stars, and identify poisonous plants and animals, survival covers the character's ability to live without the assistance of modern technology. Specialties: Fire-Building, Forage, Hunt, Set Traps, Track

Tracking: See Awareness

Tactics

Tactics is the smaller-scale brother to Strategy. Where strategy focuses on winning wars, Tactics focuses on winning battles. Tactics involves battlefield maneuvering, an understanding of proper tactical positioning, and planning on the fly, more so than Strategy. Specialties: Military, Nova, Police, Small-Unit, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism

Appearance Abilities

Intimidation

The intimidation ability covers looking imposing, threats (overt or veiled), stare-downs, ass-beatings, threaten-ing the target's children, and so on.

Although under Appearance, Intimidation often is used with Strength for more overt threats, or Charis-ma/Manipulation for indirect threats.

Specialties: Implied Threat, Overt Display, Silent Urg-ing

Intimidation: lntimidation has two effects. Intimida-tion’s passive effect doesn’t involve a roll; it simply gives your

character plenty of space – whether on a shuttle, tram or in a bar. The higher your lntimidation skill total, the wider the berth that others give him.

Intimidation’s active application works through subtle-ty or outright threat. Subtlety is based on a perceived threat (losing one’s job, going on report, pain and agony later in life), and is paired with Manipulation. The blatant form of intimidation involves direct physical threat. In this case, you may pair Intim-idation with Strength. On a botch, your character looks patently ridiculous and doesn’t impress anyone in attendance for the rest of the scene.

Style

Style covers a character's ability to look good with the materials on hand, whether at an informal gathering or a formal ball, as well as first impressions. A character with a high rating in Style is also skilled at disguise, and engendering the re-sponse he or she wishes to engender via dress alone.

Specialties: Disguise, Fashion, Makeup, Seduction

Carousing: You influence others to relax and have fun. Applications of this roll might include showing a potential client a good time, loosening an informant’s tongue or making instant drinking partners who come to your aid when a brawl starts. It’s a standard action when dealing with an individual, though difficulties may be added for large or surly groups. On a botch, your character comes off as an obnoxious boor, if not worse.

Disguise: Disguise usually involves two Abilities, although only one may be called for at a time. Style is used to copy someone’s appearance successfully. The Storyteller may apply difficulties depending on the resources at your charac-ter’s disposal. A standard roll is suitable if ample visual refer-ences of the subject (and appropriate makeup, wig and ward-robe) are available. Going by a photo or having access to a limited wardrobe may be more difficult. Trying a disguise from memory or with little resources could be increase the difficulty by as much as three. A proper disguise takes at least 10 minutes to create (the Storyteller may add additional difficulty for such a rush job); an hour or more offers the best results.

To act like someone requires a Perform roll (the Ora-tory Specialty is useful only to imitate someone’s voice, while Acting can be used to imitate someone’s mannerisms). It is necessary to study a subject to create a believable disguise. A standard roll is adequate if the subject is in your character’s presence for at least an hour (or suitable photos are on hand). Working from poor-quality photos or rushing things can result in +1 or 2 difficulty. Meeting the subject briefly (or simply faking it) may result in +3 or +4 difficulty.

Aside from these systems, the Storyteller should take into account the player’s roleplaying. An adequate disguise roll may still succeed if the player does an impressive imitation, while even the most inspired disguise is ineffectual if the player acts no differently than usual.

On a botch, the disguise may be simply transparent or patently ridiculous, but it is obviously not convincing.

Seduction: The particular situation and style of the seduction determine which Ability is used. In pleasant, cultured circumstances, roll Etiquette. In a seedy underbelly bar, Streetwise is appropriate. Style encompasses any attempt to physically attract an individual or even a group. Roll Subterfuge when your character makes a seduction attempt through exag-geration or fabrication.

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Manipulation Abilities

Interrogation

Interrogation is a character's ability to get uncomfort-able or incriminating confessions from people, via various means. A character with a high Interrogation score is good at filtering truth from lies, understands the proper use of interroga-tion equipment, and may, if so inclined, also understand the proper methodology and usage of torture, whether physical or psychological. A character with high Interrogation also under-stands how to use being interrogated to one's own advantage, telling the interrogator what they want to hear rather than the truth and selling it as fact, among other things. Specialties: Drugs, Misdirection, Threats, Torture

Interrogation: Anyone can ask questions. With the lnterrogation Ability, you ask questions and have leverage. lnterrogating someone peacefully involves asking strategic questions designed to reveal specific facts. This method is a resisted action between your character’s lnterrogation and the subject’s Willpower. Rolls are made at key points during ques-tioning, probably every few minutes or at the end of an interro-gation session.

Violent interrogation involves torturing the victim’s mind and/ or body until he reveals what he knows. Doing so is a resisted action between your character’s Interrogation and the target’s Resistance or Willpower (whichever is higher). Rolls are made every minute or turn, depending on the type of torture used. The subject loses a health level for int per turn of mental torture. Damage inflicted deeach turn of physical torture, or one current Willpower popends on the tools used - fire and electricity cause Lethal damage; punches and kicks cause Bashing damage. The combined effect of physical and mental torture has devastating results. A botched lnterrogation roll can destroy the subject’s body or mind.

Whatever the interrogation method used, if you roll more successes in the resisted action, the target divulges something for each extra success rolled. If your extra success-es exceed the victim’s Willpower score, she folds completely and reveals everything she knows. The extent and relevancy of shared information are up to the Storyteller (details are often skewed to reflect what the subject knows or by what she thinks her interrogator wants to hear).

Subterfuge

How to win friends and influence people (by lying your ass off), Subterfuge is the character's ability at trickery, deception, and other less-savory methods of personal interac-tion. Specialties: Con, Deception, Gossip, Lying, Seduc-tion

Credibility: Subterfuge is used when perpetrating a scam or trying to detect one (a scam can range from imper-sonating the authorities to using a forged passport). All parties involved, whether detecting the lie or perpetrating it, roll Sub-terfuge. The scam’s ”marks” must roll higher than the perpetra-tor to detect any deception. False credentials and other con-vincing props may add to the difficulty of uncovering the dupe, while teamwork may help reveal the scam. On a botch, the en-tire plan falls apart.

Fast-Talk: When there’s no time for subtlety, baffle them with nonsense. A target can be overwhelmed with a rapid succession of almost-believable half-truths. Hopefully, the sub-

ject believes anything she hears just to get away from the bab-ble - or becomes so annoyed that she ignores your character completely. Trying to Fast-Talk someone is a resisted action - your character’s Subterfuge against the target’s Willpower. Whoever scores more successes wins. On a tie, more babbling is needed. On a botch, your character goes too far, angering the target and rambling without effect.

Charisma Abilities

Command

Command is not only the ability to lead others, but al-so an indication of how willingly they follow your character. The better the ability to command, the more amenable people are to your character’s decision (even in extreme situations). Commands may be polite requests, written directives or strict orders. Command is used to inspire and lead personnel. By de-fault, it does not come with the ability to make intelligent com-mand decisions – that is the domain of Strategy and Tactics.

Specialties: Crowd Control, Discipline, Field Com-mand, Political Leadership

Etiquette

Etiquette is used for polite discourse - convincing people of the truth of your views via argument and rhetoric, or just being likable. Etiquette can come in handy whether clinking glasses at the classiest bars or warming up by a trash can fire. Specialties: Diplomacy, Negotiation, Social Graces, Sound Bites, Tact

Seduction: Described under Style

Performance (Field)

Performance covers performing arts. Branches: Acting, Dance, Oratory, Singing, Standup

Comedy, String Instruments Specialties: Opera, Disco, Classical, Dark Humor

Disguise: See Style

Oration: From a general’s rousing speeches to a politician’s slick double-talk, the capacity to sway the masses emotionally creates and destroys empires. When your charac-ter speaks publicly, whether to a small board meeting or to an entire N! TV audience, roll Perform. The Storyteller may in-crease the difficulty for a huge, dispassionate or openly hostile audience.

Oration is hit or miss - your character either succeeds or fails. On a botch, your character may damage her reputation or even be assaulted by the audience.

Performance: Perform can be used to impress an audience or to pay the bills. As with oration, the audience’s mood can increase the difficulty, as can the performance’s complexity. One success indicates an enjoyable if uninspired effort, while additional successes make the performance a truly memorable event to even the most surly crowd. On a botch, your character forgets lines or makes a gaffe.

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Other Abilities

We have tried to be as inclusive as possible with this list, but the list assumes a game set in the standard Aberrant setting, focusing on one of its major themes. Games set in alternate settings, different time periods, or with unu-sual foci, may benefit from creating other Abilities or split-ting existing Abilities into more focused Abilities. Discuss with your Storyteller. Some example obscure Abilities fol-low:

Archery

Energy Weapons

Microgravity Ops

Navigation

Occult

Ride

Stone Lore

Terrorism

Merits and Flaws

Merits and Flaws define your character in ways that Attributes and Abilities cannot. Attributes and Abilities are al-ways general and internal; Merits and Flaws are external or specific, or both. You may occasionally need to roll for a task relating to a Merit or Flaw (say, to see if allies can come to your char-acter’s aid, or if he can afford a new piece of equipment). In such instances, the Storyteller chooses the Ability that he feels best suits the task (Command, Intimidation, Etiquette or Sub-terfuge may be appropriate for the first example, depending on how your character presents herself; Bureaucracy, Streetwise or Computer are good options for the second). Alternatively, the Storyteller may have you roll your character’s Merit or Flaw rating (Allies or Resources, to continue the examples).

Merits

Merits are advantageous traits the character pos-sesses. Most Merits are generally rated from 1 to 5 (just like At-tributes and Abilities), with a few which have the capability of going higher and a few with lower maximum ratings. Merits above 5 dots are rare; STs should feel free to restrict their availability, increase their cost (by doubling or tri-pling their costs) or even ban them altogether for starting char-acters. However, there is no restriction on baseline humans having Merits above 5 dots: CEOs aren’t superhuman just be-cause they have Resources above 5 (although if you want to make a nova CEO whose powers revolve around the theme of money, go for it). Some Merits have the option to increase their cost by 1 or 2 dots for additional benefit. This effectively adds the stat-ed number of dots to the Merit’s rating for the purposes of pur-chasing the Merit.

Ally

Allies are individuals who your character has forged close bonds with. As the old saw goes, “friends help you move, good friends help you move bodies”. An Ally is the latter. Allies are willing and able to risk their lives, careers, and status to

help you, asking relatively little in return. This relationship isn’t purely a one-way street; Allies get into trouble, have their own needs, make requests of the character, and so on—and ignor-ing these may eventually alienate them or turn them into foes. But for the most part, as long as the character takes basic care to treat them with respect and thoughtfulness, they will never abandon the character in times of need.

This Merit may be taken multiple times, with each in-stance representing a different character. Allies cost more if they show up more often: If the Ally is guaranteed to show up at least once per story if they might be helpful, add +1 dot, +3 dots for once per session, and +5 dots for once per scene that they might be helpful in.

x None; Your friend isn’t powerful enough or generous enough to qualify.

• One ally of moderate power (one baseline tier below the character, or built on 10 NP less than the character).

•• An Ally only slightly inferior to the character (same baseline tier, or 5 NP below the character)

•••. The character has one Ally of equivalent power.

•••• One Ally who is significantly more powerful than the character (1 baseline tier higher or +5 NP above the character).

••••• The character has an exceedingly powerful ally (2 baseline tiers higher, +10 NP above the character).

Authority

This Merit provides a character with power over an organization, such as a business, military, or government bu-reau. Authority is granted on a per-organization basis. Just be-cause you’re a 4-star general in the United States Army doesn’t mean you can waltz into the offices of Microsoft and tell them to dance to your tune. Authority does not have to be for-mal either; being a “Special Advisor” may give you no actual authority but a lot of influence over an organization.

It costs more to have Authority over larger and more powerful organizations. The Merit’s costing implies that you have Authority over a relatively small branch of the organiza-tion (such as a single military unit or a branch office in a single region) or that the organization is relatively small (a business, a municipal government, or a single cell of a larger network).

Authority costs +1 dot if it represents regional influ-ence (being the governor of a state or part of a government bu-reau with a narrow responsibility, a massive conglomerate with influence over an entire state or province, or a relatively small and isolated nation such as the Philippines), +2 dots for influ-ence over a small nation or limited international influence (a gi-ant international corporation, for example), or being the head of a government bureau with a broad-ranging responsibility), or 3 extra dots for influence over a powerful nation or an influential government branch in a superpower. Influence over a super-power such as China, India, or the US, and influence over a powerful extranational group such as the Aeon Society or Pro-ject Utopia, costs 4 additional dots.

Authority may be purchased multiple times, to repre-sent influence in multiple organizations. x None; you have no special authority.

• Low ranking-authority. You have the ability to make minor decisions but little actual au-thority.

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•• You have some level of real authority, with the ability to make actual policy decisions. You still have to go along with what the or-ganization wants you to do, but you have extensive leeway in actually doing it.

••• You’re allowed to set policy, to some minor degree. If you fail, as long as it doesn’t be-come a habit and you have a decent excuse it’s not likely to reflect poorly on you.

•••• As a high-ranking authority in the organiza-tion, you have quite a bit of leeway and your actions and orders are quite likely to reach the attentions of upper management.

••••• You have influence at the highest levels of policy-making. Your hand can shape just about anything the organization does, should you care enough about it. The peo-ple who can actually overrule you without very good reason number in the single dig-its.

••••• • The buck stops here. You have final say over all of the goals and methods of your organization. Your control is unlikely to be absolute, but unless you abuse it you’re un-likely to lose any of it.

Bioenhancement

A character with this Merit has undergone human en-hancement techniques. The specifics of these techniques are left up to the Storyteller and player. The character may have been given extreme psychological and physical conditioning or experimental drug regimens. It’s also possible that character was implanted with cybernetic augmentations, or genetically engineered. No matter what the method used, the character is more than human and may purchase augmentations at a dis-counted rate.

Novas may not purchase this merit. Because of their godlike powers, their bodies change to reflect their own self-image. Although this certainly has advantages (most novas are extremely attractive because of this side effect), it means that they cannot accept external modification as easily as a base-line human can. Therefore, a nova must pay the full XP cost to purchase Augmentations.

This merit provides a character with a certain amount of XP usable for buying body modifications only, giving normal humans a method of competing against weaker novas. Bioen-hancement XP may not be used for any other purposes.

The science of human enhancement is not perfect in the 21st century, and side effects are common. Characters with this merit at high ratings often have Aberrations as well, such as Dependency, mental instabilities, and physical issues.

x You make do with the gifts nature gave you. • The first step on the road to a post-human

existence is the easiest one. Many people take this step and go no further. You gain 10 XP to spend on body modifications from your enhancements.

•• You’ve received moderate enhancements. You have 20 XP to spend on body modifica-tions.

••• The modifications you’ve undergone give you a large edge over baselines in the same career path. You gain 34 XP of body modifications.

•••• Your performance is noticeably superhu-man due to your enhancements. You gain 48 XP of body modifications.

••••• Who you were before these upgrades is ir-relevant. You have undergone radical en-hancements and come out the better for it. You gain 60 XP of body modifications.

••••• • Some people will be left behind by human evolution. You won’t be one of them. At this level Bioenhancement gives 75 XP of ‘free’ body modifications.

••••• •• Transhumanism isn’t a buzzword, it’s a way of life. If that means sacrificing more and more of your humanity for superior perfor-mance, so be it. You gain 100 XP of body modifications.

••••• ••• Your ancestors aren’t your family anymore, they’re the hundreds of scientists and engi-neers who built your new existence.125 XP of body modifications are yours from this background.

••••• •••• Almost all of your humanity has been left on the operating table, replaced with superior engineering. This rejection of the human condition has granted you 150 XP of body modifications.

••••• ••••• Ordinary people are just piles of meat and bone. You are the future. Some may call you inhuman, others posthuman. You have a whopping 200 XP of body modifications from this background alone.

Cipher

The world of Aberrant is a realm of secrets, covert conflicts and double-agents. Such being the case, many novas wish to maintain private lives away from the bustle of fame. The Cipher Background can represent a number of things - an aptitude for hiding secrets, lack of registration with govern-ments or credit bureaus, possibly even one or more alternate identities. Cipher is particularly prized by the black ops of Pro-ject Proteus and the mask-wearing elite caste of novas, as both of these groups prefer to hide their true faces and names from public scrutiny.

Cipher operates like an invisible data shield, provid-ing the character who possesses it with protection from scruti-ny. It won’t keep a character from showing up on security video after a break-in at a Project Utopia facility, but it may make it so that the T2M members assigned to track you down can’t put a name to your face. Cipher only comes into play when some agency or individual begins poking around in a character’s life, attempting to get information or dirt on that character.

As a Background, Cipher is a must for certain secre-tive character concepts. Directive agents, Proteus operatives and those novas possessing “secret identities” all benefit from high levels of Cipher. Generally, there are two ways of “ex-plaining” Cipher.

Some people just tend to leave very small data trails naturally. Maybe they don’t subscribe to OpNet or use fake names and SSNs on utility accounts. They also probably don’t leave their home regularly, or else live in a place where moni-toring them is difficult. Novas whom can shapeshift or teleport can easily avoid detection. This method requires dedication to maintain; such characters usually must eschew social lives, long-term relationships, and modern conveniences – they can

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ruin their Cipher by stepping in front of a street corner camera too often.

The other type of character with Cipher consists of those people who have had their identities systematically erased, specifically to make them hard to trace. Some people hire hackers (and especially nova hackers) specifically to en-sure that they disappear. Others make deals with powerful governments or corporations that can remove records, or pre-vent records from being made in the first place.

High Cipher ratings, especially those obtained through the latter method, may occasionally confer some prob-lems in addition to its many benefits. If the character needs to prove his identity, it might be hard to establish credibility (espe-cially if an imposter keeps good records). If arrested, he might arouse suspicion when his record keeps getting deleted.

x Normal; just like everybody else, anybody can read your life story

• You don’t leave a credit trail. •• Your friends know you by your nickname;

your own family couldn’t find you. ••• There is no public record of your existence. •••• You exist only in secret archives, chance

photographs, and scribbled recollections. ••••• Your entire existence is a shadow in the

system. There are literally no traces of you, anywhere, except where you want there to be.

Contacts

More casual than allies, contacts are people with whom your character has developed a mutually beneficial ar-rangement. Contacts use their talents, information or resources to help your character, but they always expect some favor in return. This favor could be a service, trade or even payment, but it generally matches the value of the contact’s assistance. A contact looks out for himself, first and foremost. He will not put himself at risk for the sake of the character.

Each dot represents major and minor contacts. Major contacts are individuals with whom your character inter-acts frequently. Major contacts know him personally and are from any walk of life, of any field of study, with access to a va-riety of information and resources, and they are willing to cut a deal. A contact could be a data-retrieval specialist at the local library, a fence specializing in vehicles or a Project Utopia field agent. Minor contacts specialize in fields of influence, like their major counterparts. They aren’t as knowledgeable or resource-ful, though. They may know of your character by nothing more than reputation or rumor, but they may be willing to work out an arrangement.

Tracking down a major contact doesn’t usually re-quire a die roll, but finding a minor contact does (typically Bu-reaucracy, Streetwise or Etiquette). Whether or not a contact feels inclined to help is another story, one that depends on the request. Of course, the more contacts your character has, the more people your character can go to if one doesn’t come through. It is possible, however, that a Storyteller character who begins as a major contact may, through continued deal-ings and good roleplay, develop a closer relationship to the character, that of an ally, follower or even mentor. In that case, the Storyteller should inform the player of this change and modify the game accordingly. Of course, it’s also possible to al-ienate a contact, perhaps even creating a new antagonist for the character to deal with, by abusing your relationship. Play-

ers and Storytellers should be aware of these characters’ po-tential for good roleplaying and take full advantage of that fact.

x No useful contacts. You have to do your own legwork.

• One major contact (with whom you likely have a special arrangement) and a few mi-nor ones.

•• Two major contacts in different areas and a smattering of minor contacts.

••• Three major contacts and a respectable number of minor ones.

•••• Four major contacts in different areas (alt-hough you may double up in a given field) and a large number of minor contacts.

••••• Five major contacts and a minor contact vir-tually anywhere you care to look.

Dormancy

Generally speaking, most novas are readily identifia-ble as such. Not only are their physiques too perfect, their bod-ies tailored to handle energies beyond human comprehension, but many “bleed” trace amounts of quantum energies into the environment. This effect is relatively harmless (except in the cases of novas with high amounts of Taint), but it makes the nova stand out. Even shapeshifters and novas with Mega-Appearance enhancements such as Copycat harbor large amounts of internal quantum energy; while their powers ena-ble them to avoid casual detection, concentrated scans by no-vas looking for traces of quantum might reveal their true nature.

Novas with the Dormancy Background, though, are able to “power down” and avoid detection as novas. “Dorm’ing down” takes a turn (three seconds) of concentration. This shuts down the M-R node, halting the flow of quantum en-ergy from that gland and internalizing quantum energies.

While dormant, the nova looks like the baseline she was before her eruption. This suppresses many of the ad-vantages and disadvantages of being a nova. Effects of Suppression:

Quantum is considered 1

Cannot use Mega-Attributes or quantum powers

Appetite reduces to something like a normal human level

Considered to have a permanent Taint rating of 0 or (current rating – Dormancy), whichever is higher.

Suppression of a number of Taint-granted Aberra-tions equal to their Dormancy rating

Recover quantum points at the reduced rate of one point per day Nova Features Retained:

Their basic nova characteristics (increased Endur-ance and Resistance, extended lifespan, etc.)Their additional health levels

The use of any body modifications they possess. Characters may purchase non-HL increasing body modifica-tions that are active only when dormed up if they have Dor-mancy 4 or 5, as some body modifications are obvious and dif-ficult to hide.

While the nova is dormed down, the player may add their character’s Dormancy rating to the difficulty of any attempt to detect the dormant nova for what she is.

Novas with Dormancy ratings of 4 or higher may choose to have a “human form” and “nova form,” transforming between one and the other. At Dormancy 4, the nova form may look different, but it has certain basic features in common with

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the human form (fingerprints, retinas, blood type); at 5 or above, the human and nova forms can be completely different. How-ever, novas that choose to switch forms have no access to any of their nova characteristics while in human form.

Recently, paraphysician Dr. Daniel Fortesque found a startling number of cases of novas who possess two forms ex-hibiting taint-derived Disassociative Identity Disorders, lending credence to the belief that differences between baseline and nova involve a number of mental changes as well as the more obvious physical changes brought on by eruption.

Eufiber

Made of a complex living polymer, eufiber is a won-drous material with many desirable physical properties, but shows its true nature when allowed to bond to a nova in sym-biosis. Although all eufiber grants armor protection and quan-tum storage, high level eufiber colonies can improve physical attributes, increase a character's physical appeal, and even provide environmental protection. All eufiber is polymorphic and color-shifting, which allows a character to emulate almost any form of clothing with it on a successful Wits + Style roll, and can do so without reducing freedom of movement or pe-nalizing the nova's physical actions. The bonuses from each dot are cumulative: Three dot Eufiber has the powers of two dot and one dot Eufiber as well. Eufiber, however, requires the Nova to feed it quantum points, or it loses its ability to provide its bonuses, requiring 2 quantum points per day per dot in the background. Unfed Eufiber provides no bonuses and reverts to whatever appearance it was originally purchased in, until it is fed.

As of yet, there has been no confirmed Eufiber colony which exceeds the 5-dot rating. Such powerful Eufiber may possess quantum powers or Mega-Attributes of its own.

x You do not possess true eufiber. • The nova has a minimally capable (or a

synthetic) Eufiber colony which is barely capable of transformation. The colony pro-vides (rating + 3) points of soak with no penalty and stores up to (rating x 2) quan-tum points beyond the Nova's normal stor-age ability that may be used for any pur-pose. Eufiber also instinctively uses its stored quantum energies to reinforce its structure, allowing it to pay 1 stored Quan-tum point to negate 1 health level of post-soak damage, up to its maximum storage capacity. Eufiber clothing also provides lim-ited active temperature regulation and wicks sweat, adding +(rating) to a Nova's Endur-ance.

•• The nova possesses a reasonably capable Eufiber colony that has more transformative ability, allowing her to create flattering fash-ions that perfectly frame her body shape and flatter her figure. More practically, two-dot Eufiber provides improved shape-alteration that allow for more options. At this level, the character gains +(Eufiber rating) to all Style rolls from her Eufiber, and may use it to create practical extensions to her clothing such as gliding wings, parachutes, bungee cord, and other tools as long as they are simple systems with no moving parts and can be mostly made of cloth.

••• At this rating, the eufiber can act like a powered exoskeleton, using its stored quan-tum energies to harden load-bearing struc-tures in its frame and the carbon nanotubes in its matrix to emulate muscle. With this ability, it also can create hardened tools and even grasping tendrils. Three-dot Eufiber adds +2 to Strength while worn and also al-lows a character to use it to provide any simple tools with no moving parts, or im-prove his hand to hand combat ability by forming sharp edges, turning unarmed damage Lethal. At this rating, the character can create muscular tendrils from his Eufi-ber, with a Strength equal to the dot rating of the Eufiber minus one for each meter the tendrils are extended. Strength 0 tendrils may lift only 1 kilogram.

•••• The nova has an intelligent and powerful colony that can use its stored quantum en-ergies to emulate most biology. Four-dot Eufiber adds +1 to Stamina while worn by constantly stimulating peak physical per-formance, and also acts as a powerful filtra-tion membrance and recycling system. Four-dot Eufiber can recycle water, extract oxygen from the ocean (or act as a re-breather), and protect from exposure to most chemical or biological weapons (ex-ceptions being anti-Nova weapons such as Eclipsidol).

••••• The nova has bonded both body and mind with the pinnacle of Eufiber colonies, a re-finement of everything that has come before. The Nova's Eufiber provides her an addi-tional +1 to Dexterity and Stamina. Finally, the eufiber is intelligent enough to alert the Nova of potential dangers and act as a massive compound eye, adding +2 to all Awareness rolls.

Fame

If nothing else, novas are certainly popular. Many of them are powerful and fascinating; if nothing else, they’re rare, unique, and still a recent phenomenon. Because of that, novas find fame exceedingly easy to achieve. A single demonstration of powers, an impressive superhuman accomplishment (whether self-serving or charitable, heroic or villainous) and fan clubs spring up around them. Novas don’t have to become fa-mous, but more than one reluctant nova has found herself thrust into the intense glare of the limelight.

Famous novas find a lot of doors open up for them. They get ready access to the Amp Room; government officials want to pose with them for photographs; strangers offer wild favors just for an autograph. Such novas can sway public opin-ion just by giving their thumbs up or down on a situation, even if they know nothing about the subject. Enemies can’t just make a famous nova disappear; her absence raises questions. Also, your Storyteller might permit you to reduce difficulties of certain Social rolls against particularly star-struck or impres-sionable people.

On the other hand, such attention makes it difficult for novas to hide their identities. This is why many novas have se-cret identities – they just want some peace and quiet once in a while.

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x None; your 15 minutes of fame has yet to begin.

• You’re known to a select subculture — local club-goers, industry bloggers, or the Park Avenue set, for instance.

•• Random people start to recognize your face; you’re a minor celebrity such as a small-time criminal or a local news anchor.

••• You have greater renown; perhaps you’re a senator or an entertainer who regularly gets hundreds of thousands of YouTube hits.

•••• A full-blown celebrity; your name is often recognized by the average person on the street.

••••• You’re a household word. People name their children after you.

Favors

Some people owe you some favors for services ren-dered in the past. Maybe you cleared their debts or put yourself at risk for them once. Whatever the case, they now owe you a favor. At higher ratings, the person must do much more to pay off the favor. A life debt is extremely hard to pay off and would require something like saving your life or risking their own life to do something. Of course, if you push a person too hard, they might go rogue on you, so be judicious and be prepared to back up your debt with something, just in case your debtor gets cold feet.

x Nobody owes you any special favors. They might owe you a casual, negligible favor.

• One person owing a minor favor. •• One person owing a moderate favor, or two

minor favors (possibly split between several people).

••• One person owing a major favor, or a com-bination of lower favors

•••• One person owing a tremendous favor, or a combination of lower favors.

••••• One person owes you their life, or a combi-nation of lower favors.

Followers

The Follower background gives you loyal retainers, armed soldiers, lab techs, or various other forms of personnel. In general, each dot of Followers gives you some level of loyal people who are willing to do things for you. Followers come in one of three flavors-Physical, Mental, and Social, which pro-vides their intended competence. In other areas they tend to be incapable of significant assistance (although they should be able to handle themselves in that area). You can, in fact, mix and match. Unlike Allies, Followers are always on-call and as long as they get their paychecks and a modicum of respect, will follow the character without hesitation as long as the task is reasonable. Followers come with their own equipment and pay, and are not an active drain on the Nova's finances. There are four types of Follower:

Admirers: The weakest and most incapable form of follower, people who are in your fan club are generally not par-ticularly useful although some of them might be cute. Their dice pools tend to be somewhere around 3d or 4d - they don't tend to have any worthwhile specialties outside of doing everyday work. Generally attributes are 2s, with perhaps one or two at 3 and possibly one or two at 1. Although they aren't particularly

useful for most purposes, you can trust them to do everyday things like mow the lawn or wash your clothes or clean your mansion.

Regulars: These people want to make a career out of the field in question. Reservist soldiers, college students ma-joring in a field, door-to-door salesmen, whatever they are, their attributes tend to be a mix of 2s and 3s in their primary role and their dice pools are generally around 5d in that role. A regular is worth 5 admirers.

Specialists: Specialists have made a living out of their job and do quite well. With a 7d dice pool in their purview and an average Attribute rating of 3 in their primary role (physi-cal, mental, or social), they are competent in their field and useful for those purposes. A specialist is worth 10 admirers.

Experts: The most capable form of follower is the Expert, who takes many forms. Experts tend to have a host of attributes at 3 and 4 and a host of abilities as well, throwing 9d dice pools at problems in their purview (attribute 4, ability 4, specialty 1). Whether experienced engineers and scientists, special forces commandos, or professional hostage negotiators, they are assumed to have an Attribute rating of 4 in their role when it matters. An expert is worth 25 admirers. x Nobody flies to your banner.

• Your character has a handful of loyal fol-lowers. By default, this provides a character 25 Admirers or any combination of experts, specialists, and regulars that can be afford-ed.

•• Your character has more authority and in-fluence, and has 50 loyal admirers, or whatever combination of superior followers that sums up to the same equivalence.

••• Your character has a large fan club, busi-ness, mercenary group, or anything of a similar nature, providing 200 loyal admirers or a lesser number of superior followers.

•••• Your character can claim much larger influ-ence and fame, possessing loyal followers summing up to 500 loyal admirers or a lesser number of superior employees.

••••• Your character has a massive legion of fol-lowers, equivalent to 1,000 loyal admirers.

••••• • You have a small army of followers scat-tered throughout the world (or perhaps in a single nation), equal to 10,000 loyal admir-ers.

••••• •• Your character has the devotion and service of the equivalent of 100,000 loyal admirers. How did you get so popular? Note at this level and above you start running into limits-you can’t have 20,000 experts. The ST de-cides how many are reasonable, but as a rough guideline you should max out at 2,000 experts at Followers 7 and double that number per ever increasing dot.

••••• ••• You possess immense amounts of influence over your fellow man, with up to 500,000 loyalists who will follow you to the bitter end. It’s almost certain that most of them are bet-ter than mere ‘admirers’, regulars or profes-sionals.

••••• •••• With the equivalent of a million admirers, you have a good-sized nation living and dy-ing on your every word.

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••••• ••••• Up to ten million people are yours to com-mand. If you have Resources at a similar level, you are the undisputed lord of an en-tire nation.

Gadget

A character may possess a gadget at character gen-eration, paying background points for the gadget. Instead of using the construction rules, gadgets bought at character gen-eration are given a fixed number of NP for powers, a fixed Quantum score, and a fixed Quantum Pool. The basic item the gadget is built on should not have a cost exceeding the nova’s Resources score. Although Gadget is only listed up to 5, Gadgets above that point level exist. Each dot in Gadget above 5 adds +2 NP to the Gadget’s value for even dots and +3 NP for odd dots (building the Gadget on 17/20/22/25/27 NP for Gadget ratings 6-10). x You don’t own any special gadgets.

• The character has a trivial gadget with 5 NP of Quantum powers and Quantum 1, with 5 points of Quantum Pool. No power on the gadget may be rated at higher than 1 dot.

•• The character has a minor gadget with 8 NP of Quantum powers and Quantum 1/Quantum Pool 10. No power on the gadg-et may be rated higher than 2 dots.

••• The character has a gadget with 10 NP of Quantum powers and Quantum 2/Quantum Pool 15. No power on the gadget may be rated at higher than 3 dots.

•••• The character has a powerful gadget with 12 NP of Quantum powers and Quantum 3/Quantum Pool 20. No power on the gadg-et may be rated at higher than 4 dots.

••••• The character has an extremely powerful gadget with 15 NP of Quantum powers and Quantum 3/Quantum Pool 25.

Iron Will

You might not have any more drive than someone, but you certainly have a much stronger resistance than they do to mind-altering powers and drugs. Your sense of self is un-shakable, and no matter if you’re some kind of special-ops hard man or a stoner who just used LSD a lot, you know how to handle yourself when faced with brainwashing, mind control, or just a bad acid trip. Iron Will adds bonus dice to resist mun-dane or nova-power based brainwashing (such as Hypnosis), outright mind control (like Domination), or hallucinations (from LSD, Mirage, or similar).

x You aren’t any harder to brainwash than your other traits would suggest.

• You’ve had some experience with mind-altering techniques; +1d to resist mind control, brainwashing, or hallucinations.

•• Your tinfoil hat gets a lot of use; +2d to re-sist mind control, brainwashing, or hallucinations.

••• You don’t need your tinfoil hat anymore; +3d against mind control, brainwashing, or hallucinations.

•••• Ridiculously resistant to having your mind changed by invasive techniques; +4d to resist hallucinations, brainwashing, or mind control

••••• Unshakable self-determination in the face of mind alteration; +5d to resist hallucinations, brainwashing, or mind control.

••••• • Near-immunity to any form of hostile mental coercion; all the benefits of 5 dots plus spending 1 Willpower negates all mental influence from drugs or powers.

Linguistics

Characters in Aberrant are frequently wrapped up in conspiracies, many of which will take them globetrotting. Be-cause of that, characters will encounter a wide variety of lan-guages in their travels, and if they cannot keep up, they might find themselves at a serious disadvantage. Linguistics repre-sents the training that a character has in a variety of tongues.

Assume that all characters begin with one language (their native tongue. For every dot in Linguistics, the character knows a certain number of additional languages. Each lan-guage occupies one language slot. Formal academic mastery of a language (which includes literature, historical, and cultural aspects) requires 1 additional language slot. An English pro-fessor who speaks no other language has Linguistics 1 (Eng-lish; Formal English), for example. Learning alternate expres-sions of languages also takes 1 slot even if they share com-mon systems like systems of writing or speech. A character uses 2 language slots to speak both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently, and a character who understands English needs to pay 1 language slot to learn sign language and another to learn braille.

In addition to understanding additional languages, the character may roll her Linguistics rating to decipher languages she does not understand. The difficulty depends on how diffi-cult the language is to decipher: a version of a known language with a lot of unfamiliar slang is easier to decipher than a lan-guage from a different language family.

x The character knows her native language, but no others.

• One additional language •• Two additional languages ••• Four additional languages •••• Eight additional languages ••••• Sixteen additional languages For every dot beyond 5, continue to double the known languages.

Lucky

Some people lead charmed lives. They win scholar-ships, meet the right people, and birds just don’t crap on their cars.

In general, a character with this Background has good luck. Mechanically, the character can either roll twice and take the better result, or roll their rating in a situation to make things turn out for the best. The character may do this a num-ber of times per story equal to her Lucky rating. In more gritty games, Storytellers may wish to eliminate this merit entirely and force characters who want it to buy the Luck power instead.

x You might think you’re lucky, but a lot of people think that.

• You frequently get all green lights on the way to work.

•• You’re bound to get your dream job. ••• Gambling dens assume you’re cheating. •••• When disaster strikes, it doesn’t strike you. ••••• You could win the lottery. Twice!

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Martial Arts

The Martial Arts merit represents formal or informal knowledge of combat techniques, modifying various combat maneuvers, often but not always unarmed. The rating of this merit is limited to the character’s Brawl rating (and if applied to Melee, Melee as well)-a character with Brawl 3 may not have more than 3 dots in Martial Arts. Ratings in this merit past 5 points are cinematic and border on the supernatural, so they should be restricted or banned in more gritty games (although the requirement of Brawl 6+ will already limit their availability). Most combatants with a high rating in Brawl and/or Melee will have some level of the Martial Arts merit, even without any formal schooling.

x You have no real martial arts training, just brawling.

• 1 martial arts technique •• 2 martial arts techniques ••• 3 martial arts techniques •••• 4 martial arts techniques ••••• 5 martial arts techniques ••••• •+ 1 additional martial arts technique per dot

Techniques: Techniques are a fancy way to say “attack bonuses”. Note that all techniques only affect unarmed attacks by default. If not specifically mentioned to allow repurchases, a technique may only be purchased once. Repurchases stack all benefits. All techniques are listed below.

+1 Accuracy/Damage for a specific attack (can be re-purchased any number of times, but cannot add more than +2 Accuracy/Damage to any one attack)

+2 Armor Piercing for a specific attack +1 Accuracy for all attacks +1 Damage for all attacks +1 Defense for all attacks (can be repurchased once) Special Techniques: Special techniques are simply techniques with special game rules instead of simply adding bonus dice to attacks or defenses.

Disarm Expert: Resisting disarm attempts by the character are at +1 difficulty. Repurchase to double these benefits. Finesse: Use Dexterity instead of Strength for attack accuracy. Purchase this technique twice to use Dex-terity instead of Strength for attack damage. Flurry of Blows: -1 Multiple Action penalties for un-armed attacks only. No Pain: Spending 1 Willpower to ignore wound penalties allows the character to ignore wound penal-ties for (Willpower) turns instead. Weapon Proficiency: Martial Arts techniques can be used with Melee instead of Brawl. All benefits to at-tacks and defenses are halved, rounded down. Spe-cial Techniques provide no benefit for melee attacks, save for Finesse (which allows Melee to use Dexterity instead of Strength). Wrestler: +1d to all attempts to grapple a target or gain/maintain control of a grapple. Repurchase to double these benefits. Hardening: +1 to Stamina for soaking damage. A re-purchase allows the character to ignore the first level of Bashing or Stun damage taken in a scene.

Resources

Most characters tend to have some money around, but some characters have more disposable income than others. The Resources Merit provides a character with disposable in-come, allowing them to buy equipment, bribe people, throw parties, or just enjoy luxuries beyond their normal income. This does not always indicate what the character normally makes: A character with Resources 1 may be a multimillionaire who just doesn’t have a lot of financial sense. The source of this money should be defined at character generation, and it is possible to lose resources should adversaries seek to attack it. As with in-fluence, most novas have few problems acquiring resources - through one means or another.

Each Resource dot allows the character to purchase items with a cost (in dots) up to its rating without rolls. Pur-chases above this dot rating require the character to roll for such a purchase. Note that bulk purchases cost more than a single item: Purchasing 10 or more items increases the Re-sources cost of the purchase by 1, 100 or more by 2, 1000 or more by 3, and so on.

x None: You have no disposable income. Learn to manage money better.

• Minor resources. Thrifty poor people can get to this level of resources.

•• You can buy anything with cost 2 or below without issue. Lower-middle class families can achieve this level of resources.

••• You can buy anything with cost 3 or below without saving. Middle-class to upper-middle class households can achieve this level of purchasing power.

•••• This level of resources grants you the ap-proximate purchasing power of many low-end millionaires.

••••• At this point you’re almost certainly a mil-lionaire or multimillionaire.

••••• • At this point you’re probably featured in “Richest Person in the World” lists.

••••• •• With Resources at this level you are ap-proaching smaller governments in power and wealth.

••••• ••• Did you get yourself installed as the dictator of a small country? Or are you just Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Uncle Moneybags rolled into one?

••••• •••• Many countries can’t spend as much money as you can.

••••• ••••• Your financial resources equal that of a ma-jor world player. Anything Cost 10 (like a hundred fighter jets) or below is a trivial ex-pense.

Resources beyond this level exist but are extremely rare and nearly impossible to have personal access to. The United States, Chinese, and Indian militaries have access to approximately Resources 11, and the countries themselves have approximately Resources 13.

Sanction

The Sanction background allows the character great-er leeway in accomplishing their goals. Much like police officers can shoot other people outside of strict self-defense, and par-amedics can violate traffic laws when lives are on the line, a character with Sanction can ignore laws when the greater good is threatened-well, the definition of ‘greater good’ as according

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to the character’s backers. This, however, requires the charac-ter to be acting in an environment where his patrons can inter-vene. A CIA agent might have Sanction at a high rating, but Cold War-era Russia isn’t going to respect it when they sen-tence him for espionage (although it does mean that if the character is thrown in a Russian gulag, the CIA would spend at least some resources to rescue him).

In addition, Sanction represents access to restricted equipment. From eclipsidol to hypercore ammunition to tactical nuclear weapons, sufficient Sanction will let you get whatever specialized tools you need. Sanction is, however, contingent on your patron assuming you’re more of a benefit than a hin-drance on their larger plans, and can be taken away just as easily as it was given.

A special form of Sanction is Diplomatic Immunity. This form of Sanction gives no additional equipment access and still has commensurate responsibilities to the backer, but protects from prosecution from any crime, as well as giving mi-nor perks such as being able to refuse searches, as long as your patrons keep you protected. The worst anyone can offi-cially do to you in this case is eject you from their territory by declaring you persona non grata unless your diplomatic im-munity is waived. Diplomatic immunity is the equivalent of Sanction ••. Diplomatic immunity from a country which will nev-er waive the protection it grants if you decide to do something completely off the wall is Sanction ••••.

x None: You don’t have anything special. • You can run red lights or beat someone up

and get away with it. You get the use of re-stricted noncombat equipment, such as drugs.

•• You’re allowed to shoot people for some-thing other than self-defense with a valid excuse, rough them up if they don’t listen to you, and borrow their possessions (as long as you return them after you’re done). You can own weapons that are restricted with no questions and possess things illegal to the average citizen.

••• You have a license to kill, like Mr. Bond. Murder has no repercussions as long as it advances the agenda of your patrons. You can access extremely restricted weapons such as anti-tank missiles, SAMs, and anti-materiel railguns.

•••• Not only are you licensed to kill, you’re li-censed to do worse. And they give you the tools for that. You have access to heavy military hardware, like tanks and fighter air-craft.

••••• You work for the Illuminati and what’s more, they trust you. You can break any law and requisition just about anything that isn’t a nuclear weapon (and if you really need one they might actually give one to you). As long as you stay in the good graces of your em-ployer, that is.

Sanctum

The Sanctum background gives the character in question some sort of safe house, hidden base, or similar. The background gives a number of points equal to its rating to be spent on Amenities, Concealment, Defenses, and Size. Any assets purchased for the Sanctum are assumed to be linked to it and difficult to remove at best. Characters who want more

mobile assets should look into Resources, Allies, and Follow-ers. Sanctum may be shared by multiple people, whose indi-vidual background ratings all contribute to the Sanctum’s traits.

Amenities: Amenities 0 means you have only some basic furniture, a stove, and running water. Amenities 1 pro-vides basic tools such as secure internet access, a secure landline, and a basic workshop. Each further dot in amenities is assumed to upgrade the living standards of your Sanctum, as well as provide one additional specialist facility (such as a bench for weapons repair and maintenance, a code-breaking supercomputer, a basic laboratory) or upgrade one of those fa-cilities by one category. Facilities with explicit rules (such as laboratories) upgrade by 1 step per upgrade and start at the lowest level, while facilities without explicit rules add +1d to re-lated rolls and reduce difficulties of related rolls by 1 per up-grade level.

Concealment: Each point of Concealment adds +1 to the difficulties of finding the Sanctum via any means, and an additional +1 to the difficulty of finding the Sanctum without having a rough idea of what it is and where it exists. Conceal-ment may be as simple as disguising the Sanctum and having it under a false ID, but may also be actual concealment (build-ing a base inside a secret cavern, for instance)

Defenses: Defenses 0 means you have a burglar alarm, and Defenses 1 gets you reinforced doors, windows, and locks. The more points in Defenses, the more traps and other protective methods you get, from minefields to automated sentry guns to laser traps and poison gas rooms. Each point in defense adds +1 to the difficulty of intruding into the Sanctum, and provides the Sanctum with automated (or manned) securi-ty at a rating higher than 1. At rating 2, this provides the equivalent of police weapons (shotguns and pistols), upgrading to light military weapons (assault rifles and machine guns) at rating 3, and rating 4 allows for heavier weapons such as RPGs and grenade launchers. At Rating 5+ the Sanctum can have 24/7 armed response from a PMC, or perhaps conceala-ble autocannon popping out from the floor and hidden anti-tank missile launchers in the front yard.

Size: Size is the size and scope of your Sanctum. Size 0 is a small room, while Size 1 is about the size of a small house, Size 2 is a larger town house, and Size 3 is the equiva-lent of mansion. Sanctums of Size 4 are extremely large facili-ties, the size of armed military compounds or gated communi-ties, up to a square kilometer in area. Each point in Size be-yond that doubles the area.

Flaws

Flaws are disadvantageous traits to the character. They, by default, provide the character the ability to buy more traits, by providing additional Bonus Points. On the other hand, this sometimes creates ‘min-maxed’ characters who seek flaws which do not impact them in favor of improving other traits (of-ten combat-related ones).

If a Storyteller is concerned about this possibility, an alternative system is provided here: Flaws return nothing at character generation if taken. However, whenever a Flaw has a significant negative impact on the character’s goals (such as putting them into a deadly situation, causing them to fail at an objective, or so on), the character gains 1 bonus XP at the end of the session. This may only be rewarded once, no matter how many flaws a character has.

No matter what system is used, Flaws are supposed to add color, complications, and story hooks rather than to al-low a Storyteller to abuse his players or a player to hog the

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spotlight. Obnoxious and game-crippling flaw combinations should always be vetoed.

Debt

In a world where practically all money is transferred electronically, the secrecy of transactions is difficult to maintain. A new barter system has sprung up, revolving around debts. It’s not uncommon for a person to do some work “on the side” in exchange for a favor owed later. Sometimes these debts can be truly staggering, and for the greatest favors, repayment can be practically impossible. Debt is so common that, in some places, a person who owes no debts is looked at with suspicion. Some people or groups might not trust them if they don’t indebt themselves.

The actual Debt Background represents debts for which there would be repercussions if you failed to pay them off when they come due. If you can just give your creditor the finger and walk away with little or no repercussions, it isn’t a debt for the purposes of this background. At higher ratings, the harder it is to pay off the debt and the greater the consequenc-es for failing to do so. At lower levels, you might just burn a bridge. At higher levels, you might risk censure from an entire group, or even find yourself hunted down and killed for failure to pay. Also note that higher levels of debt can be broken down into correspondingly lower levels of debt.

x You don’t owe anybody anything. Suspi-cious.

• You owe somebody a small favor. They might ask you to babysit their kids for a week.

•• A big favor. Let your friend stay with you for a few months; no rent or questions asked.

••• A serious debt. Volunteer, for no pay, to play bodyguard for an extended duration.

•••• You should be ready to majorly inconven-ience yourself for your creditor, to the point of public humiliation.

••••• You literally owe somebody your life or something equally valuable. Good luck pay-ing it off.

Debt can go above 5, to represent being in debt to more people.

Dependents

Dependents are more or less helpless everyday peo-ple who are important to the character for whatever reason. Although dependents are capable of taking care of themselves when everyday life comes knocking, they are generally more or less helpless and require the character's protection when ex-traordinary circumstances come along (and the life of a player character means those come along a lot more often). The higher the rating of this background, the more helpless the de-pendent is and the more often they end up threatened.

This flaw can be taken multiple times, to represent multiple Dependents who require your character’s attention.

x Everyone you know and love can take care of themselves, or already has someone do-ing it for them.

• Your dependent needs occasional help. •• Your dependent often comes to you for ad-

vice or to ask for a bail out. ••• You don’t feel comfortable leaving your de-

pendent to their own devices for extended periods of time.

•••• You are frequently there for your dependent, because you need to be there. You should be wary about leaving your dependent out of touch for long, or unmonitored for long periods of time.

••••• Your dependent requires constant care and attention. If it wasn’t for you, they couldn’t survive long on their own. Leaving them unmonitored for even an hour is nerve-wracking.

Duties

A character with Duties has sworn his loyalty to a larger organization and has to do things for it. At a rating of 1, these duties tend to be minor, or generally aligned with what the character wants to do anyways. At 5, the character rarely gets any time to do what he or she actually wants to do. De-spite the following example, increased duties does not neces-sarily come with concomitant rank; a person might have social obligations, or might be part of a group where the people on the bottom do all the work, while those at the top relax.

x You can shirk whatever “duties” you have with little consequence.

• A minor duty that might keep you preoccu-pied once or twice a week, for a few hours.

•• A small duty. It’s probably a regular task, or else an irregular but important one.

••• A significant duty; you’re a necessary link in the chain and so must be ever-vigilant. If something goes wrong, it’s your head that will probably roll.

•••• A major duty; you often find yourself writing policies, fielding questions, dealing with es-calating issues, and handling orders handed down from up on high. Your free time is of-ten limited.

••••• A massively important duty; all eyes are on you, failure is not an option, you are always on call, and your decisions can have pro-found impacts.

Enemy

Somewhere along the way, you pissed off somebody, and now they want your head on a silver platter. This might be a single person, a small group, or even a powerful organization, but in any case, it’s someone you can’t trifle with. Your Enemy might not literally want you dead: he might be satisfied with im-prisoning you or ruining your reputation. Whatever the case, your Enemy is tenacious.

An appropriate Enemy cannot be casually dismissed or defeated in the course of a single story. In the case of an or-ganization, there are always more goons to toss at the charac-ter. If a single antagonist, the Enemy is likely “untouchable”, or else eliminating him means someone else steps in his place: a disciple, or even the organization that he worked for. For ex-ample, if your Enemy is a police officer, then killing that police officer would bring down the wrath of the entire police force. Not to say an Enemy cannot be utterly defeated – just that’s the purview of a major personal story, whether or not it ends in a fist fight.

x You have no enemies, or at least none that can act against you.

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• Your enemy will seriously pursue a major lead regarding you, but usually won’t bother unless you become a convenient target.

•• Watch what you say and who you trust. Your enemy is probably watching your usu-al channels of activity, either by himself or through proxies. You should expect your enemy is always gathering resources on you, and will come looking for you if he gets a serious lead.

••• You are being actively hunted. Your enemy might not be able to devote his full time and energy to the hunt, but will make you a pri-ority when he finds you.

•••• If an individual Enemy, he can spend most of his time trying to figure out new ways to screw you over. If the Enemy is an organi-zation, it regularly sends agents out to find you, plus the occasional bounty hunter. They will gladly drop whatever else they are doing to pursue you if they find out where you are.

••••• Your enemy relentlessly dogs you. You are a priority (think Top Ten Most Wanted) and must constantly watch your back.

Imposter

Identity theft is a common problem. In the world of Aberrant, it has become profoundly popular for people to imi-tate their favorite novas, or just take over the identity of some-one they’ve never met by doing a little research. Regarding no-vas, those masks hide their identities, so who’s to say some guy wearing a similar costume and showing off similar powers isn’t the same guy? Of course, this does sometimes lead to an imposter who imitates only one half of the nova’s identity, being unaware of the other half. Keep in mind, too, that an imposter can imitate a frequently used OpNet handle. Curiously, some novas actually hide behind the “imposter” defense when they screw up. Ironically, some imposters are better at pretending to be the person than the person himself! x Nobody cares enough to imitate you.

• Your imposter is an occasional nuisance, buying things in your name.

•• Your imposter sometimes causes things to go askew: showing up on the news, being caught easily on camera, doing significant acts in your name.

••• Your imposter is a significant threat. He regularly masquerades as you, doing things in your name, and riding on your reputation.

•••• Your imposter is a constant thorn in your side. He ruins your reputation regularly, and comes up smelling like roses. People aren’t sure which of you is the real deal.

••••• Your imposter is better at impersonating you than you are at being yourself. If push comes to shove, people will always believe he is the real deal.

Scarlet Letter

A character with this background has somehow an-gered a community that is important to him. He might not even like the community, but he needs the community’s support to function normally. This might include an organization like Ter-

agen, a coalition of hackers, or even just the local townsfolk. Whatever the case, the character is persona non gratis with the community. This can even include minorities: like a homosexu-al in a fundamentalist Christian town.

Depending on the character’s rating in this Back-ground, he might just get stiff shoulders and delayed respons-es, or he might be “shoot on sight” if he doesn’t have some-thing to trade with his community. Mechanically, the difficulty of any non-Intimidation social interaction with most people is equal to the character’s rating in this Background; frequently, the character may be un-able to even make rolls. The Storyteller may reduce, or elimi-nate, the penalty when dealing with particularly sympathetic characters, or with other members bearing the same Scarlet Letter. Characters bearing a Scarlet Letter might be able to fight back against public perception, but it is an uphill battle, and they probably won’t be able to convince everybody to like them (although certain Mega-Charismatic novas can pull off in-credible things). This background only applies if the character is part of, or wants to be part of, a definable community that is important to him. He doesn’t need to like the community, but he needs to work with it.

x You haven’t done anything to really stand out.

• You are generally disliked, but people usu-ally save the insults for when they think you aren’t listening.

•• You are rarely invited to social gatherings. ••• You are regularly denied promotions, sin-

gled out for suspicion, and must put up with regular haranguing about your perceived flaws.

•••• People regularly call out slurs to you as they drive by.

••••• You cannot be seen amongst your commu-nity. If you go out, there’s a chance you’ll be lynched. If people know where you live, they might come give you a visit for a little “street justice”.

Secret

You are hiding something about yourself that you re-ally don't want anybody to find out about. Many novas have se-cret identities. The higher the rating, the harder you must work to keep the secret.

This Flaw can be taken multiple times, to represent having multiple skeletons in the closet.

x You don’t have any secrets; or at least, any secrets that anybody would care about.

• Your secret would be embarrassing, but not devastating.

•• If the truth came out, you might lose your job.

••• You really don’t want this secret to come out; you would be looking at prison.

•••• Your reputation would be shot if the truth came out. It would never recover.

••••• If your secret ever came out, a lot of people would want you dead. At the very least, no-body would willingly associate with you ever again.

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Unlucky

Just as some people are born lucky, others are curs-ed by fate. These are the characters who have every right to be a pessimist.

In general, the character leads an unfortu-nate life. Mechanically, the Storyteller can make the character roll twice and take the worse result, or roll their rating in a situa-tion to make things turn out for the worst. The Storyteller may do this a number of times per story equal to the character’s Un-lucky rating.

x If you think you’re unlucky, it’s probably only because you’re a pessimist.

• It always rains when you don’t bring an um-brella.

•• You regularly get ticketed for going a few kilometers over the speed limit.

••• Clerks regularly make major clerical errors on your important applications, documents and records.

•••• You exemplify Murphy’s Law. ••••• You fully expect to someday get the death

penalty for a crime you didn’t commit.

Watchlisted

Most novas naturally gather attention just by existing. However, some novas come under special scrutiny because they are considered a risk to society. You are one such nova.

x You are not on a watch list. You might be well-known, but you are not recognized as a significant threat by society at large.

• You are on a watch list, but not considered a significant risk.

•• The government has some concerns about your powers and your activities, but nothing major.

••• There was an incident that put the govern-ment on notice. Expect the occasional visit.

•••• You screwed up somewhere along the way. The government monitors you relatively heavily and suspects you of constant usage.

••••• You are considered high risk by the gov-ernment. You are constantly monitored; all of your actions, especially use of quantum powers, are heavily scrutinized. Expect fre-quent visits from government agents.

Willpower

The Willpower Trait measures drive and emotional stability. A high score reflects a confident, self-motivated indi-vidual, while a low score indicates someone with little confi-dence or perseverance. Willpower has a permanent rating, also called the score, which reflect your character’s total strength in the Trait (noted by the circles on the character sheet). Whenever a roll is called for, the dice pool is always based on permanent score. Willpower also has a current rating, called points, that indicate your character’s present reserves. “Spending points” refers to removing points from the current rating (noted by the squares on the character sheet). Current rating can fluctuate greatly during a story. • Weak

•• Timid ••• Hesitant •••• Diffident ••••• Certain ••••• • Confident ••••• •• Determined ••••• ••• Secure ••••• •••• Iron-willed ••••• ••••• Unshakeable

Spending Willpower

You spend Willpower when your character pushes himself beyond his normal limits in an attempt to do something extraordinary. You can spend only one Willpower point in a turn, unless otherwise stated.

• Free success: You can spend a Willpower point to earn an automatic success on a single roll. If taking multiple actions, choose one action to gain the benefit. You must de-clare that you’re spending Willpower in this fashion prior to roll-ing for the action.

• Resist arguments: A character who is convinced by Sway may instead spend Willpower to ignore the voice in her head that says the other person’s right.

• Resist instinctual response: Sometimes the Sto-ryteller may have your character react to something out of in-stinct – whether fear of a monstrous aberrant, revulsion at the sight of a gruesome corpse or lust for a stunning individual. Your character can resist this urge with the expenditure of a Willpower point (although the urge may return depending on the circumstances, calling for further expenditures).

• Resist mental aberration: When a mental aberra-tion causes your character to do something she would rather not do, you may spend a Willpower point to resist. However, you must do so each time you make such an attempt.

Recovering Willpower

Willpower points are regained whenever your charac-ter gets a chance to rest or restore his self-confidence. The Storyteller is always the final arbiter of when and how Willpow-er is regained. The following methods are entirely optional, and they should encourage roleplaying. The Willpower gained should serve as a reward for playing your character well in the story – it should not be the goal itself.

• For simplicity’s sake, one point may be recovered every morning upon awakening – a fresh start each morning, as it were. If nothing else, this point guarantees some Willpow-er. (This rule should be ignored during downtime.)

• If your character performs an action that affirms her Virtue, she regains two Willpower points. If your character per-forms an action that affirms her Vice, she regains one Willpow-er point. The Storyteller may deny your request if he feels the logic behind it is flimsy, or if it appears that your character per-forms certain actions solely to regain Willpower.

• You may receive a point (or more) if your character achieves some special success, like rescuing a friend or dis-covering a significant plot point, or if your character affirms his capabilities in some way.

• You regain all Willpower at the end of a series (not a single game session). The Storyteller may modify this return somewhat if significant story elements remain unresolved.

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Health

This section deals with your character’s current phys-ical or mental state, as well as various factors that can improve or worsen these conditions. Health can be affected by anything that injures the body or the mind, such as simple lack of sleep, mental assault or a bullet to the head. Depending on her condi-tion, a nova’s current health can greatly impede her ability to perform even the simplest of tasks.

The Health Chart

A character’s current physical condition is represent-ed by the Health chart. The Health chart is composed of two parts: Health Levels (HL) and Wound Penalties.

Every character has a certain number of Health Lev-els. When the character is damaged by something (be it a punch, a falling rock, or poison), she loses a number of Health Levels equal to the number of successes. This damage is marked on your character sheet in the appropriate box, alt-hough the mark you make depends on the type of damage in-flicted (see “Applying Damage”). When the character runs out of Health Levels, she is either Incapacitated or Dead. The av-erage baseline has seven Health Levels; many novas have far more.

Wound Penalties

Wound Penalties represent the wear and tear a char-acter suffers from her injuries. A character accrues Wound Penalties when her Health Level reaches a certain point (ex-cept from Stun damage), and continues accumulating Wound Penalties as she is pushed further down the Health chart. Eve-ry Health Level is associated with a Wound Penalty value; when the character runs out of Health Levels at the lowest Wound Penalty, she any further damage means she begins suffering Health Levels at the next highest Wound Penalty, and begins suffering the effects of that Wound Penalty (for example, if a character has one Health Level at -0 and two Health Levels at -1, the first point of damage she takes is from the -0 Health Level).

Characters may also suffer wound penalties from other sources. This can increase wound penalties above -4.

Wound Penalties have two effects:

The character finds it harder to do things. Subtract the character’s wound penalties from all dice pools except for damage effects. Defense Values are reduced by half a charac-ter’s wound penalty, rounded up.

The character’s ability to move is reduced. At -2 and below, your character can no longer sprint. At -4 or below, a character may only move at a walking (or more accurately, a limping) pace.

Characters begin with seven Health Levels. The basic Health chart is as follows:

1x -0 / 2x -1 / 2x -2 / 1x -4 / Incapacitated/Dead

Increasing Health Levels

Following are several ways in which characters may increase their Health Levels.

At Stamina 3 and every odd point thereafter, (5, 7, 9, etc.), a character gains an additional health level, going in the order of -0/-1/-2/-4. So a character with Stamina 3 or 4 would have a Health chart of -0 x 2/-1 x 2/-2 x 2/-4 x 1/Incapacitated.

A character with Stamina 5 would have a track of -0 x 2/-1 x 3/-2 x 2/-4 x -1/Incapacitated.

Novas channel Quantum through their body, in-creasing the toughness of their skin, muscles, and bones to withstand the rigors of their godlike power. As they become more adept at channeling such energies their body becomes tougher in turn to allow them to make use of their mastery. Each point of Quantum a Nova possesses gives the Nova an additional -0 health level.

Certain Body Modifications and powers (most nota-bly, Mega-Stamina) may increase a character’s health levels

Armor may provide additional “health levels” to take damage from direct attacks. Health levels from armor are only effective against direct attacks and do not provide protection against poisons, disease, or fatigue.

Damage Types

The different types of damage (Stun, Bashing, Lethal, Aggravated) are recorded separately on the Health chart; they have different effects and different heal times. When recording damage, more severe types of dam-age are always recorded above damages types of lesser se-verity, pushing them down if need be. Practically speaking, this means that less severe injuries will be the first to heal. In order of severity, from least to greatest: Stun damage, recorded with a “•”. Bashing damage, recorded with a “/”. Lethal damage, recorded with an “X”. Aggravated damage, recorded with a “*”.

The least dangerous type of damage is Stun damage. This form of damage is caused by attacks that are more painful than harmful-stun guns, poorly thrown punches, sunburns, the pain that comes from running full-out for a little too long, and so on. Sources of Stun damage may be able to cause more seri-ous harm, but generally not with the kind of exposure that hap-pens in combat. Stun damage inflicts Wound Penalties and can daze or Stun opponents. A character with her entire Health chart filled with Stun damage is rendered unconscious. Any fur-ther Stun damage does not get recorded.

Bashing damage is more dangerous. Bashing dam-age doesn’t penetrate to vitals, but can still do a number on you. Broken bones, surface cuts, and bruises are the signs of Bashing damage. If your character falls to Incapacitated due to Bashing damage, any further Bashing damage converts levels of Bashing damage to Lethal. Eventually that pummeling can cause trauma to organs or worse.

Lethal damage results from attacks that can pene-trate into the body and cause immediate damage to the vital organs. Firearms, blades, and explosions deal this form of inju-ry, as do powerful fires and electrical discharges. Lethal dam-age is quite capable of instantly killing a character.

Aggravated damage is similar to Lethal damage, with the caveat that it is also extremely hard to protect against and nearly impossible to heal. There are only a few sources of Aggravated damage that aren’t nova-derived: Nuclear weap-ons and hard radiation. The damage caused by these attacks often includes total vaporization, massive cell death, and other forms of injury that bodies cannot heal, making this the most dangerous form of damage by far.

Incapacitation and Death

Losing all of your health levels is generally a bad thing, although some types of damage are better than others.

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Having your health track filled by Stun or Bashing damage Incapacitates a character. An Incapacitated character may not act in any meaningful way (although he may remain conscious) and is essentially a helpless target. Characters In-capacitated by Stun or Bashing damage may spend 1 Willpow-er to take a single action in a round.

If your character’s entire Health chart is filled to Inca-pacitated with Lethal or Aggravated damage, any further damage of any type kills her.

Grievous Injury

The human body can survive surprising amounts of injury as long as there is immediate medical care provided to prevent infection or death via blood loss. When someone is taken out of the fight, it is quite common for horrific damage to have been rendered that is not directly life-threatening. After all, as long as the heart, lungs, and brain are intact, someone may be salvaged with modern medicine.

When a character loses more than half of his remain-ing health levels in a single attack that deals Bashing, Lethal, or Aggravated damage, the player may choose for their char-acter to take a grievous injury instead, reducing the damage to 1 health level in exchange for being maimed. The bullet misses your character's heart but shatters her elbow joint instead, leaving her incapable of moving that arm for the rest of her life without significant reconstructive surgery. A bouncing betty mine malfunctions, removing both of a character's legs at the knees instead of tearing his chest open. A bone-breaking blow snaps the spine rather than driving a broken rib into the lung. So on. The only exception is if the attack deals enough dam-age in a single blow to convert the character from healthy to paste (so if an attack does enough HLs of damage to kill the character regardless of his current health, and then destroy his corpse) the character is irrevocably dead.

In any case, these wounds are always crippling; in game terms, the character acquires 2 XP of Aberrations, or 8 XP if the attack deals more than half the character's maximum health levels. Aberrations gained in this fashion must make sense given the method of wounding. If the grievous injury was from Bashing damage, these complications fade when the health levels heal.

Grievous Lethal or Aggravated wounds cannot be healed naturally by baselines - the damage is too widespread, and it is only due to modern medical care that survival and con-tinued function is even possible. Instead, they must be healed via more esoteric means such as quantum powers or mitigated by cybernetics or vat-grown biotech.

Novas with Regeneration can heal such injuries on their own, regrowing damaged body parts. Generally each indi-vidual flaw takes the nova the same amount of time to heal off as a missing limb or organ.

Healing

Stun

Stun damage is fully healed at the end of every scene, and heals at the rate of 1 health level per (10 - Stamina) turns inside a scene, healing at most 1 level per turn.

Bashing and Lethal

A character who has taken damage heals each level at the rates given below. Novas heal at least double normal rate by default, which increases via Mega-Stamina. Further-more, novas with Mega-Stamina 1 reduce wound severity by one category when calculating healing times, novas with Mega-Stamina 3 reduce wound severity by two categories when cal-culating healing times, and novas with Mega-Stamina 5 reduce wound severity by three categories for healing.

A character heals an additional one category faster with competent medical care (a small clinic with decent provisions) and two categories faster with expert care (a top of the line trauma ward).

-0 HLs: 1 hour (Bashing)/1 day (Lethal)

-1 HLs: 2 hours (Bashing)/1 week (Lethal)

-2 HLs: 4 hours (Bashing)/2 weeks (Lethal)

-4 HLs: 8 hours (Bashing)/1 month (Lethal)

Incapacitated: 1 day (Bashing)/3 months (Lethal)

Aggravated

Against baselines, Aggravated damage is permanent: the wounds never heal without replacing the damaged body parts with new tissue (something that can only be done in the most advanced hospitals). In those cases, they heal damage as if it was lethal, but at 1/4th the rate (so a -0 HL takes 4 days to ‘heal’ and so forth), must stay in the hospital indefinitely, and do not gain any bonuses from the hospital’s sophistication. No-vas may heal Aggravated damage without aid, but they get no multiplier for their metabolisms; they heal Aggravated damage as if they were a baseline healing Lethal damage.

Resuscitation

A character is not always irrecoverably dead after be-ing killed, unless the deed is done by truly horrific or irreparable forms of damage. Typically there is a window equal to the character's (Stamina) in minutes to resuscitate them via a (Dexterity + Medicine) roll with a base difficulty of +1, +1 for each minute the character has been "dead", +1 for each addi-tional level of damage past Incapacitated the character has taken. This stabilizes a character and prevents them from dy-ing, but does not heal any damage.

Being killed by some attacks may cause instant death and prevent any resuscitation without techniques such as Heal-ing. Instant death happens from one of several methods. Obvi-ously, even a dead character that could be resuscitated might not be, if the circumstances of their death prevent it. Listed be-low are a few of the methods of preventing a character's resus-citation.

The character is killed by a called shot to a vital or-gan. CPR doesn't work if the heart or brain is destroyed.

The character is killed and their corpse loses all its HLs. Nothing can revive a character which has been reduced to a smear of reddish meat paste. A corpse typically has (dead person's Strength + Stamina) total health levels. Mega-Strength and Mega-Stamina each add an effective +2 to that total per dot.

The character is killed by Aggravated damage. Any attempt to resuscitate in this case via mundane medicine mere-ly prolongs the character's agonizing death.

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BODY MODIFICATIONSIn a sense, body modifications are the bridge be-

tween being a human and a nova. Humans who have body modifications are more powerful, but less human; that four me-ter tall monstrosity with the red eyes and steel-rending claws might be a nova, or it might still be “human” in the loosest sense of the word. Therefore, body modifications represent two things: powers that nova acquire via physical mutation (as op-posed to actively and consciously channeling quantum forces); and humanity’s attempt to keep up with their gods.

Body Modifications are any traits that provide perma-nent, inhuman alterations of a character's form, giving them new permanent abilities. Body modifications often take the forms of cybernetic or surgical modification, but a nova's pow-ers influence the appearance and specifics of their body modi-fications, which may often defy scientific scrutiny (tendrils of energy, etc.). Body modifications, though, are unlike powers in that they are always a part of the nova. They can still have ef-fect even when a nova is dormed down, allowing for useful surprises, and although no match for actual powers, Mega-Attributes, or Enhancements in both cost-effectiveness and power (in fact, many Enhancements provide superior effects to body modifications at lower cost), can provide additional edges while dormed down.

Beneficial body modifications, called Augmentations, are “improvements” on the human condition; they needn’t be pretty, but they do make life easier for the person who acquires them.

Unfortunately, not all alterations to the human form are beneficial. Aberrations represent those nasty divergences from the human template which are usually detrimental. Some-times, Augmentations and Aberrations come paired. A gov-ernment agent might put a firewall in his brain to prevent men-tal manipulation, but it unbalances him mentally (especially if the procedure wasn’t perfect); a nova develops the ability to survive the cold more easily, but grows a fur coat over her body.

Occasionally, body modifications represent accidents of birth, and some people are naturally blessed or cursed with a body modification. This is unusual, and applies to only a few body modifications, like Size: Large and Deaf. Theoretically, it is possible that a person could be born with, or develop, an even more bizarre body modification, like fur, but this is usually possible only with genetic tampering, probably via nova inter-vention. Discuss with your Storyteller before taking bizarre body modifications “naturally”.

Attribute Bonuses

Attribute bonuses from body modification apply to mundane uses of the attribute, but not quantum power effects (the sole exception is the accuracy of certain powers, like Quantum Bolt, Disintegrate or Stun Attack). On the flipside, they don't increase the cost of increasing the attribute. A char-acter with Strength 4 and two purchases of Attribute Augmen-tation (Strength + 2) pays (4 x4 = 16), not (6 x4 = 24) XP to buy a new dot of strength, and if she pays for that new dot, should list her strength as 5 + 2, rather than 7.

Attribute dots gained or lost from body modification do not increase the limits for a character's Mega-Attributes, but can decrease them.

Buying Augmenta-

tions

Every Augmentation has an XP value. Experience costs with a slash or an “or” between them mean there are multiple versions of the modification with different costs.

Anybody can buy Augmentations with bonus points or experience points. Only novas can buy Augmentations with nova points. Purchasing with bonus points usually represents modifications via scientific means. Purchasing with nova points represents modifications via physical mutation. Experience points may represent either.

Augmentation

Packages

Some augmentations are difficult to separate when applied as cybernetic or genetic enhancements. A character with enhancements to his Strength will often have a reinforced skeleton and enhanced Stamina to support the improved mus-cles. Other modifications tend to have beneficial side ef-fects which are themselves best purchased as body modifica-tions. An example would be replacing most of a character’s skeletal muscles with artificial muscle fibers to enhance Strength. However, the artificial fibers are capable of higher precision (boosting Dexterity) and much tougher than human tissue (increasing the character’s soak). The ST may make up augmentation packages, or may refer to the appendix for some relatively common variants.

General Augmenta-

tions

(Ability) Prodigy (2 XP per Ability): This Augmen-tation increases the maximum number of dots in the chosen Ability by 1. This does not grant any additional dots in that abil-ity. For Field Skills such as Science and Engineering, a single purchase grants its benefit to all field skills.

Attribute Enhancement (4/8 XP): The character gains +1 to the effective rating of the chosen attribute, even if that would increase the effective rating above the character’s normal maximum. This can take many forms-literally sculpted

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appearance for Appearance, artificial muscle bundles or bioen-gineered musculature for Strength and Dexterity, implanted computer systems for Intelligence, and so on—and that’s just for augmented transhumans. Novas can have even more eso-teric manifestations and explanations for their enhancements. This can be bought as many times as the character wants, costing 4 XP to raise Strength, Stamina, Appearance or Per-ception, or 8 XP to raise Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma, Ma-nipulation, or Wits. An attribute may only be enhanced to dou-ble its ‘natural’ rating via this augmentation (so, for example, a character with Strength 2 may only buy 2 additional dots of Strength via Attribute Enhancement). No attribute may be en-hanced by more than +5, even if the character’s natural attrib-ute rating is higher.

Superhuman (Attribute) (3 XP per attribute per in-crease): A character with Superhuman (Attribute) increases the cap of one physical, mental, or social attribute (chosen during the purchase of this Augmentation) by 1 per purchase. This does not give the character an additional dot—she must buy that normally with XP. This Augmentation may be bought any number of times, whether to give a character superhuman po-tential in multiple attributes or extremely high potential in a sin-gle attribute. There are no hard limits on superhuman attributes, but STs should be wary about attributes above 10, especially for non-nova characters.

Non-Nova Augmentations

These Augmentations can be purchased only via the Bioenhancement background, therefore preventing novas from acquiring them.

Counter-Intrusion Mesh (8 XP): To defend against enemy intrusion into a user's cybernetic implants, this bioapp was created. An organic mesh with electrokinetic abilities, this biotech implant counteracts enemy electrokinetics (and cyberkinetics). The Counter-Intrusion Mesh adds +2 difficulty on all rolls to affect the user's augmentations via subversive powers such as cyberkinesis or a Psion’s electrokinesis. If for-matted, this bonus increases to +4. The mesh is a bioapp and has Tolerance 2. If used in an Aberrant chronicle, use the un-formatted stats.

Noetic Shielding (15 XP): Noetic shielding is an anti-quantum power system implanted into anyone who might see direct combat with novas. It adds +2 to the difficulty of all attempts to affect the user with Quantum powers, and +4 to all soak values (Bashing, Lethal, and Aggravated) for the user against quantum powers. If formatted, it adds +4 difficulty and +8 to soak against quantum powers. In Trinity, this shielding system is a bioapp, with Tolerance 3. If used in an Aberrant chronicle, use the unformatted stats.

Physical Augmen-

tations

Enhancement

Long-Lived (2/3/4 XP): The character has a signifi-cantly longer lifespan. At 2 XP, the character's lifespan is dou-bled (to ~160-200 years with 21st century medical care), in-

creasing the time in his or her prime by ~70-90 years. At 3 XP, the character's lifespan is quadrupled (to ~320-400 years with 21st century medical care), and most of this increase is again, in the prime of his life. At 4 XP, the character is biologically immortal and will stay in their prime forever, aging ceasing as soon as they hit biological maturity at around 20-25. This Aug-mentation also provides the benefit of improved disease and cancer resistance, adding +1 to Stamina to reduce the effects of diseases or toxins.

Weapons

Bioelectrical Dynamo (2/8 XP): The character generates a surplus of electrical power, which may be con-ducted through the body. The cheaper, 2 XP version is useless for attacking (at most it acts like a joy buzzer), but allows a character to damage or reset exposed circuitry, power a light-bulb, recharge a laptop, or other useful minor tricks. A charac-ter with the 8 XP version generates much more power and can channel more of it, allowing her to deal either Str+6B damage (up to 2xStamina times/hour), or Str+6L damage + 6d EMP (once per hour). Using the Lethal damage mode deals 2 un-soakable Bashing health levels to the user. The more expen-sive variant also reduces all damage taken from electrical weapons such as tasers or electrolasers by 1 level post-soak, to a minimum of 1 level.

Caustic Blood (4/6 XP): The character has blood that is hostile to people around him and the environment as well. His blood may be acidic, full of flesh-eating enzymes he alone is immune to, or smart nanotech that spontaneously combusts when it touches an enemy. Whatever it is, if he takes Lethal damage, his blood sprays (levels of damage taken) me-ters, attacking everyone in the effect radius with an accuracy of (Stamina + 5), dealing 8L damage with AP 2 to everyone hit. The character only rolls once for the attack and applies the at-tack to everyone. At the ST's discretion, certain types of Lethal damage such as lasers or fire may prevent this from happening. Caustic blood costs 4 XP if indiscriminate, and 6 XP if the character may choose who to harm. It may be repurchased up to (Stamina/2, round up) times, each additional purchase add-ing +1 to the attack accuracy, +2 to AP and +2L [1] to damage.

Fangs(1/3 XP): The character has sharpened teeth that can retract. At 1 XP, the fangs are cosmetic and merely al-low the character to make a bite attack against a grappled tar-get dealing (Strength + 0L) damage. At 3 XP, the character’s jaw muscles are augmented, the joint is designed to stretch and dislocate, and the fangs are capable of extending even fur-ther. Against a grappled target, the character’s bite deals (Strength + 4L) damage with an AP rating of 2.

Integrated Weapon (2-12+ XP): Baselines with cy-bernetic replacements and novas which desire it may end up installing or outright growing integrated melee or ranged weap-ons. It costs 2 XP for a weapon concealable in a pocket, 4 XP for a jacket-concealable weapon, 8 XP to integrate a weapon concealable in a overcoat, and 12 XP to integrate a weapon that cannot be concealed. A weapon with a Size equal or greater than the character cannot be concealed. Integrated weapons may be equipped with accessories at a 1 XP sur-charge per accessory.

Integrated weapons can be readied without an action. Any integrated weapon can be used “one-handed”, as a side effect of the integration. Integrated weapons may not be dis-armed without surgery or amputating the limb or body part where the weapon is integrated. These weapons are consid-

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ered hidden and may only be detected when used or by an Awareness roll at +2 difficulty.

If the weapon is ranged and uses ammunition, the character will generally have to reload the weapon from a hid-den port. However, novas (and cyborgs sporting energy weap-ons) may have the capacity of recharging the weapon by creat-ing ammunition inside the body, or just siphoning off bioelec-tricity. In that case, the weapon regenerates its magazine in an hour.

Quills/Spines (5 XP): A character with this has a coating of spines on his body, is naturally edged, or otherwise can easily cause harm to someone he or she touches. The character's unarmed attacks now deal Lethal damage, and an-yone who touches the character more than casually takes (Stamina)L damage (up to 10L). Repurchasing this augmenta-tion makes the damage voluntary.

Toxin Generation (6 XP + 2 XP/additional): The character possesses the ability to generate and store a deadly biotoxin. The character is immune to his own biotoxin, and generates (Stamina) doses per day, storing up to (Stamina x2) doses. Upon purchase, a single biotoxin and method of deliv-ery are chosen. After purchase, the character may choose ad-ditional toxins or delivery methods for 2 XP each. Delivery methods are listed below.

Nematocysts: Transfers toxin upon skin-skin contact. Bodily Fluid: Transfers toxin upon exposure to bodi-

ly fluid (saliva, blood, etc.) Envenomed Weapon: The character can coat any

weapons granted by body modifications with these toxins. Each purchase of this delivery method envenoms a single nat-ural weapon. The toxin is applied if the attack does a single level of post-soak lethal damage.

Toxin Effuser: The character can exhale the toxin.

Protection

Armor Implants (1-10 XP): The character has im-proved armor protection over her body. This can take many forms, from a hard exoskeleton to subtle reinforcement of the character’s epidermis. This provides 1B/1L armored soak per XP spent on it (up to 6 XP total, for 6B/6L soak). Armor Im-plants stack with armor normally, using the soak stacking rules.

Armor acquired from implants is generally obvious to sight and touch. However, an additional surcharge of 2 XP will render it difficult to detect via sight (A successful Awareness roll at +2 difficulty will reveal the armor’s presence, as will any-thing more than a casual touch, but casual skin contact will not), while a 4 XP surcharge will make the armor nearly invisible and feel more or less like human skin and flesh (A successful Awareness roll at +6 difficulty will reveal the armor’s presence via sight, as will a successful Awareness roll at +2 difficulty for touch. As usual, casual contact has no chance of discovering the armor).

Disguised armor also provides limited protection against discovery by security screening equipment or other high-tech detection devices. Halve the difficulty penalties on the Awareness roll if the character has such equipment or the equivalent thereof.

Energy Shunts (4 XP): The character has implant-ed thermal superconductor shunts which evenly distribute and disperse the heating effects of energy weapons, reducing damage from energy attacks, including flame-based attacks, by 1 level after soak.

Extra Health Levels (5/7 XP): A character may gain additional health levels via body modifications (such as

redundant organs, tougher tissues, vital organ protection, and so on). A character may buy this Augmentation up to (Stamina) times and each purchase adds either 2 -0 and 2 -4 health lev-els or 2 -1 and 2 -2 health levels to the character’s health track for 5 XP. For 7 XP, Extra Health Levels adds 4 -0 health levels instead.

Hard to Stop (4-20 XP): The character is extremely difficult to disable via injury or pain. At 4 XP, reduce all wound penalties by 1.

At 10 XP, the character reduces wound penalties by 2. Furthermore, the character treats Incapacitated as a -10 wound penalty and may act when ‘Incapacitated’.

At 20 XP, the character ignores all wound penalties including being Incapacitated. The character functions at peak combat effectiveness until killed

Internal Forcefield/Ablative Coating (10/12 XP): The character has a low-power internal energy shield genera-tor or some form of ablative protection, providing the same pro-tection as a force field. This provides (Stamina) external health levels (see the Ablative Barrier rules for how external health levels work) and may be purchased twice to provide (Stamina x 2) external health levels. These external health levels “heal” at the rate of 1 per hour. The 10 XP variant is obvious at all times when active (such as thick layers of scales, a glowing shield aura, or hard light armor) but may be turned off and on with a single action, while the 12 XP variant is invisible unless it takes damage. Note that the covert variant (and force fields in gen-eral) do not exist in Aberrant and are only available in Trinity, as super-science, or as nova body modifications.

Low-Friction Skin (2 XP): The character's skin on all parts of the body save the soles, fingers, and palms is modi-fied to be extremely slippery to the touch and hard to get ahold of. Mostly useful for martial artists, this enhancement adds +1 difficulty for any attempts to hold the character, and +1d to slip through tight spaces or restraints, if it should be necessary. This generally gives the character's skin a "wet" or "oily" sheen to it which is distinctive close-up.

Reinforced Armor (3 XP): This Augmentation fur-ther adds additional armoring to the character, thickening pro-tection across the body and joints. Reinforced armor adds +2B/2L to the soak the character's armor implants provide but restricts movement, giving the armor an effective penalty of -1. This can be bought twice, adding +4B/4L to soak and -2 to the armor penalty. Reinforced Armor is obvious and may not be hidden without extremely bulky clothing.

Sharkskin (2 XP): The character's skin is covered in hard sharp ridges, allowing for better grips on objects. At-tempts to disarm the character are at +1 difficulty, as well as any attempt to knock her down or move her as long as she is barefoot. The character may also cause distracting and painful surface wounds (damage 1B) by roughly brushing against someone, and gains +1 to Dexterity for swim speeds due to superior hydrodynamic qualities.

Skeletal Enhancement (6 XP): A character with this augmentation has a skeleton modified to be more durable. The character’s skeleton can either become extremely dense and hard or flexible and tough. In both cases, the character gains +2 to Stamina for the purposes of soaking damage only. A hyperdense skeleton is extremely dense, hard, and resistant to trauma. This adds an additional +1 to Stamina for soaking damage, doubles the character’s safe fall distance, and adds +1 damage to unarmed melee attacks due to the density and toughness of the skeleton. However, a hyperdense skeleton increases a character’s mass (and therefore weight) by about 25%, adding +1 difficulty to swimming rolls. A flexible skeleton

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bends rather than breaks under extreme stress, reducing all post-soak bashing damage by 1 level (minimum 1) as bones bend and reform rather than snap. Flexible skeletons also make all fall damage bashing no matter the height unless the character lands on sharp objects and allow characters an au-tomatic success to fit into tight spaces or other feats of contor-tion. Either skeleton modification can be purchased twice, dou-bling its benefits and penalties.

Survival

Biohazard Resistance (2 XP): The character gains 1 automatic success to resist poison or disease. This can be purchased twice to double the effects. If purchased twice, the character is immune to any toxin or drug with a Potency of +1 or less and does not need to roll to resist them.

Hyperoxygenation (4/6 XP): The character can store significantly more oxygen than normal. The 4 XP variant grants the character 1 automatic success on any rolls to en-dure strenuous physical activity, as she can sustain activity for longer, and an additional Incapacitated health level, as it takes a lot more damage to the heart and a lot more blood loss to kill the character. If suffering from suffocation, asphyxiation, or drowning, the character quadruples all intervals required for damage. The 6 XP version provides superior oxygen extraction as well, adding an additional automatic success on rolls to en-dure strenuous physical activity, as well as the minor benefit of being able to breathe without breathing equipment or a pres-surized cabin at up to 15 kilometers’ altitude.

NBC Resistance (12 XP): The character is much more resistant to radiation, disease and poison damage, gain-ing +1 automatic success to resist the deleterious effects of ra-diation, or the potency of diseases and poisons. Self-repairing chromosomes and superior error-checking mean undirected radiation damage is generally considered to be one level lower (Aggravated to Lethal, Lethal to Bashing, Bashing stays un-changed). Intense radiation, such as the neutron flux of an en-hanced radiation warhead or standing inside a reactor core without protection, is still Aggravated damage.

Protected Vitals (4/8/20 XP): This body modifica-tion gives the character resistance to Lethal damage and called shots. The most common form of this is heavy reinforcement to the skeleton (an augmentation package that almost always in-cludes hyperdense skeleton), but it is not unheard of for a nova to have dispersed organs which can be shot full of holes with negligible impairment. The 4 XP version halves any soak re-duction or additional damage from called shots (round up). The 8 XP version eliminates any bonus damage or soak reduction from called shots, although a called shot may still be used to cripple or pull trick shots. The 20 XP variant provides the bene-fits of the 8 XP version and also allows the character to soak lethal damage with full Stamina instead of half Stamina.

Regenerator (4 XP): A character with this Augmen-tation heals faster than normal, reducing healing times by 1 category. Non-novas with this Augmentation may heal crippling injuries or Aggravated damage naturally, at the same rate they heal Lethal damage.

Resilience (6 XP): Some people, like Rasputin, have nigh-supernatural toughness with no seeming explanation of their durability. Others, like Jason Bourne, have things like ‘psychological conditioning’ and ‘chemical enhancement’ to credit for their ability to survive injuries that would slay lesser men. A character with this augmentation gains +2 Stamina for the purposes of soaking damage, resisting poison, and calcu-lating their health level track.

Trauma Tolerance (3 XP): The character has fast-clotting blood, a multiple redundant circulatory system, a de-centralized heart, and so on. The character automatically stabi-lizes when dying (with no need for assistance) unless wounded further.

Unliving (10 XP): The character is no longer mostly made of something with the same properties as a human body. Unliving characters convert their corpse’s health levels into In-capacitated Health Levels (meaning that they aren’t dead until you destroy the corpse) and ignore fatigue. Unliving characters also are immune to toxins and diseases, most hostile environ-ments (extreme environments, such as being immersed in lava, the middle of a firestorm, or the core of a nuclear reactor may still have full effect, at ST discretion), and do not require food, air, or water (although without any source of power they will be incapable of action).

Power

Adrenaline Overproduction (4 XP): The character has the ability to flood his system with stimulants, increasing movement speed and strength for a short period of time at great cost. This Augmentation allows a character to gain +1 Strength and +1 Dexterity at will. Using adrenaline overproduc-tion deals 1 unsoakable level of Bashing damage per combat round.

Augmented Strength (8 XP): The character has extreme strength gained from non-quantum sources - an ex-ample would be a full conversion cyborg using nanotube actua-tors. Each purchase of Augmented Strength adds [1] to the character's strength, giving 1 success on Strength rolls involv-ing brute force and adding +2 to Strength for weapons handling purposes. Furthermore, the character’s lifting capability is mul-tiplied by (2 x # of Augmented Strength purchases), so 1 pur-chase doubles a character’s lifting capability, 2 quadruples it, 3 multiplies it by 6, and so on. Every purchase adds +1 to a character’s melee and unarmed damage, and every 2 pur-chases adds a further [1] automatic success to the damage of melee and unarmed attacks. A character may only purchase this Augmentation if their normal Strength is above 5, and may purchase this modification only once per dot of Strength above 5.

Foot Anchors (4 XP): The character has powerful spring-loaded barbed spurs in his feet which are primarily used to anchor the character to any surface with a soak rating less than (Strength + 5). When anchored, any attempts to move or knock back the character are at +1 difficulty with one foot an-chored, or +2 difficulty with both feet anchored. In addition, these anchors can be initiated immediately after connecting with a physical attack, adding an additional +1 difficulty to a kick attack but adding AP:2 and +[1] damage to the attack. If a foot anchor is used as a weapon, damage is Lethal.

Linear Frame (1 XP): The character has a rein-forced skeleton and optimized muscle structure for superior load-bearing ability. Each purchase of this Augmentation adds +1 to the character’s Strength for lifting and carrying objects, up to double the character’s Strength.

Ultralight Body (6 XP): A character with an ul-tralight body has high-efficiency muscle tissue and porous bones that halves his weight, which halves all falling damage, adds +2 to dexterity for movement purposes, and doubles jump distances. The character may also float on water indefinitely without any need to roll.

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Environmental Adapta-

tion

Broadened Diet (2 XP): The character's diet is broadened via alteration of the digestive system, reducing the difficulty of all Survival or Endurance rolls to avoid the effects of hunger/thirst by 1, as the character can subsist on more sources of water and food without issue (tainted/brackish water, rotten food, grass cellulose, etcetera). The character may pur-chase this augmentation up to (Stamina) times. Each additional repurchase broadens the character's diet further, adding an additional -1 difficulty per purchase. If this would reduce the dif-ficulty of the roll below 0, the character automatically succeeds on the roll. This is a special case and does not normally apply for difficulty reductions.

Chromatophores (4 XP): This augmentation adds rapid color-changing and pattern-matching ability to the charac-ter, giving her +2 to all Stealth rolls as long as she is either es-sentially naked or wearing clothing/equipment which can also blend into the surroundings. Chromatophores can be pur-chased twice to add a further +1d to all stealth rolls (due to faster and more precise color-matching) and the ability to dis-play fast-moving patterns, turning the character into a living video screen.

Environmental Adaptation (6 XP): The character is adapted to a type of environment, chosen at the time of pur-chase. Example adaptations are listed below. This modification can be purchased multiple times, each time adapting the char-acter to a different environment.

Aquatic: The character gains a pair of gills along the side of her chest which allow her to breathe underwater normally as long as the gills are exposed to water (a simple modification of most swimsuits will allow for this, as will loose-fitting clothing), and the ability to drink saltwater without harm. The character is also streamlined, losing all body hair save on her scalp and eyebrows, gaining slightly webbed feet and hands and elongated toes. This allows her to swim at her nor-mal running speed.

Arctic: The character is extremely resistant to cold due to antifreeze in his blood and additional heat-storage ca-pacity, reducing the damage of any attacks based on cold by 1 level after soak, and adds +1 success to any roll made to resist extreme cold.

Desert: The character becomes particularly efficient at storing food and water, doubling the intervals which dehy-dration and starvation affect him. In addition, the character adds +1 success to any roll made to resist extreme heat.

Forest: The character's arms are elongated and strengthened, allowing him to swing through trees at his normal running speed and adding +1 to Strength for the purposes of climbing, grasping, or crushing. The character also is made more resistant to most toxins, adding +1d to any roll made to resist toxins, and has somewhat toughened skin which is more resistant to abrasion and other minor abuse, such as splinters and thorns.

Microgravity: The character is adapted to low or zero-G, suffering no difficulty penalties to actions when in low or no-gravity environments. Characters with microgravity adap-tation are immune to nausea from sudden changes in accelera-tion (or gravity) as well.

Vacuum: The character's skin becomes a vacuum-sealed membrane while various other adaptations are done to his . The character may also recycle oxygen from carbon diox-

ide, allowing him to hold his breath for up to (Stamina * 30) minutes. The character is hermetically sealed, making them largely immune to skin contact agents, and adds +1 automatic success to resist the deleterious effects of radiation due to bet-ter radiation shielding.

Manipulator Feet (2 XP): The character's feet are designed with opposable "thumbs" and elongated digits which allow them to be used for fine manipulation and tool use.

Metabolic Reactor (16 XP): This augmentation provides a character with some source of nearly unlimited power (such as a fusion reactor), as well as high-efficiency re-cycling. Therefore, a character with this modification can sur-vive essentially indefinitely on air and needs very little else. Furthermore, this augmentation provides a few dozen kilowatts of spare power, allowing the character to power various inter-nal or external systems up to a small electric scooter. This Augmentation does not exist as a cybernetic implant in Aberrant - only in the Trinity era is it available for non-novas.

Photosynthetic (2 XP): The character can photo-synthesize. This may, but does not always, turn the character a shade of green - a Nova's physiology can adapt melanin to photosynthesize if it has to. With sufficient water, a photosyn-thetic character doubles all intervals for starvation.

Movement

Adhesive Grip (6 XP): Using Van Der Walls force to attach the character to walls, a single purchase of this Aug-mentation allows the character to walk up walls at his normal walking speed. Purchasing this Augmentation twice allows the character to move more or less normally on said walls and even ceilings, running up them at full running speed.

Enhanced Movement (2 XP): The character's legs are augmented, adding +1 to Dexterity and Strength for move-ment and jumping purposes. A character may stack this en-hancement up to (higher of Strength or Dexterity) times, addi-tional purchases adding ever more inhuman qualities to the character's legs.

Reaction Control System (6 XP): Whether it's cy-bernetically implanted or ingrown, having a set of thrusters ca-pable of minor acceleration and attitude control greatly help ze-ro-G maneuvering. The character can slowly maneuver in zero-G without the need for an external source of thrust. Peak thrust for this system is quite low, disallowing powered flight.

Springs (4 XP): This Augmentation adds spring-like structures to the character's limbs which greatly increase their power. This enhancement halves fall damage from controlled falls, adds +1 to unarmed damage, and doubles the character's vertical and horizontal jump distance.

Wings (4 or 12 XP): A character with this body modification can fly to a limited extent - not nearly as fast as a Nova with the Flight power, and with an obvious and easily vis-ible cause (such as rocket thrusters, gigantic feathered wings, or the like), but fly nonetheless. At 4 XP, the character has glid-ing wings, allowing safe descent from any height and gliding at their normal running speed. At 12 XP, a character may fly at their normal running speed, with full control over movement. Wings at this level also provide +1 to the power rating of the Flight power for the purposes of speed and maneuverability.

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Size

Attribute decreases from size modifications may not reduce an attribute below 1 outside of Strength (which can be reduced to 0). A character may not have both size-increasing and size-reducing Augmentations, and all size-modifying Aug-mentations replace lower-level ones (so Huge replaces Large, and Lilliputian replaces Miniscule which replaces Tiny, and so on).

Large (6 XP): A character with this modification is roughly twice the mass of an average person and about 25% taller, or about 180 kg and 2.25 meters tall, adding +1 to strength and +1 to Size. Large characters gain +1 to Dexterity for movement purposes only.

Huge (12 XP): A character with this modification is four times the mass of an average person and around 2.5 to 3 meters tall, gaining +2 Strength, and 2 to Size. The size of a huge character is both an advantage and a disadvantage - they gain +50% to lifting capacity and +2 to Dexterity for movement, but are much more obvious.

Humongous (18 XP): A character with this modifi-cation is eight times the mass and twice the height of an aver-age person, gaining +3 Strength, and +3 to Size, as well as +3 Dexterity for movement purposes. Furthermore, their size dou-bles their lifting capacity.

Gargantuan (24 XP): A character with this modifi-cation is twenty-seven times the mass and 3 times the height of an average person, averaging around 5-6 meters tall, gain-ing +4 Strength, +4 Dexterity for movement, and +4 to Size. Due to their huge size, they triple their lifting capacity.

Small (3 XP): A character with this Augmentation is about 1/8th normal mass and roughly half as tall/wide/thick, re-ducing Strength and Stamina by 2. Dexterity is also reduced by 1 for movement purposes only. Characters which are small are more vulnerable to damage but harder to hit, losing 1 -4 HL from their HL track but reducing Size by 3.

Tiny (5 XP): A Tiny character is roughly 1/64th normal mass and 1/4th normal dimensions, reducing Strength and Stamina by 4. Characters which are tiny are more vulnera-ble to damage but harder to hit, losing 1 -1, 1 -2, and 1 -4 HL from their HL track but reducing Size by 6. Finally, Tiny charac-ters are slower, adding +1 difficulty to all movement rolls.

Miniscule (8 XP): A miniscule character is 1/512th their normal mass and 1/8th their normal dimensions, reducing Strength and Stamina by 6. Miniscule characters can suffer fa-tal injury from mere annoyances to normal humans, reducing their HL track by 1 -0, 1 -1, 2 -2, and 1 -4 HL, and Size by 9. Miniscule characters add +2 difficulty to all movement rolls.

Lilliputian (10 XP): Lilliputian characters are rough-ly 1/12th height and mass pretty much nothing, reducing Strength and Stamina by 8. Lilliputian characters can easily be killed by otherwise harmless phenomena, reducing their HL track by 1 x -0, 2 x -1, 2x -2, 1 x -4, and 1 x Incapacitated HL. However, they are also tiny, reducing Size by 12. If a Lilliputian character has no HLs, 1 level of any sort of damage kills her. Lilliputian characters add +4 difficulty to all movement rolls.

Utility

Bioluminescence (1/3 XP): The character can emit light. The basic, 1 XP version allows for the character to emit any color of light at brightness enough that they can fully illu-minate a dark room as if it was daylight. The enhanced, 3 XP variant allows the character to selectively emit light, allowing

for the use of bioluminescence for countershading (reducing stealth difficulties by 1 in brightly-lit areas) and communication by projected light patterns.

Climbing Claws (1 XP): Small, catlike retractable claws are terrible weapons (Str - 2L damage, minimum 1L) but useful as tools. Not only do they make great can openers, but also add 1 automatic success for climbing rolls.

Concealable Pocket (1/3 XP): A small concealed pocket is built into the character. The 1 XP version can any item with a concealment rating of P or below, while the 3 XP version can store anything with a concealment rating of J or below.

Drug Glands (4/8 XP): A character with this modifi-cation possesses the ability to produce drugs, chosen with the purchase of this modification. The character may generate up to (Stamina) doses a day and may store up to (Stamina x 2) doses, using them as desired. The 4 XP version allows for the use of any conventional drugs (such as stimulants, nootropics, and so on), while the 8 XP variant allows the production of No-va-based pharmaceuticals such as Red 7, Mite, and Soma. This modification can be purchased multiple times to represent multiple drugs.

Hyper-Flexible (4 XP): The character can bend and dislocate her limbs in disconcerting ways, which adds 3d to any roll which may benefit from this superhuman flexibility. Rolls which are generally valid include Stealth and certain types of Performance rolls (including contortions and escaping re-straints).

Multiple Arms (8 XP): This body modification grants its beneficiary an additional pair of arms. A character with multiple arms reduces multiple action penalties by 1 per pair of additional arms he or she possesses. Characters may support up to (lower of Stamina or Wits) pairs of multiple arms, which does not count Mega-Attributes for the total.

Multiple Legs (6 XP): A Nova with multiple legs adds +5 to Dexterity for purposes of ground movement speed and +1 to all unarmed attacks that involve kicking. Unlike Mul-tiple Arms, this may only be purchased once. A set of Multiple Legs may be just two extra legs, or it might be four, six, or more.

Multitools (4 XP): A character with this modification possesses an integrated set of precision tools for various pur-poses, reducing all penalties from insufficient tools by 2, to a minimum of 0.

Tentacles (4 XP): Tentacles are flexible appendag-es which extend up to (Stamina) meters. Each purchase of this Augmentation grants any number of tentacles, which can grasp and manipulate objects at (Dexterity - 2). These tentacles may also be used as weapons, with an Accuracy and Defense of +2, and a Damage of either Strength + 4B or Strength + 2L, cho-sen on purchase. Repurchasing this bodymod increases the number and flexibility of these tentacles, adding 2 meters to their maximum extension per repurchase and reducing the manipulation penalty by 1, to a minimum of 0. Tentacles may be repurchased up to twice.

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Mental Augmenta-

tions

Sensory

Acute (Sense) (2/4 XP): A character with Acute (Sense) at the 2 XP level gains +1d to all Perception rolls based on that sense. The 4 XP level of Acute (Sense) grants +2d to all Perception rolls based on that sense.

Alternate Sensory Mode (5 XP): Each time this is purchased, a character gains an alternate sense, such as lat-eral line sense (the ability to sense the electromagnetic fields of others), echolocation, infrared vision, and so on. Some ex-amples are listed below. Besides for their special features, an applicable alternate sense provides additional sensory data (and a +1d to Perception rolls when the sense is applicable in addition to one of the normal five), and may allow a character to ignore difficulty increases in certain circumstances, as well as giving additional options to gain sensory data.

Echolocation: Character may navigate through the world without sight by using echolocation, negating optical stealth.

Light Amplification: The character may see in the dark as long as there is any ambient light (no penalties from darkness).

Lateral Line: Allows a character to make Perception + Awareness rolls to sense neural activity at a range of 10m (100m in water).

Thermal Vision: Character may sense infrared radia-tion. +2d circumstantial bonus to detect hot things on a cool background or vice versa.

UV Vision: Character may see in UV spectrum. This vision mode is often used to find UV-fluorescent materials or other tools.

High-Mag Vision: This modification provides a char-acter up to x40 visual magnification, giving him the equivalent of a decent set of binoculars and halving any difficulty penalties on Awareness rolls to see something far away (round penalties down).

Increased Peripheral Vision: This gives the charac-ter 360 degree peripheral vision, adding +1 automatic success to detect surprise attacks. Opponents no longer gain flank or rear bonuses to hit the character.

Motion Tracker: The character has the ability to track nearby moving objects with a high degree of accuracy, gaining +1 automatic success on rolls made to detect any mov-ing objects within 30m.

Radar: The character has millimetric-wave radar, al-lowing sensing through wood and thin materials but a reduction in image resolution (no ability to discern fine details).

Rangefinder (8 XP): The character can precisely judge distances and velocities, reducing the difficulty penalties of all ranged attacks by 1 as long as the character has taken time to aim.

Improved Kinesthesia (6 XP): The character's kin-esthetic senses are precisely tuned to give them near-perfect balance, adding an automatic success to all non-dodge Athlet-ics rolls based on movement or precise positioning. The char-acter also can confidently move at full speed in even extremely hostile terrain (such as ice, or a tightrope) without a roll.

Exotic Sensory Mode (8 XP): A character with this modification has exotic sensory modes covering multiple spec-tra, which are specialized to assist him in a specific task.

Electromagnetic Field: +1 success to rolls made to detect powered-up electronics. Character can sense all electri-cally-powered devices, powerlines, and power generators with-in 100 meters.

LANSA (Laser-based Aberrant Nuclear Scanning Array): A successful Perception + Awareness roll (difficulty +9 - target's [Quantum + Taint]) detects a nova. Range is 30 me-ters.

Lifesigns: +1 success on rolls made to detect living beings. +1d to Medicine rolls.

Materials Analysis: Analyzes chemical composition and makeup by touch, smell, or taste. +1 automatic success to all Science(Chemistry) rolls to identify substances.

Terahertz Radiation: Character may see through thin non-metallic walls and detect cybernetic implantations or other metal objects in living beings.

Weakpoints: -1 to enemy soak for aimed shots, +1d to maintenance rolls.

Internal Clock (1 XP): The character is perfectly aware of the passage of time. She can estimate what time it is down to a second or two (perhaps even exactly). If she was sleeping or knocked out, she knows exactly how long she’s been out. She can also execute very accurate countdowns.

Autonomy

Bifurcated Mind (6 XP): The character can sleep while aware of her surroundings, owing to a modification allow-ing her to shut half of her brain off like a dolphin when sleeping. While "asleep", a character is considered to have half (round up) his mental Attributes and Mega-Attributes, and all actions are at +1 difficulty due to general lethargy.

Daemon (4 XP): The character has a nonsentient but autonomous subroutine running in her mind, which she can assign to one of various duties while she does something else-including sleeping. Common uses for a daemon are alerting a character to ambush, tidying up the house while in REM sleep, or other relatively simple tasks-a daemon is incapable of react-ing outside of simple fixed patterns and cannot be used for combat (although it could hide you behind something and wake you up). Daemons have all of the character's physical abilities, but are considered to have a Charisma and Manipulation of 0 and an Intelligence of 1. Appearance, Wits, and Perception do not change.

Sleepless (8 XP): The character no longer needs to sleep. This is a dehumanizing, but incredibly powerful, feature that can greatly increase productivity by freeing up nearly a third of every day for something other than sleeping. Sleepless characters regain 1 WP every week rather than 1 WP with a good night's sleep.

Cognition

Enhanced Memory (3 XP): The character has near-perfect memory (“photographic memory”). The character never needs to roll to remember something which might be im-portant to the plot, he just remembers it. The character may al-so learn Abilities which are purely intellectual (such as most In-telligence Abilities) extremely quickly with access to study aids such as teachers and books.

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Enhanced Processing (6 XP): The character can digest and analyze astounding amounts of information at an in-credible pace. The character never takes difficulty penalties for lacking computing tools on rolls which would normally need computers, can read several times faster than a normal person, and can do arithmetic instantly.

Multithreaded (12 XP): The character has a multi-threaded thought process and may pay full attention to more than one task at a time. The character adds 1 automatic suc-cess to resist mind control or any other form of mental influ-ence. The character counts as an assistant to himself for re-search and development, and may also use Concentration powers without having to concentrate, as well as reducing all multiple action penalties by 1.

Reactions

Ambidexterity (2 XP): The character no longer has a dominant side, reducing all multiple action penalties by 1 as long as attacks are being made with two weapons.

Combat Reflexes (6 XP): The character is ex-tremely adept at acting in a combat situation. A character with Combat Reflexes adds +1d to all rolls for Initiative and rolls to resist suppressive fire. This Augmentation may be purchased twice, doubling its bonuses.

Enhanced Reactions (10 XP): A character with this Augmentation sees the world in slow-motion. This augmenta-tion reduces all multiple action penalties by 1 and adds +1d to initiative. This modification may be purchased twice to double its bonuses.

Mental Overclocking (12 XP): The character can, at the cost of 1 WP, overclock his mental processes such that every movement can be precisely accomplished like clockwork. When activated for an action the character gains an automatic success on Initiative and an additional action (which, like all ex-tra actions, may not be split). This augmentation may be pur-chased twice, allowing a character to spend 1 WP to gain 2 ex-tra actions and 2 automatic successes on Initiative for the turn.

Neural Acceleration (2 XP): Synthetic fast-transmitting neurons, electro-optical bypass shunts, or some other method of increasing reaction speed have improved the character's ability to react to changing circumstances, adding +1d to initiative. The character may buy as many iterations of this augmentation as his (Wits + 1).

Interface

Implant Computer (8 XP):The character has a computer interfaced with his mind. An implant computer adds +[1] automatic success to any mathematics or computer intru-sion/programming rolls and in addition provides a character with perfect time sense and eidetic memory. Implant computers have their own wireless I/O connections.

Nav Implant (2 XP): The character is implanted with a combination of GPS tracker, inertial navigation system, and compass, adding [1] automatic success to any Survival rolls made to navigate difficult terrain.

Radio Communicator (1/2 XP): The character has an implanted 2-way radio with 10km range on a clear plain with no interference for 1 XP. The 2 XP provides video send/receive support, phone and wireless device connectivity, and a 25km range.

Skill Implant (1+ XP): The character has artificial competence in one Ability (physical, mental, or social). A skill

implant requires 1 willpower to use during a scene (the feeling of being puppeted is extremely disconcerting). A skill implant costs 1 XP for an ability at rating 1, 2 XP for an ability at rating 2, 4 XP for an ability at rating 3, and 6 XP for an ability at rating 4. This augmentation may be purchased any number of times, with each purchase providing a different Ability.

Device Link (6 XP): A character with this Augmen-tation can link himself or herself to a certain category of elec-tronic device (such as firearms, vehicles, computers, industrial equipment, and so on). When linked, the character adds an au-tomatic success to all rolls related to the device in question. Most modern devices are capable of linking without any specif-ic improvements. Modifying an older device to work with this link is a (Intelligence + Engineering [Electrical]) extended roll at +1 difficulty requiring 10 successes with an interval of 1 hour per roll. This Augmentation may be purchased multiple times, with each purchase allowing the character to interface with an-other category of devices.

Defensive

Encryption (4 XP): The character's memory is par-tially encrypted. This adds +1 difficulty to any attempt to read the character's mind via Telepathy or similar powers.

Error-Correction (6 XP): Systems intended to en-sure proper brain functionality have been integrated into the character, adding 1 automatic success to resist mind-affecting powers, and -1 difficulty to resist the effects of mental disorders.

Firewall (6 XP): The character has specialized anti-intrusion components that interface with all computer systems in his body, including the brain itself. These firewalls protect against any unwanted access, adding +1 difficulty to all at-tempts to take control of the character or read his mind against his will, such as cyberkinesis, domination, telepathy, or other such abilities.

Pain Editor (4 XP): The character has the ability to ignore pain, reducing all wound penalties by -1. At the end of a scene where the pain editor was used, the character takes 1 unsoakable level of damage, which is Bashing if the character has only taken Bashing damage, or Lethal if the character has taken Lethal or Aggravated damage.

Sensory Cutoffs (4 XP): The character has greatly reduced vulnerability to having her senses overloaded, adding +1 automatic success against powers or weapons that attack the senses, such as blinding lasers, flashbang grenades, or the Strobe power.

Social Augmenta-

tions

Enhancement

Enchanting Feature (2 XP): The character has a particularly beautiful set of eyes, great facial structure, or something else that is more or less entirely memorable and unique. The character adds [1] success to all Appearance rolls and [2] successes to any attempts to track the character. Look-ing unique may sometimes be more trouble than it's worth.

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Pheromonal

Pheromones (2 XP): The character's pheromones are tailored for greater impact and potency. A character with this Augmentation selects one emotion per purchase of pher-omones-when he makes a social roll which resonates with that emotion (seduction for lust, intimidation or interrogation for fear, rapport for calm) the character gains a +1d bonus. Repurchas-ing pheromones allows the character to choose another emo-tion, or increase the bonus for one emotional state by 1d (to a maximum of +2d).

Pheromone Blockers (2 XP): Nasal filters and neural bypasses immunize the character from pheromonal in-fluence, eliminating any pheromone-granted bonuses.

Empathy

Empathic (6 XP): Electromagnetic sensors throughout the skull provide the ability to see active areas of the brain and deduce emotional states, adding +1 success to any Rapport roll, and +1d to medicine rolls involving diagnosing brain trauma.

Lie Detector (4 XP): The character's sense of touch is calibrated to analyze heart rate and skin conductivity, while her sense of hearing is calibrated for voice stress analy-sis. The character gains +1 success to any roll to detect lies as long as she can maintain physical contact and close proximity.

Personality Analysis (6 XP): The character can analyze body language, eye movement, and vocal tone to get a rough idea of the overall personality of any conversation partner, allowing for a tailored approach. After conversing for a few sentences, the ST should tell the player a few of the other character's major personality traits (e.g. "self-confident and un-sympathetic to others", "cowardly", "focused on maintaining self-image", etc.). At this point, a social approach tailored to the other character's personality type gains +1d.

Deception

Appearance Alteration (10 XP): The character possesses various subdermal sacs which can have their shape and texture altered to simulate body features, and their skin and hair are capable of changing coloration, allowing the char-acter to disguise himself or herself as anyone with roughly the same build and gender. Weight cannot be adjusted but height can be adjusted by a few cm, and hair/skin color as well as fa-cial features can be altered, adding +1 automatic success to all disguise rolls and allowing disguises to be made without any tools. This is a significantly weaker version of the Appearance Alteration Enhancement, and a Nova with this Augmenta-tion still cannot hide any aberrations with it.

Asexual (6 XP): Neural rewiring removes normal human sexual responses from the character and leaves him or her completely asexual. All attempts to seduce the character automatically fail (in fact, no roll is possible), but all attempts by the character to seduce others must be attempted via (Manipu-lation + Subterfuge) at +4 difficulty.

Off The Shelf (4 XP): The character's looks are completely nondescript. He or she is generically hand-some/beautiful, generically average, whatever the case may be. Looking like a composite of a dozen faces with no real distin-guishing features adds +1 difficulty to any attempts to track the character, or remember him/her. Being "off the shelf" precludes having enchanting features.

Social Chameleon (6 XP): The character is a so-cial chameleon, unconsciously taking in and rapidly assimilat-ing social cues such as slang, personal spacing, and so on. Within 24 hours, he may pass for a native of the region under normal scrutiny. This also adds +1 success to any disguise roll made to disguise oneself as a category of person rather than a specific person.

Unreadable (4 XP): The character shows none of the standard signs of lying or nervousness at this point, but is also extremely disconcerting. A character gains +1 bonus suc-cess on any opposed rolls to successfully lie and may fool lie detectors, but all other social rolls are at +1 difficulty because he exhibits none of the standard autonomous responses, put-ting him right into the Uncanny Valley.

Quantum Augmen-

tations

These Augmentations may normally be taken only by novas. They represent capabilities which are normally beyond human potential, derived from quantum forces, or require a no-va’s physiology. Non-novas may not take these modifications.

Taint Channeler (8 XP): A nova with this Augmen-tation is particularly adept at making Taint work for him, rather than the other way around. The nova gains double the effect whenever he chooses to take temporary Taint. That is to say, a nova can gain 1 temporary Taint to add 2 successes to a max roll, regenerate 4 Quantum points, or turn all the dice on a power max into successes.

Taint Resistant (10 XP): A nova with this augmenta-tion channels quantum energies more efficiently and has a more stable self-image than most, allowing her to resist un-wanted changes to it in the form of taint. A Taint Resistant no-va reduces all involuntary gains of temporary Taint (botches, failures, Taint radiation) by 1 (minimum 0). Furthermore, at the end of every story, a Taint Resistant nova loses 1 point of tem-porary Taint.

2nd Generation Nova (4 XP): You are one of the extremely rare children of novas and your body has grown up accustomed to channeling quantum energies. As the game normally takes place in 2027, the oldest a 2nd generation nova can be during these times is 15. Your power thematics may not work in a logical fashion compared to 1st generation novas, you are nearly immune to the problems of taint, and your ‘node’ is distributed throughout your nervous system. A nova with this trait does not gain permanent taint from high quantum. On the flipside, you are incapable of ever gaining temporary or perma-nent taint willingly. 2nd Generation Novas must also have the Taint Resistant trait, but are even less likely to gain taint, losing all accumulated temporary Taint at the end of each story. Note that this is an extremely rare merit in the default setting and should only be allowed with ST approval.

Acquiring Aberra-

tions

Aberrations are often acquired as part of an Augmen-tation, either because the Augmentation was imperfect, or be-

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cause the side-effect was a necessary part of the transfor-mation.

As humans further modify their own body, or novas’ Taint rises, their condition deteriorates. Often this means ac-quiring new flaws in the human template; however, it may also include existing aberrations worsening. For example, a nova’s eyes may simply start glowing early on. Later, their eyes turn into pure energy or even twin sucking voids.

The experience values of these aberrations assume that they are appropriately hindering the character. If the char-acter is able to effectively mitigate or eliminate the drawbacks of the aberration, that aberration should probably be worth less or nothing at all. Of course, characters are welcome to have aberrations, even if they do not handicap them, to add charac-ter.

Experience points refunded from aberrations is only normally usable to discount body modifications: It may not be spent in other areas without explicit storyteller permission.

General Aberra-

tions

Feeble (Attribute) (2 XP): The character reduces the maximum of one of his attributes by 1, down to a minimum of 1 dot. This may be purchased multiple times, each purchase either reducing the effective rating of an already-feeble attrib-ute by another dot, or negatively impacting another attribute.

Physical Aberra-

tions

Aberrant Appearance (2-8 XP): Something’s strange about the character’s appearance. She might have oddly colored skin or eyes, vertical pupils like a cat, pointed ears like an elf, inhumanly bulging muscles, or other traits which emphasize her inhumanity. This aberration adds +1 diffi-culty to all rolls to disguise oneself or pass as human for every 2 XP gained.

Allergic Reaction (2-20 XP): The character finds it more difficult to act or suffers damage when in contact with a particular substance or condition harmless to baselines. Exam-ples include specific elements or substances, sunlight (or its absence) or certain types of energy fields. The Storyteller de-termines how much damage the character takes (and what type of damage it is) based upon the amount, purity and/ or power of the substance. Novas frequently have bizarre aller-gies with no scientific basis, such as an allergy to piano music or glass.

Use the following chart to determine the XP value of the character’s allergic reaction.

Rarity of Substance XP Value Rare: silver 2 Common: fabric dyes 4 Very Common: sunlight 6 Dice of Damage/Difficulty Penalty

Additional XP Value

1 N/A

2 +1 4 +2 8 +4 Deals Damage and adds to Difficulties

+4

Type of Damage Additional XP Value Stun N/A Bashing +1 Lethal +3 Aggravated +6

Androgynous/Hermaphrodite (1-2 XP): For 1 XP, the character becomes extremely androgynous. For 2 XP, the character acquires the sexual characteristics of the opposite gender, becoming a true hermaphrodite. Although some may find it attractive, most people will find the character’s condition disturbing and have difficulty dealing with it, especially romanti-cally. The character may also have some social and sexual hang-ups about its new condition.

Crippled (2-12 XP): The character suffers from a debilitating injury, rendering one or more limbs useless. Fully-functional mind-controlled prosthetics are fairly common in First World countries in 2027, and regeneration therapy is also available, if expensive. Therefore, most crippled characters have some remarkable reason for their condition. Some don’t believe in using such technology; or they have Augmentations which interfere with the signal sent to the prosthetics; novas sometimes try installing prosthetics, only to find their bodies re-ject them (this is often the case where the nova developed the crippling injury because of Taint); and then again, some people simply cannot afford the surgery and equipment.

Simple nerve damage prevents the character from using that limb for fine manipulation, but the limb is otherwise normal. This condition is worth 2 XP.

A character with a crippled or lame leg moves at one-quarter normal speed, may need a cane or walker, and suffers a +4 difficulty penalty for all actions involving lower body movement (including dodging). This condition is worth 3 XP.

A character with a crippled arm has an effective Strength of 0 with that limb, but can otherwise still use it nor-mally. This condition is worth 3 XP.

A character with a missing leg is incapable of moving faster than a crawl (1 m/round) without a wheelchair. This con-dition is worth 5 XP.

A character with a missing arm has a self-explanatory condition. This condition is worth 5 XP.

A paraplegic character is paralyzed from a certain point down. This makes the character incapable of most, if not all, movement involving the paralyzed areas. If this condition applies to the lower body, it is worth 8 XP. If the entire body be-low the neck is immobile, this aberration is worth 10 XP. If the entire body, including the face is paralyzed, you get 12 XP.

Cyclops (3 XP): You have only one functional eye (or in the case of some novas, one eye socket). You have no depth perception. You suffer +1 difficulty to all ranged attack and dodge rolls.

Disturbing Voice (1-2 XP): The character’s voice takes on an unusual quality. It might sound tinny or metallic, especially deep and resonant or hollow and whispery. It might even have a perfect tone, like the voice of an angel. The 1 XP variant merely makes the character’s voice extremely distinc-tive-any attempts to track the character via audio gain 1 auto-matic success if the character is talking, and all attempts to disguise the character’s voice are at +1 difficulty. The 2 XP var-iant adds +1 difficulty to all social rolls besides Intimidation as

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well. This aberration is common for characters with Mega-Charisma or certain body modifications (especially those af-fecting the mouth and throat).

Electronic/Cyborg (2-8 XP): The character is mostly machine, or a combination of machine and man. For 2 XP, the character is Electronic-her brain is a computer, her body a machine, her bones titanium alloy and graphene, her muscles plastic. The character is affected by EMP damage like a vehicle, soaking EMP damage with her natural Lethal soak. The character is also vulnerable to Cyberkinesis and computer hacking (although a hacker still needs a connection), but im-mune to mind-affecting powers. For 4 XP, the character is a Cyborg. This comes with all of the problems of being Electron-ic without the benefit of being immune to powers such as Dom-ination.

The costs assume the character is reasonably shielded against her vulnerabilities. If the character is not hard-ened and does not have soak against EMP damage, this aber-ration is worth +4 XP. This is an extremely common Aberration (in the Cyborg variant) for characters with Bioenhancements. However, baseline characters without any Augmentations may still take this Aberration—that means the character is depend-ent on artificial limbs and organs for survival and mobility.

Feeding Restriction (1-10 XP): The character de-velops a dependence or addiction to some food, substance or form of energy, which she must ingest to fuel her powers. At 1 XP, the character has a minor dietary restriction, such as being unable to digest anything that isn’t dairy-based.

At 3 XP, the diet is a regular inconvenience or embar-rassment. The character might need raw meat or gasoline.

At 5 XP, the diet is a serious inconvenience for the character, and is usually expensive or disturbing. The charac-ter might need human blood or copious amounts of gold to sus-tain himself.

At 10 XP, the diet is horrifying, very dangerous, or re-strictive beyond belief - and perhaps even supernatural. Can-nibalism, the blood of (specifically) female serial killers, or M-R nodes served with a chilled glass of Moscato D’asti.

Characters with the appropriate powers, notably Ab-sorption, may feed on energy rather than matter. Characters with Quantum Leech may feed on pure quantum energy, while characters with Telepathy may “feed” on thoughts, emotions or dreams (or nightmares...).

Whatever the case, the nova gains a minor benefit from this restriction: he can digest this substance normally and without harm to himself. That said, it doesn’t prevent the char-acter from being harmed by the substance: a character that can safely consume hot coals is no more immune to external burns than a normal human.

Failing to fulfill the feeding requirement means the character cannot regain quantum points. At 0 quantum points, the character must make Willpower rolls (modified by XP value of this aberration) to avoid giving in to her hunger.

Fragile (4 or 6 XP): A character who is Fragile is extremely prone to injury. At the 4 XP level, the character no longer can soak lethal damage with Stamina. At the 6 XP level, the character halves his Stamina-derived Bashing soak, there-fore having a soak of (Stamina/2)B and 0L, rounding down fractional soak as usual. Fragile characters tend to be, but are not always, afflicted by some sort of disorder that causes brittle bones.

Glass Jaw (4 XP): Characters with this flaw are ex-tremely easy to daze or render unconscious beyond what their durability would imply. Although some people are just built that way, some people have Augmentations that give them the ap-pearance of impressive fortitude, without anything to back it up.

The character halves his Stamina for the purposes of dazing and unconsciousness.

Altered Skin (4-10 XP): The character’s skin can no longer really be described as “skin.” Instead, it’s become something else, whether it’s coated with slime, hardened into scaled armor, or become red-hot to the touch. Whatever it is, it’s obviously not normal. For 4 XP, the character can no longer enjoy physical sensations as he once did. The character fails all Awareness rolls based on touch and also can take no pleasure from any sensations based on touch. For 8 XP, a no-va’s “skin” might be harmful to the touch, causing (Quantum + Permanent Taint) Bashing damage per minute of contact. For 10 XP, contact with the skin deals (Quantum + Permanent Taint) Lethal damage per combat round of contact. Although certainly useful in combat, this tends to put a damper on one’s love life, ability to sleep in normal beds, and handle any equipment that isn’t custom-made. Obviously, characters with-out quantum or permanent taint may not purchase the 8 or 10 XP versions.

Low Pain Threshold (2, 4 or 8 XP): A character with Low Pain Tolerance is allergic to fights (they break out in wounds). This often represents a botched attempt at rewiring a person’s nervous system to reduce pain or oversensitivity to physical sensation.

At 2 XP, the character loses the ability to roll (Stami-na + Resistance) or pay Willpower to ignore wound penalties and increases all wound penalties by 1. At 4 XP, a character gains all the effects of the 1 point flaw, but also increases all wound penalties by an additional point. At 8 XP, a character doubles base wound penalties (so the character has -2, -4, -8, and -10 health levels instead of -0, -1, -2, and -4).

Mayfly Curse (2-8 XP): The character follows the mantra “A brief fire burns brightly”. He has to, because the character has an extremely short lifespan. At 2 XP, the charac-ter has (Stamina) years of healthy life remaining, which may only be extended by increasing Stamina. At 4 XP, the charac-ter has (Stamina x 6) months of healthy life remaining. At 8 XP, the character is going to die very quickly and has (Stamina) months of healthy life remaining. Past that, the character per-manently loses 1 dot from his physical attributes per day, dying when any physical attribute reaches 0. This (as with any other flaws involving short life) should not be allowed for player char-acters without good reason (player characters shouldn’t be dy-ing of old age, after all) and is mostly here to stat up flawed clones and other NPCs. However, it could be an interesting plot hook.

Mute (3 XP): The character cannot speak. This is often caused by a birth defect, physical trauma or vocal exper-iments. Traumatic events can trigger it, too. Mute novas tend to have some other means of communication on which they fre-quently rely; so much so that they no longer miss the ability to speak.

Obvious Enhancements (2 or 4 XP): Most Aug-mentations (outside of things such as size and extra limbs, or those noted to have obvious external changes) are assumed to be hidden, or at least difficult to notice, while not in use. A character with this aberration cannot hide their superhuman capabilities short of covering their entire body. The character may have sleek black plastic-and-metal cyberlimbs for en-hanced Strength and Dexterity, obvious organic circuitry tat-toos to enhance her Intelligence and Wits, and dangerous-looking bulges where implanted weapons are, constant energy discharges crackling from her body that are focused for her Quantum Bolt, and so on. However it manifests, her powers and Augmentations are completely obvious and with a single glance any character can figure out what powers and augmen-

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tations she possesses. At 2 XP, this only affects a nova’s Augmentations or Quantum Powers and Mega-Attributes, choose one category. The other category is still hidden and may be used to surprise someone. At 4 XP, this affects a non-nova’s Augmentations, or any Augmentations, Mega-Attributes, and powers a nova has.

Second Self (2, 6, or 8 XP): One or more other bodies begin to sprout from the character’s body. Often the “extra” bodies are limited to just faces - a face on the side of the character’s head, in his chest, in his stomach or on his thigh. But in some cases more body parts, such as shoulders or limbs, emerge. This aberration seems to be more common among characters with powers such as Telepathy, though no one has offered a convincing explanation as to why.

At 2 XP, the limbs are merely vestigial, and of little or no use to the character. At least they don’t act up.

At 6 XP, the second self is horrifying, but benign. It might occasionally move on its own, or even speak nonsense, but it is usually not much trouble.

At 8 XP, the second self is the stuff of nightmares. Mouths that speak your deepest secrets, arms that try to stran-gle you in your sleep, or legs that kick loved ones when they draw near.

Sensitive (3 XP): One of the character’s senses becomes abnormally sensitive to overstimulation. The charac-ter suffers a +1 or greater difficulty modifier in circumstances where that sense is overloaded, such as a character with sen-sitive hearing dealing with a crowded city street at rush hour or a character with sensitive smell in a landfill. In some cases, the character may have to make a Willpower roll in order to over-come the sensory overload and act at all, such as the charac-ter with sensitive hearing at a rock concert or a character with sensitive taste sampling a particularly exquisite chocolate. Al-ternately, the character might become sensitive to pain, similar to the Low Pain Threshold Flaw. Note that although this aber-ration is most common in characters with Mega-Perception, it is not a prerequisite, and the character gains no benefit to Per-ception rolls for being sensitive. Characters with psychic abili-ties can also have this aberration, to reflect the effects of over-whelming psychic input, like a telepathic character over-whelmed by crowds or hostile emotions.

Sensory Dysfunction (1-6 XP): The character los-es the use of one sense, most commonly his sight or hearing. Taste or Touch are worth 2 XP; Smell is worth 4 XP; Sight or Hearing is worth 6 XP. The character can use sensory powers like Mega-Perception and ESP to partially compensate for these deficiencies. Make a roll for the sensory power, then per-form the task normally at +5 difficulty. For every success over the sensory power’s required difficulty, subtract one from the +5 penalty.

If the sense is simply weak, as opposed to nonfunc-tional, then the sense can be used as normal, but with a +2 dif-ficulty penalty on all related rolls. A weak sense is worth 1 XP less than its nonfunctional counterpart.

Sloughed Flesh (5 XP): The character’s skin and flesh no longer sit right on his bones. He looks as if he were made of wax and left too close to the fire - he seems slightly melted or askew, with skin and flesh bunched up where it should be thin, and paper-thin where it should rest thick on the skeleton. The character’s Appearance is 0 whenever physical attractiveness might be a factor, and any rolls which may are significantly influenced by physical beauty are at +4 difficulty.

Slow (2 XP): Although not actually crippled, the character moves slowly. This is often a side-effect of certain cybernetic implants or natural armor developed via Augmenta-

tion. However, it may also be due to simply being fat or having bad feet. Whatever the case, the character moves at one-half normal movement rate.

Unearthly Beauty (1 XP): The character is the paragon of handsomeness (or beauty, as the case may be). His hair is always perfect, his muscles show just the right amount of definition, his teeth are straight and white, his eyes a fascinating color, his build perfect, and it seems as if there’s not an ounce of fat on him. In fact, he’s just too perfect - it’s ee-rie and disturbing. Even other “beautiful people” seem uneasy around him, sometimes expressing their unease through vi-cious jealousy, envy, barbed humor or the like. The character may be at +1 difficulty to social rolls which are adversely af-fected by such a disturbing appearance.

Unhealing (2-8 XP): A character with the Unhealing aberration does not heal some (or all!) injuries without assis-tance. If the character has a power that allows them to ignore most of these limitations, such as Quantum Vampire or Healing, Unhealing halves its value. At 2 XP, the character may still heal most damage, but requires assistance to heal -2 health levels or below. The character gains 4 XP if she needs help to heal -1 health levels, and 8 XP if the character cannot heal.

Upon gaining this aberration the character should de-fine the specific Ability which repairs the character, such as Engineering for a full-conversion cyborg or Art (Sewing) for a Frankenstinian Monster. Repairs are done at the difficulty of the highest wound penalty taken (so if the character is down to her -4 health levels, the repairs are +4 difficulty), take 8 hours of work per roll, and restore 1 health level per success. And, of course, the character is extremely vulnerable to being attacked when half-disassembled…

Vulnerable (6 or 12 XP): A Vulnerable character is extremely fragile. At the 6 XP level, the character adds +1d to the damage of any attacks that penetrate his soak. At the 12 XP level, the character also loses 1 of each health level be-sides the Incapacitated level (the character's normal health track is now 1 x -1/1 x -2/Incapacitated).

Mental Aberrations

In many cases, a character has to resist the impulses of a mental aberration. This requires a Willpower roll at stand-ard difficulty, subtracting the character’s permanent Taint rating from the Willpower pool before rolling. If this reduces the char-acter’s Willpower pool to 0, the character must spend a Will-power point in order to resist the urge to give in to the aberra-tion. If the character has no Willpower left, he is at the mercy of his mental aberrations and his Nature.

The Mental Aberrations of novas sometimes boggle the minds of psychologists because they do not always corre-spond to science’s understanding of the brain. In other words, novas frequently develop actual cases of Hollywood-style men-tal disorders; conditions which do not actually exist, or at least do not exist in the way that pop culture portrays them. Psy-chologists speculate that the development of these bizarre mental conditions occurs for the same reason that novas are able to defy physics: That is to say, they don’t know.

Absent-Minded (3 XP): The character has difficulty remembering things. The Storyteller can require an lntelligence roll at any time to see if a character remembers a particular fact, appointment, duty or such. The Storyteller can also spring “surprise” events on the character from time to time, which the character knew but forgot about.

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Addiction/Compulsion (3 or 5 XP): You are driven to use some substance (addiction) or engage in some action (compulsion). For each 24 hours after the first 24 where you fail to satisfy your craving, you suffer +1 to all of your difficulties. This continues until you satisfy your addiction (so going “cold turkey” for four days imposes a +3 difficulty penalty).

This aberration is worth 3 XP if the addic-tion/compulsion is something legal, like cigarettes, alcohol, sex or the like. It’s worth 5 XP if the character is addicted to some-thing illegal or hard to get, like Amp Wells, soma or murder.

Note that novas are generally immune to most addic-tive drugs used by baselines, like cocaine and heroin. Soma is one of the few substances a nova can get high on. Nova char-acters can also be addicted to using their powers. This is a le-gal addiction for most powers: the nova is simply addicted to the “high” of being able to fly, shapeshift or whatever, though this makes the nova poorly suited for covert missions. lllegal power addictions include abilities that affect other people, like Domination, Hypnosis, Quantum Leech and Telepathy.

Amnesia (5 XP): The character has no memory of a significant part of his past, or perhaps his entire history. At-tempts to recall anything related to his past result in mental an-guish. Even if forced to confront the past, the character will be unable to process it, and will forget anything about it again in short order. Some novas have been known to suffer amnesia as a result of a particularly traumatic eruption, giving them the sensation of being “reborn” as a nova, with their memories and experience a blank slate.

Note that this aberration is appropriate only when the forgotten memories are a major issue for the character. Forget-ting the events of a car crash would be inconsequential (at least for this aberration) unless something profoundly important happened at that time.

Bipolar Disorder (5 XP): Also known as Manic-Depressive Disorder. The character goes from periods of ex-treme lethargy, apathy and depression to manic bursts of en-ergy and frantic activity. The Storyteller determines when an episode of mania or depression comes on.

Combat Paralysis (4 XP): The character freezes up when entering combat. This is usually do to psychological trauma, but might also represent a glitch in an internal comput-er. However, sometimes the disturbing truth (with novas) is that the character is pausing to contemplate how much pain she can inflict in the shortest amount of time.

You tend to “freeze up” in combat situations, either due to inexperience, previous trauma or simple fear. Roll two dice for Initiative and take the lowest result. Enhancements to your Initiative still apply.

Combat Stress (6 XP): A character with this aber-ration is constantly in a fight-or-flight state of mind. In other words, she is constantly “wired”. Whenever something possibly threatening happens (fireworks, a kid jumping out of a dark al-ley, someone pointing something at the character), she must make an Awareness roll at +1 difficulty (before any other modi-fiers, such as poor lighting are factored in) or immediately initi-ate combat, whether by attacking or by running for cover. If the character is threatened, she must succeed on a +3 difficulty Willpower roll or attack if possible. This may result from Taint or augmentation surgery but is far more common in military veterans with psychological issues from seeing too much com-bat.

Costume Fetish (1 XP): The character has a pen-chant (some might say obsession) for wearing a certain type of clothing. It can be skintight eufiber, leather and spikes, liquid latex, a mask or full Renaissance Faire garb. The important

point is that it’s odd, and the character tends to wear it even under the most inappropriate circumstances. This can impose a +1 or greater difficulty on Social rolls and may be a serious faux pas in some situations. It also makes the character stand out in a crowd and makes her a less than ideal candidate for subtle and covert activities. The player can spend a Willpower point for her character to dress “normally” for a scene, but the character doesn’t like it (as is likely to tell just about everyone).

This aberration is developed almost exclusively by novas, and is sometimes a symptom of a far greater derange-ment. Such novas tend to feel detached when not in costume, coming to think of their costumed identity as their true selves, and their out-of-costume identity as the “costume”.

Delusions (3, 6 or 12 XP): The character has hal-lucinations, or comes to incorrect conclusions about things with no basis in fact. For example, a character might see images of spiritual figures, hear the voices of “guides” and come to the conclusion that his powers are spiritual in nature (either as a curse or a blessing). A character might come to believe her powers are magical or supernatural, that she is a reincarnation of some historical or mythic figure, that she is a character in a comic book or television show or just about anything else. De-lusions usually start out small and become increasingly irra-tional (as the character’s Taint increases or he continues en-hancing herself), but they may spring full-blown from the char-acter’s twisted mind. Storytellers are encouraged to come up with interesting delusions, and players are encouraged to roleplay them accordingly.

At 3 XP, the delusions are troublesome and embar-rassing, but not dangerous. The character might believe the planets are alive and actually battling each other or that some demonstrably historical event never occurred. She might be narcissistic, believing she is incapable of error.

At 6 XP, the delusion is creepy and has an effect on the character’s daily life and interactions with others. She might believe that all redheads are aliens here to conquer the planet or that god will protect her from any and all harm.

At 12 XP, the character’s delusion is dangerous and all-consuming. The character might believe herself to be a god or demon, here to rule or destroy all of creation. Delusions of this kind are especially horrifying when developed by novas, as they may have the power to back up their delusion.

Dependence (3-13 XP): The character requires a particular substance in order to live. If the character cannot get a regular intake of the substance, she will deteriorate and eventually die. For normal baselines, this might be medication, such as insulin. For Enhanced humans, this often takes the form of anti-rejection drugs. For novas, this could be just about anything, including blood, aquatic environments or soma.

The value of this aberration depends on the following factors: the rarity of the substance and the frequency with which it must be consumed.

Rarity of Substance Value Common (water) 3 XP Uncommon (chlorophyll or silver)

5 XP

Rare/Illegal (plutonium or soma)

7 XP

Required Frequency of Intake

Additional Value

Every 24 hours No adjustment Every 8 hours +2 XP Every 4 hours +3 XP Every hour +4 XP Additional Factors Additional Value

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Damage is Lethal instead of Bashing

+2 XP

The character suffers one Health Level of the appro-priate damage type (usually Bashing) for every period of intake that she misses. This damage is unsoakable and cannot be healed until the character receives her next “dose”.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (7 XP): This aber-ration causes the character’s personality to break into distinct parts, each with its own Personality and identity. A character may be a classical “split personality” with two identities, or there may be dozens of personalities. Usually, the personality with the most appropriate Nature to deal with a situation is dominant at any given time, but personalities can sometimes switch for no apparent reason. The character can make a Will-power roll to avoid such a change.

Novas often develop splits between their nova and human natures, having a “character” and “human” identity that know nothing of each other. Novas with the Clone power may find their clones taking on individual identities, with personali-ties (and agendas) of their own. Novas with Quantum Con-struct sometimes find their “creatures” taking on a life of their own, while novas with Homunculus may manifest a war be-tween their personalities as a true separation into individual be-ings.

Easily Overwhelmed (3 XP): The character needs a quiet, stable environment in order to function properly. Chaot-ic situations, like gunfights or large parties, turn her into a nervous wreck. She suffers a difficulty modifier of +1 to +3 in such conditions, determined by the Storyteller. A character with this Aberration cannot have the Concentration Merit. This Aber-ration is most common among novas with Mega-Perception or baselines with sensory improvements, whose enhanced sens-es are more easily overloaded by chaotic conditions.

Flashbacks (4 XP): The character has some trau-matic experience in your past that she sometimes recalls with terrifying clarity. Whenever she is in a situation similar to that experience, she must make a Willpower roll at +1 difficulty to avoid being overwhelmed by memories of it. She tends to mis-take people, places and things for similar things in her memory and may act on those erroneous conclusions. If she botches the Willpower roll, she become almost catatonic, entirely lost in her recollections. She can spend a point of Willpower to ignore the effects of this aberration for one scene.

Insomnia (3 XP): Some people cannot sleep until their bodies literally pass out from exhaustion. Insomniacs cannot fall asleep for a number of days equal to their Stamina or Willpower, whichever is greater, during which they suffer penalties for fatigue.

Masochism (2 XP): The character derives pleasure from feeling pain and humiliation. The character still suffers penalties for injuries, but often because he’s too busy enjoying them. The character tends to seek out opportunities to feel pain, whether dangerous assignments or dangerous liaisons with a willing partner. This aberration most often shows up among characters with protective powers like Mega-Stamina and Ar-mor. Sometimes pain is the only sensation the character can really feel enough to enjoy.

Prejudiced (2 XP): The character has an unflinch-ingly narrow view of a certain category of people. The bias may be positive, but it is usually negative, and in either case is un-realistic. The character’s opinion cannot be changed, even with damning evidence (“there’s always outliers”, “the exception that proves the rule”), and the prejudiced group would feel insulted by the stereotype.

Narcolepsy (3 XP): The character suffers frequent sleep attacks during the day, making regular activity difficult: she probably shouldn’t drive a car or do anything else requiring constant focus.

Obsession (3 XP): The character is fascinated with a particular person, place or behavior and do everything she can to satisfy her interest. If she is obsessed with a person, she spends all her available time with them and learns all she can about them (she’s basically a stalker, whether or not she means any harm). If she’s obsessed with a place, she spends all her time there, and she’s very reluctant to leave.

Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (2 or 5 XP): The character is unable to resist a certain urge. This urge may cause her to perform ludicrous tasks or speak absolute perfec-tion in every detail. You may spend a Willpower point to over-come your obsession for one scene. Works as the Addic-tion/Compulsion Flaw.

At 2 XP, the disorder is annoying, but not usually a major inconvenience. The character might always check every door five times to make sure it is locked or feels compelled to avoid walking on cracks.

At 5 XP, the character’s life is noticeably impeded by the disorder on a regular basis. She might clean her hands every time she touches something (washing them until they’re raw), restart a sentence every time she fails to speak perfectly, or cannot leave a room unless every chair is perfectly straight.

Overconfidence (2 XP): The character has a ten-dency to overestimate his own abilities or underestimate a sit-uation. This is especially common with novas possessing Mega-Attributes. They really are better-equipped to handle sit-uations, and so may push themselves into ever-more-dangerous situations. Even if they are defeated, some such novas never learn, assuming it was a fluke, cheating, or even believing they really did eke out victory.

In any situation where an assessment of your abili-ties is a factor, the Storyteller will tend to exaggerate them (“He doesn’t look so tough to you,” or “You’ve seen this kind of se-curity system before, and they’re easy,” for example). You must also make a Willpower roll at +1 difficulty to back down from a direct challenge to your abilities. You can spend a Will-power point to ignore this Aberration for one scene.

Overconfidence tends to develop into Delusion, par-ticularly narcissism.

Paranoia (8 XP): The character becomes increas-ingly convinced that “others” are out to get her and sees plots and conspiracies everywhere. The character has to make a Willpower roll to avoid overreacting to any “suspicious” things she notices. She tends to keep secrets and doesn’t trust any-one completely. lronically, paranoid characters often find them-selves involved in just the sort of conspiracies they imagine. In the world of Aberrant, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!

Sadism (2 XP): The character derives pleasure from inflicting pain and degradation on others. This may start out with willing partners, but the character must also make Willpower rolls to avoid giving in to the need to inflict pain even in inappropriate circumstances. The character tortures people to get information from them (and eventually, for simple amusement) and is generally cruel and sadistic. This aberra-tion will almost certainly ruin a character’s reputation if it be-comes publicly known and will earn the character few allies, except those of a similar inclination.

Schizophrenia (16 XP): Extreme levels of mental aberration can result in total disassociation from reality. A schizophrenic character may be completely delusional, no

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longer interacting with the real world at all. The character is lost in an (often incoherent) fantasy world of her own making and must succeed on a Willpower roll in order to overcome her de-lusions and act normally, even for a short period of time. A schizophrenic character might become catatonic, completely lost in the world within her own mind (although still able to in-fluence things using certain powers), or she might continue to function physically but behave very erratically. The details of the character’s delusions are left up the Storyteller and the player.

Schizophrenia is an extremely debilitating condition, which normally makes characters unplayable. Players wishing to portray a schizophrenic need a plan to compensate for the numerous disadvantages of this condition.

Seizures (8 XP): The character is prone to seizures similar to epilepsy under stressful conditions. The seizure ef-fectively renders the character helpless for 10 turns, minus one turn for each success rolled using Willpower (modified by Taint). A botch on the Willpower roll also does a health level of Bashing damage to the character from his convulsions (which can also do considerable damage, if the character happens to have Mega-Strength). The character can spend a Willpower point to gain an automatic success on the Willpower roll.

Speech Impediment (2 XP): The character is una-ble to speak clearly, especially under stress. She may stutter, stammer or lisp. Listeners must make a Perception + Willpower roll to understand what she’s saying under stressful circum-stances. The player can spend a Willpower point to overcome this Aberration and speak clearly for one scene.

Submissive (3 or 6 XP): The character is psycho-logically incapable of taking charge, engaging in violence, or even being aggressive.

At 3 XP, the character suffers a +1 difficulty penalty to resist Sway attempts. Also, the character must spend a Will-power point in order to initiate combat, although she can fight to defend herself and others.

At 6 XP, the character suffers a +2 difficulty penalty to resist Sway attempts The character must spend a Willpower point to be able to fight at all.

Trademark (2 XP): You have a particular “signature” and feel compelled to use it to “sign” your work. It may be leav-ing a particular poem or a rose at the feet of a defeated oppo-nent, carving your logo or initials into the nearest wall (or ene-my ...) or leaving your vanquished foes without clothes. The key is that the trademark clearly shows you were there and re-quires some small risk on your part, both the distraction of leaving the trademark and the possibility of it being traced back to you. Storytellers may permit higher values for especially in-volved or nasty trademarks. You can spend a Willpower point to avoid leaving your trademark when you absolutely have to.

Vengeful (4 XP): You don’t forgive or forget. In fact, you tend to get mad and then get even - in the nastiest way possible. You have to make a Willpower roll at +1 difficulty to avoid repaying any slight, insult or offense against you in equal, if not greater, measure. This can range from getting in the last jibe to killing someone who tried to kill you (or have you killed). You can spend a Willpower point to ignore a particular offense (although you’re still likely to carry a grudge about it).

Quantum Aberra-

tions

Quantum Aberrations are normally associated only with novas. However, even baselines can develop these aber-rations, given the appropriate circumstances; constant expo-sure to high-Taint novas, being subject to certain quantum powers, use of nova-derived drugs, or unethical experiments meant to replicate nova powers. These occurrences are rare, so the following aberrations assume the character is a nova.

Anima Banner (1 XP): The nova’s anima visibly manifests around her when she uses her powers, or even when she doesn’t. This anima is a holographic, audial or tele-pathic manifestation of some object or symbol important to the character’s subconscious; for example, a character that identi-fied with a certain card in the Tarot might visibly manifest that symbol when she activates her quantum abilities. The anima has no tangible effect; it is merely a display of quantum ener-gies.

Black Thumb (3 XP): The nova radiates a low level of taint at all times, inimical to normal life. Simple plants like grasses and flowers die and shrivel up when the nova touches them, along with simple animal life like insects and other small creatures. If the nova spends a long period of time in a particu-lar area (no more than a 100 or so square meters), it may be-come completely sterile and blighted.

Eufiber Rejection (6 XP): For some reason, you cannot attune to eufiber; in fact, your quantum signature “kills” eufiber that remains in contact with you for more than an hour. You cannot have the Eufiber merit, and you gain no benefit from eufiber clothing. One of the more troublesome aspects of this Flaw is that you have to wear ordinary clothes, which may be destroyed regularly by your quantum powers. Without at-tunement, novas with powers like lmmolate, Shapeshift and Sizemorph will have a particularly tough time with this Flaw.

Glow (1 XP): This aberration is similar to Energy Emission (see below). The nova is so filled with quantum ener-gies that he can’t completely hold them in. He intermittently emits them in a soft glow of some kind, or perhaps crackling sparks or some similar phenomenon. The color and nature of this effect usually depend on the type of powers the nova has manifested, as well as the Storyteller’s fiendish imagination; it may or may not be attractive. In the dark, the difficulty to hit the nova with an attack is reduced by one.

Contagious (6 XP): The nova’s altered physiology gives off a virus or toxin harmful to baselines. In effect, the no-va has an uncontrollable version of the Poison power with a power rating equal to half her permanent Taint (round up) and costing no quantum points. The contagion is harmless to other novas, but baselines may consider the nova a true “Typhoid Mary.”

Dumbo Syndrome (1-12 XP): Named for the Dis-ney cartoon elephant that used a “magic feather” to fly, the Dumbo Syndrome causes the nova’s powers to become tied up in some sort of physical object.

At 1 XP, the talisman is portable and easily protected, such as a “magic” ring or a childhood toy.

At 2 XP, the talisman is either difficult to carry, clearly the source of the nova’s power, or expendable (but can be re-placed in a timely fashion). This includes large instruments, staves that crackle and glow with arcane energy, and the ina-

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bility to use powers unless smoking recently hand-rolled ciga-rettes.

At 3 XP, the nova’s power is tied to a specific location, like the synagogue of her home town or a forest that she pro-tects from loggers.

The nova pays the base cost if this only affects one of her powers or Mega-Attributes, double cost if it affects an en-tire category (all powers, all Mega-Attributes), and quadruple cost if it affects all quantum powers and Mega-Attributes. This effect is completely psychosomatic but no less real because of it. If the nova loses the object, she may either seek a replace-ment or pay off the aberration with XP. If gained from Taint, the nova may not buy it off, although it may be exchanged with ab-errations of equivalent value.

Energy Emission (2-6 XP): The nova’s ability to control the awesome energies coursing through his body has been compromised. He constantly gives off small “sparks” of energy, which may pose a danger to people and objects around him. The nature of the emissions depends upon the nova’s powers. For example, a nova with flame powers might emit tiny sparks of fire from his pores, or lavalike blood may drip down his body. At 2 XP, the effect is largely cosmetic. It deals only minor damage (although it certainly is uncomfortable for anyone nearby), dealing at most 1L damage to anyone in touch range for more than a few combat rounds (2-5). At 4 XP, the effect is more pronounced, dealing 4L damage per turn to everything within 1 meter. At 6 XP, the effect deals 6L damage per turn to everything within (Quantum) meters. Dependent on the type of energy, it may also have other consequences, like causing metal objects to stick to the nova (magnetism), setting nearby things on fire (fire or heat), or shorting out electronics the nova attempts to use (electricity). The ST is the final arbiter of what emitting a certain form of energy does beyond merely dealing damage.

Hyde Syndrome (7 XP): You have two forms, a “human” and a “nova” form, just like a character with a high Dormancy rating. However, your forms have totally different personalities, and neither remembers what the other experi-ences - you’re like two separate people. In effect, you suffer from a very specific type of Dissociative Identity Disorder (above). Moreover, you have no real control over when you change from one form to the other, just like the Uncontrolled Transformation aberration (above). Novas with Shapeshift and this aberration may have many different forms and personali-ties!

No Quantum Regeneration (10-15 XP): A nova with this aberration lacks the normal capability to regenerate Quantum points. At 8 XP, the nova “merely” does not gain a constant influx of Quantum points while in a stressful situation-she may still regenerate quantum points via relaxing or resting. At 12 XP, she loses even those sources of regeneration and may only regenerate quantum points in a very specific method (such as only regenerating quantum while eating or when sleeping in a coffin). At 15 XP, she does not regenerate Quan-tum at all and must suffer temporary Taint or aggravated dam-age to recharge.

Permanent Power (2-12 XP): One of the nova’s powers with a range of Self gains a duration of Permanent. The power is always active and does not cost the nova any quan-tum points to use. The drawback is the permanent power may make it difficult for the nova to interact with other people and the environment. The Storyteller is the final judge of whether or not a power sufficiently inconveniences a nova to qualify for this aberration. Powers well suited for this aberration include: Bodymorph, Density Control, Barrier, Immolate and Sizemorph.

Other powers may be better suited for the Uncontrollable Pow-er aberration (above).

The XP value of the Permanent Power is double the Level of the power.

Taint Bleed (12 XP): The nova’s body gives off taint energies. This affects most living creatures like exposure to radiation (see “Radiation”) and can also cause areas where the nova spends considerable time to become permanently blighted and sterile. The Taint energies can also cause strange mutations and aberrations to appear in lower-life forms ex-posed to it, giving the Storyteller an excuse for including weird mutant creatures in a story. A nova with this aberration is likely to become a pariah, exiled from contact with civilization (and most living things).

Uncontrollable Power (6 XP): The nova has a power that is not entirely under control. The nova can use the power normally, but it also seems to have a mind of its own, activating under conditions of stress or any other trigger deemed appropriate by the Storyteller. The power uses the no-va’s normal dice pool but adds his permanent Taint in bonus dice to determine its effect. The exact effect of the power de-pends on the circumstances and the power itself. Uncontrolled Elemental Mastery might cause the nova to raise a devastating storm when angered, while uncontrolled Mentalism might cause the nova to read (or alter) people’s thoughts at random. Uncontrolled Shapeshift may cause the nova to change form at random or based on certain stimuli (like the feelings of people around him). Powers with no dice pool cannot be uncontrolla-ble.

Uncontrolled Transformation (4 XP): You have two forms, a “human” and a “nova” form, just like a character with a high Dormancy rating, but you are unable to control when you switch from one form to the other. Instead, a particu-lar stimulus causes you to switch forms, such as anger, dark-ness, moonlight, immersion in water, a particular song and so forth. When you are affected by the stimulus, you change form automatically, unless you spend a Willpower point to avoid it. You must do so each turn or until the stimulus goes away (whichever comes first). Additionally, if your nova form’s quan-tum pool ever reaches 0, you automatically revert back to your human form.

Vulnerability (1-16 XP): The nova’s body becomes so changed that he takes extra damage from a particular type of attack. The effect of any attack or power based on that type of attack is increased by three dice.

Vulnerability differs from Allergic Reaction in that it af-fects things that are already harmful to others. The Storyteller and the player choose the form of attack, from fire, electricity or another form of energy, to a particular power (such as Disinte-gration) or substance (such as weapons made from silver).

The aberration is worth 2 XP for low-level vulnerabili-ties. The attack inflicts 3 extra dice of damage against the nova before soak

Medium-level vulnerabilities are worth 4 XP: they ei-ther expand the type of attack (to common attacks like blunt weapons, sharp weapons or energy attacks) or an uncom-mon/obscure vulnerability does 6 extra dice of damage rather than three.

High-level vulnerabilities are worth 6 XP: they are both common and deal 6 extra dice of damage.

If the vulnerability increases post-soak damage (and thus means that the nova is extremely fragile against any at-tack exploiting this Vulnerability), add +2 XP to the value of the Aberration. Double the XP gained if it turns non-aggravated damage aggravated or ignores natural soak altogether. Halve

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the XP if the vulnerability isn’t easily researchable or is ex-tremely difficult to get access to-i.e. the nova looks like a werewolf but is actually vulnerable to weapons with wood cores instead of silver.

Weakness (1-12 XP): A particular condition or sub-stance causes the nova’s powers (including Mega-Attributes) to work less effectively, such as a nova whose powers only work at night or in shadow. In the daylight, the nova is signifi-cantly weakened. The “trigger” for the weakness can be virtual-ly anything: light (or lack thereof), music, scents, water, weath-er and so forth. The Storyteller decides if a particular trigger condition is appropriate

At 1 XP, the weakness is rare or unusual, such as a specific song.

At 2 XP, the weakness is fairly common, like a certain color.

At 3 XP, the weakness is extremely common, like natural light.

By default, Weakness reduces effective Mega-Attribute and quantum power ratings by 1, to a minimum of 0. Double the cost of this aberration if Weakness halves power and Mega-Attribute ratings (round down), and quadruple it if the nova may not use powers or Mega-Attributes when ex-posed to the weakness at all.

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NOVA TRAITS

Tiers of Play

The Tier of Play has a strong impact on the kind of game you will be playing in. The difference between a nova built with 15 nova points and a maximum of only one Quantum is significantly different from a game where novas are built with 75 nova points and no maximum. These tiers, however, are on-ly suggestions, and the Storyteller should feel free to adjust the actual values as she sees fit for her game. That said, it is also important that everybody be on the same page: if the Storytell-er wants to tell a game about the Mean Streets and the players are expecting to be playing Exemplars, they need to come to an agreement. Ultimately, the final decision belongs to the Sto-ryteller; all player characters should be built based on the same tier. With enough XP, the game will eventually move au-tomatically up to the next tier. Use the following chart to deter-mine when the character achieves the next tier. This chart as-sumes the character has the equivalent number of nova points spent for the previous tier. For example, assume a character began at tier 3 (45 nova points). Once the character has gained 60 XP, he reaches tier 4. If he then gained 75 more XP, he would reach tier 5.

Tier 1 –> 2: 30 XP

Tier 2 –> 3: 45 XP

Tier 3 –> 4: 60 XP

Tier 4 –> 5: 75 XP This chart assumes characters are spending XP as

efficiently as possible. Players who build their characters more organically may require two or three times more XP to reach the next tier. Regardless of tier, all characters begin with Quan-tum 1.

Mean Streets

The characters are powerful by mortal standards, but their powers probably aren’t enough to change the world. This tier is best suited for characters whose activities will be limited to a small locale, like a large town or a small city.

Just Your Average God

The characters have significant power and many people would like to use that power for their own ends. They can shape events on a city-wide level if they put their minds to it. This tier is best suited for characters whose activities are centered on a large city or a small region.

Exemplars

At this tier, characters are well-respected, or feared, in the nova community. People across the globe take notice of novas at this level of power and the characters can expect to be frequently courted, or targeted, by all sides. This tier is best

suited for characters that are regularly involved in global con-spiracies, but still sit away from the top of the totem pole.

World Shakers

Like it or not, characters of this tier are under con-stant scrutiny. Few novas are their equals and everybody wants either their patronage or their destruction. This tier is best suited for characters that mastermind global conspiracies, such as establishing their own country or nova supremacy.

Living Legends

Words fail to describe characters of this power. They might be compared to gods, and that is not idle flattery. Such characters often have dramatic impacts on the world just by ex-isting; when they put their mind to it, there is little they cannot accomplish. This tier is best suited for games where the play-ers literally want to play god or conquer the world.

Eruption

The defining moment of a nova’s existence is her eruption – the moment at which her M-R node “turns itself on” in response to a stimulus. The circumstances surrounding eruption generally dictate the basic parameters of the charac-ter’s powers. The player decides the general events surround-ing the eruption: what triggered it, why and what powers it prompted.

Novas don’t pick their powers like a customer at a tool store (that’s the player’s function). Their powers, and by extension the players’ choices, are limited by the factors of their Eruption.

These factors are a combination of three things: the cause of the eruption, the nova’s perception of the world (in-cluding himself), and the nova’s dreams, desires or goals. The irony of eruption is that sometimes these three things are sub-verted, rather than fulfilled: colloquially, this is known as a Tainted eruption.

Although the eruption technically has no mechanical bearing, players must rationalize their powers in a manner re-lated to these factors, both during character creation and actual play.

Desires

The best known facet of eruption is wish fulfillment. Everybody has something they want: wealth, fame, power, friends, revenge, love, peace, a better body, good looks, smarts, or even just some fashion sense. The act of erupting grants novas their desires. A nova who wants power can now set people on fire with a thought; a 90-pound weakling bulks up to bodybuilder proportions overnight; the ugly girl becomes a super model; the cripple regains his ability to walk (and run faster than any person ever dreamed).

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Tainted Desires are cruel twists of fate, and the no-vas suffering from them often snap under the strain of becom-ing “worse” while their peers get everything they want. A nova desiring power can only shut down the powers of others; the weakling emaciates others; the ugly girl becomes Lovecraftian; the cripple can only enjoy walking by possessing other peo-ple’s minds.

Worldview

When a nova erupts, she often finds her beliefs vali-dated. The powers granted by the nova’s worldview are rarely recognized by the nova herself as being powers, because they always conform to what the nova already believed about the world. A social butterfly finds she really is the most attractive person in the room; a mathematical genius discovers the miss-ing equation that “ties everything together”; the fitness freak never gets sick, ever, from anything. A Tainted worldview is horrifying to the nova. Her world is turned upside down: the social butterfly now frightens away people, the mathematical genius realizes the world does not conform to the scientific principles he’s nearly built a reli-gion around (but rather to some mind-bending abstract princi-ple only he understands), and the fitness freak finds her body now a dessicated (but undying) corpse.

Circumstance

The cause of the nova’s eruption often provides the nova with powers that are entirely unrelated to the nova’s long-term goals or worldview. The manner of eruption can grant the nova practically any power, but is always tied to the eruption’s trigger.

Tainted circumstances make survival seem worse than death. The nova might be driven irrevocably mad by a revelation or “survive” as an undead abomination. Below are the most common ways in which novas erupt.

Accident: The node erupts while the nova is caught in a dangerous accident: a fire, a flood, whatever. Some novas have erupted after taking enough damage to kill them; a clini-cally dead character may suddenly rise Osiris-like from his co-ma.

• Deliberate: Some people try to deliberately activate their latent node. They come in two flavors: people who have had genetic testing done, and are certain the node exists; and people who just have faith (such people are often unable or unwilling to get genetic testing for one reason or another – fear of registration, for one). Unfortunately, deliberate activation is hit-and-miss. The easiest way to activate the node is through violence, and a person’s belief that he will remain unharmed sometimes means the node feels no need to activate. Still, de-liberate activation works frequently enough that many people say “damn the risks”.

Emotional Trauma: The character erupts after a particularly traumatic experience. This trauma could be sudden (intense torture, watching a loved one in peril) or gradual (a runaway teenager who’s been starving and cold on the streets for days).

Excitement: The character erupted during a sud-den surge of passion – excitement over winning the lottery, a sexual encounter or a sudden discovery.

Exposure to Quantum Powers: It has been doc-umented that exposing latent novas to active novas’ quantum energies occasionally causes the latents to erupt. Perhaps your character was an innocent bystander in the midst of a no-

va-level conflict; the charged quantum energies activated her own M-R node. Novas who erupt during these conflicts usually gain powers related to quantum in general, or powers similar to people who took part in the conflict.

Revelation: The nova just realized she could “do things.” (This type of eruption is usually accompanied by days of splitting headaches, as the node swells in the forebrain).

Threatening Situation: Similar in some ways to an accident, a threatening situation involves the nova erupting during a mugging, war, animal attack or similar event.

Quantum

Quantum energies flow throughout the universe and all things within it. These energies bind matter together and throw it apart, harmonize energy and disrupt it, and affect all living things every day of their existence. As mystic, even ar-cane, as this sounds, quantum energies in fact derive from sci-entific principles - albeit scientific principles of which humans have little understanding at present.

Quantum Theory

A nova, homo sapiens novus, or the “New Man” is defined by one sole difference—the Mazarin-Rashoud node. What this node does is allow a nova the ability to manipulate the metrics of reality to a fairly arbitrary degree, in theory. Time, space, matter, and energy are all playthings to a theoretically sufficiently powerful nova. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, novas are generally not powerful enough to achieve such wide-ranging changes. Even for those who are, they are limited by what they ‘believe’ they can do.

A nova’s ability to control and manipulate quantum energies - and thus, in general, his “power” – is measured by his Quantum Trait. Quantum rates a character’s ability to draw on and use the universe’s quantum energies. Physiologically, this is represented by the gradual growth of the M-R node.

This Trait is the primary distinction between novas and ordinary humans. A character with even a low Quantum is pretty powerful; one with a high Quantum - say, 4 or more - can wield powers previously unknown beyond the pages of outra-geous fiction.

Quantum can reach as high as 10. The default game assumes that only a few shadowy (and perhaps deeply twisted and warped) individuals have displayed abilities that might transcend the level of 5 Quantum.

A character’s Quantum rating has several different ef-fects and provides certain benefits, as follows:

Appearance

The more Quantum a nova has, whether tainted or not, the less human he looks. Even the weakest nova has al-most no body fat or physical imperfections; there is also some-thing ineffable about a nova, a sensation that baselines often associate with awe. As a nova’s Quantum rises, these qualities magnify, such that high Quantum novas often unintentionally inspire worshipful deference. Others, whether baseline or nova, won’t necessarily recognize the nova for what he is just by ap-pearance, and there might not be any physical cues, but it’s not uncommon for a gut feeling recognition to be correct. The ex-act effects of Quantum upon a character’s appearance depend on the character’s powers, the player’s desires and the Story-teller’s whim.

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On a more subtle level, a nova’s Quantum Pool af-fects the character’s apparent healthiness. When the Quantum Pool is full or close to it, the nova seems charged - vibrant, ex-cited, vigorous. She may even crackle with energy, glow or otherwise display visible signs of her power. Conversely, a no-va whose Quantum Pool is empty or low seems fatigued or drained. She may look completely healthy, but something about her suggests that she’s running out of steam.

Attunement

As novas gain a greater understanding of quantum energies, so too do they instinctually learn how to sense and control the quantum bonds between themselves and others. If a nova touches an object, she can attune that object to her own quantum signature, effectively treating it as herself for the purpose of her quantum powers To attune herself to an object, the nova spends one turn concentrating. Doing so temporarily invests part of her quantum pool in the object. This effectively lowers the charac-ter’s quantum pool, so long as she keeps the quantum points invested. The required investment depends on the size of the object. For any object up to size 0, the nova invests only 1 quantum point. For every other point of size above that, the nova must invest another 1 quantum point. At Storyteller’s discretion, a character may be able to attune a discrete set of objects as one object (a set of clothes, for example; but likely not both the clothes and the sword hanging from the belt). Be-sides clothing, other common uses for attunement, particularly for more powerful novas, are to attune weapons, vehicles, or even sanctums (!). By far the most common use of attunement is to at-tune a set of clothes, thus making them shrink or grow as the nova’s size changes, teleport with the nova, and resist burning if the nova surrounds himself with quantum flames. Attunement provides protection only from the nova’s own quantum signa-ture; in the preceding example, the nova’s clothes would not be protected if another nova fired a quantum bolt of fire at the at-tuned clothes, or if someone used mundane fire to set the clothes alight. Once attuned, an object counts as the nova for all in-tents and purposes related to quantum energies. Therefore, a set of attuned clothing will teleport along with the nova and it won’t burst into flames when he uses Immolate on himself. Just as importantly, the object adds the nova’s Quantum rating to its armor value, as the nova’s own quantum energies increase the object’s durability. This does not make armor provide any addi-tional soak to the nova-it only makes the object more resistant to direct attacks. Because the object acquires the nova’s quantum sig-nature, attuning an object is a great way of fooling another no-va’s senses, even a nova with the Quantum Attunement En-hancement.

Divesting the quantum points can be done as a re-flexive action, and with no loss for transference. Some novas invest part of their quantum pool in objects for later use, as a trick against people who assume the nova has been truly ex-hausted. If the object is destroyed, the nova’s maximum pool regains the lost investment, but the nova’s current pool does not rise.

A nova cannot automatically attune living beings to her quantum signature. To do that, the player must apply the Extended Range extra to a power.

Benefits

Merely having a Quantum score gives several bene-fits, some of them quite significant. Some non-nova characters, whose Quantum scores are from artificial methods rather than a true eruption, may lack some, or all, of these benefits, but a character with a Quantum score normally gains the following benefits:

Damage Reduction: The character may pay 1 Quantum to negate 1 level of post-soak damage, up to a max-imum of his Quantum score.

Disease Resistance: The character is significantly more resistant to diseases, toxins, and other chemicals. The character gains an automatic success to rolls made to resist the effects of a drug or disease, and halve the potency of all drugs or diseases that are not Nova-derived (round down, min 0).

Durability: The character adds her Quantum rating to her lethal and bashing soak. The character adds half her Quantum rating, rounded down, to her aggravated soak. The character gains a number of additional -0 health levels equal to her Quantum score.

Endurance: The character adds her Quantum score as bonus dice for Endurance rolls.

Healing: The character heals bashing and lethal damage at double normal speed, may heal aggravated dam-age without medical care, and may regenerate missing limbs or organs.

Strong Self-Will: The character adds her Quantum score as bonus dice for Resistance rolls.

Detection

The nova can concentrate on ambient quantum ener-gies to find especially potent sources of quantum energy. The most common use of this sensitivity is in the detection of invisi-ble, shapeshifted, dormant or otherwise hidden novas. An often overlooked benefit to this heightened sensitivity, however, is the ability to detect other sources of quantum. Thus, a nova may concentrate on his node in an effort to detect a source of power within a Nakato stronghold and thereby discover the ya-kuza base’s hidden sublevel.

To detect a quantum source, the nova takes a full turn to concentrate, then the player rolls Perception + Aware-ness. During this time, it is obvious the nova is concentrating, unless she succeeds on a Wits + Subterfuge roll at a +2 diffi-culty penalty. Success depends on the source, meaning that the nova might detect some things but not others. Technically, there is no distance limit on Detection, other than the difficulty penalty. If the nova successfully detects a source, she gets an impression of the source’s distance and relative strength (weak, similar, stronger).

Usually, this enables the nova to pinpoint the source of quantum energy. However, there are exceptions: if the source is invisible or if the area is blanketed with quantum en-ergy, the nova only gets a general impression of the source’s location.

Every nova has a unique quantum signature, but De-tection is not precise enough to discern one signature from an-other. For that, the Quantum Attunement Enhancement is nec-essary.

Factor Difficulty Modifier

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Distance of source +1 cumulative for every 10 meters

Source is faint +1 Source is a nova Lower difficulty by source’s

Quantum Rating Source is a power Lower difficulty by source’s

Power Level Source nova is Dormant Increase difficulty by nova’s

Dormancy rating

Powers

A nova’s Quantum rating determines the powers to which she has access, and the potency of some of those pow-ers.

All quantum powers have a quantum minimum. A nova’s Quantum Trait must be at least that high in order to ac-cess those powers.

A nova may not have a Mega-Attribute higher then (Quantum +1) or corresponding Attribute, whichever is lower.

Certain Enhancements require Quantum at a cer-tain rating.

To raise a quantum power’s level above 5, the no-va’s Quantum rating must be above 5. Above 5, quantum pow-ers’ levels are capped at the nova’s Quantum rating.

A character’s Quantum rating factors into the effects for numerous powers .

Quantum might have other effects.

Quantum Pool

Quantum is used to access the energy necessary to fuel a nova’s powers. This energy is referred to as the Quan-tum Pool, and the points in that pool are quantum points (QP). The Quantum Pool dictates the maximum number of quantum points that a nova’s body can contain under normal circum-stances. Quantum points are spent to activate many nova powers, including certain Enhancements and most Quantum Powers.

The size of a character’s Quantum Pool is equal to (20 + [Quantum x2]). Thus, a nova with Quantum 3 has a Quantum Pool of 26 (20 + [3 x2]).

Each turn, the nova can spend a certain number of points from the quantum pool. The amount depends on the no-va’s Quantum rating. See the accompanying chart for this val-ue.

Spending Quantum Points

Quantum points may be spent or invested for a varie-ty of purposes

Most quantum powers cost quantum points every time they are used. This cost is usually equal to the level of the quantum power.

Certain Enhancements cost quantum points to use.

Quantum points must be invested to attune objects.

Quantum points may be necessary to power Devic-es (see “Gadgeteering”)

A nova can reflexively spend quantum points to re-duce incoming damage, after soak, on a 1:1 basis. The type of damage does not matter. If a character has enough quantum points to spend, she can reduce damage to 0.

…while Stressed

During stressful situations, like combat, novas can absorb, generate, or otherwise utilize massive amounts of am-bient quantum energies.

The nova gains a surplus of quantum points. At the beginning of every turn, the nova gains a number of free quan-tum points as listed in the Stress Quantum Per Turn column on the table, or may pay 1 temporary taint to double that number until the situation passes. The nova continues to accrue this benefit until the situation passes (for example, combat ends).The character’s stock of surplus points replenishes itself every turn, and the nova cannot save up points from turn-to-turn.

Using these quantum points still count against the character’s maximum quantum points per round.

Recharging Quantum Pool

All novas are natural collectors and receptacles of quantum energy. Accordingly, quantum points, once spent, gradually return to a character, in the same way that a tired person regains energy by resting for a while. If a nova is at ease but not completely relaxing (for example, going for a walk, doing some easy paperwork, watching televi-sion, talking with friends), he recovers quantum points at the rate of two per hour. If he is completely relaxed (sleeping, just sitting around doing nothing), he recovers quantum points at the rate of four per hour.

Novas can safely recover quantum points more quickly in several ways. Some powers, such as Quantum Re-generation, allow a character to recover quantum points very quickly. Also, it is rumored that some drugs or foods allow a nova to boost himself back up to full Quantum Pool level much faster than normal.

There are times when a nova’s Quantum Pool just isn’t full enough to get the effect she wants, and safe measures just won’t cut it. In this case, novas have several dangerous ways to recover their quantum pool.

Supersaturation: The nova can choose to put his body into overdrive, absorbing ambient quantum energies at a rate faster than his body can actually handle: this recharges three quantum points instantly, but the nova acquires 1 tempo-rary Taint.

Overclocking: A nova may try to accelerate her natural recovery process. The player must make a Stamina + Quantum roll at a difficulty penalty of one for every quantum point she is trying to recover above her normal rate of recovery. If the roll is successful, the nova regains the quantum points without any problem. If it fails, she acquires one point of tempo-rary Taint. If the player botches the roll, the nova acquires two points of temporary Taint.

Dying for Power: A nova may trade health levels for a temporary boost to quantum points. The novas literally burns out her life force to ensure that she accomplishes some task or defeats some enemy. For each health level sacrificed (inflicting one level of Aggravated damage that cannot be pre-vented by any means), the character gains two temporary quantum points. These quantum points do not count toward the character’s maximum quantum pool or Quantum/turn limit. However, these temporary quantum points disappear if they are not spent within three turns.

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The Price of Power

Unfortunately, accessing and manipulating the raw power of the universe isn’t healthy for the human body. As the nova gains greater control of his power, his body is forced to rapidly evolve to contain and channel the quantum forces. Sad-ly, this is an imperfect process, which eventually takes its toll on the nova’s body and mind.

For every dot of Quantum at 5 and higher, the nova’s Permanent Taint increases by 1.

Quantum Quantum Power Level Max-imum

Max Quantum Pool/Max Quantum Pool per Turn

Stress Quantum per Turn

Permanent Taint

1 5 22/6 1 +0 2 5 24/8 2 +0 3 5 26/10 3 +0 4 5 28/12 4 +0 5 5 30/20 5 +1 6 6 32/25 5 +2 7 7 34/30 5 +3 8 8 36/35 6 +4 9 9 38/40 6 +5 10 10 40/50 6 +6

Taint

Quantum energies are powerful and, when channeled by the human mind via the M-R node, often unpredictable as well. Even when novas think they have those energies under full control, often they do not. The growth of an entire new gland - the M-R node - coupled with quantum energies seeth-ing through the body works changes on even the strongest no-va. And the more powerful a nova gets, the more changed he becomes.

This effect on a nova is represented by Taint. All characters start the character-creation process with Taint rat-ings of zero. The more points of Taint a character accumulates, the stranger and more inhuman he becomes, until he becomes an unplayable god/ monster and falls under the Storyteller’s control. Such awesome beings can continue acquiring Taint beyond 10, but remain in the Storyteller’s control.

Taint ranges from zero to 10 and has a temporary and permanent track. Temporary Taint is not spent - it is gained as the character mishandles his power or tries to chan-nel too much energy. Permanent Taint is a result of the nova’s body and mind warping beyond human ken, the tragic side ef-fect of channeling energies human beings were not designed to handle.

Characters begin the game with zero temporary Taint, but they can acquire permanent Taint during character creation.

Drawbacks

Accumulating Taint has many negative effects on no-vas. Most of them do not appear for a while, meaning a nova will often not have a clear picture of how Tainted she is, even if a player does.

• Aberrations: The most obvious manifestation of Taint is in the form of Aberrations. These drawbacks are brought on by the nova’s inability to perfectly control his new-found godlike power. It may be natural that a nova who be-lieves his powers are demon-spawned should acquire a de-monic claw, but if it comes about as an Aberration, a reasona-ble person would be horrified to find he cannot “shut it off”. Ab-errations are generally inconvenient, crippling, or both.

In game terms, novas begin acquiring Aberrations at Taint 3. At Taint 3, and every point after, novas acquire a cer-tain amount ofXP which must be immediately spent to buy Ab-errations. Note that these values are not cumulative, i.e. when a nova hits Taint 5, he must buy 2 XP worth of Aberrations, not 6 or 10.

XP may be spent to increase the value of an existing Aberration, or convert an existing Aberration into a different one. Ideally, these should represent the character’s aberrations evolving – so finding a natural progression is encouraged.

Taint 0 – 2 0 XP/level Taint 3 – 5 2 XP/level Taint 6 – 8 4 XP/level Taint 9+ 8 XP/level Novas generally have at least 25-50% of their Aberra-

tions in mental or quantum aberrations. Although aberrations usually arise only from perma-

nent Taint, temporary Taint may inflict temporary mental, quan-tum, or occasionally physical aberrations on a character. At 5+ temporary Taint, a character gains another Aberration point un-til she lowers her temporary Taint to a value below 5 by any means (this includes gaining 10 temporary Taint and convert-ing it into a point of permanent Taint).

Aberrations can be found in the Body Modifications chapter.

See Benefits -> Augmentations for the flip side of this Drawback.

• Social Issues: Others, whether baseline or nova, can sense a nova’s taint on a subconscious level. At first, this sensation manifests only as a slight sense of unease or eeri-ness. However, as a nova becomes more tainted, she pro-vokes increasingly drastic reactions: disgust, revulsion, or even hatred. The most tainted novas may inspire mobs a la Frank-enstein that seek the nova’s death for reasons they cannot vo-calize; they might not even know she is a nova – they just know she must be ended.

Above and beyond whatever penalties are incurred by aberrations, a nova suffers +1 difficulty on all social rolls for every 2 points of permanent taint (above 2) he or she gains. This applies for all social rolls, including intimidation - the nova is just so fearsome the opponent is driven catatonic or desper-ately tries to make a stand rather than telling the nova what he or she wants. There is something fundamentally wrong with high-Taint novas that make social interaction difficult. This penalty is waived against 2nd Generation Novas, cancels out

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at a 2-1 basis against other novas (1 point of Taint-derived so-cial penalty a nova possesses cancels 2 points of Taint-derived social penalty against that nova), and finally can be reduced by Soothe or other similar Enhancements. Finally, the difficulty penalty caps at the nova's permanent Quantum score. High-taint low Quantum novas may be horrific monsters, but the in-herent wrongness of the nova’s informational template can’t exhibit itself fully.

• Taint Radiation: At high Taint levels (8+) the nova radiates Taint radiation, which can poison baselines and give Taint to nearby novas. With one scene of constant exposure, a nova or baseline with permanent Taint less than half that of another nova must roll (Stamina + Willpower) at the end of the scene, the difficulty being half the difference between the Taint levels of the two novas (round up). Failure means a nova takes 1 point of temporary Taint +1 point for every 2 points of perma-nent Taint a nova has above 10, while a baseline gains 1 level of permanent Taint and the advantages and disadvantages of it.

Benefits

The horrors of taint come with their own little ad-vantages. While not enough to truly offset the drawbacks, they do mean that many heavily-tainted novas have horrifying abili-ties that their “lesser” peers cannot access. Some even revel in these horrors, focusing on the glory of taint.

• Augmentations: As the nova evolves, some of the body modifications he acquires are beneficial mutations. These benefits are usually tied into whatever triggered the increase in taint, and often associated with the negative aberration as well.

In game terms, novas begin acquiring Augmentations at Taint 3. At Taint 3, and every point after, novas acquire a certain amount of XP which must be immediately spent to buy Augmentations. Note that these values are not cumulative, i.e. when a nova hits Taint 5, he must buy 2 XP worth of Augmen-tations, not 6 or 10.

XP may be spent to increase the value of an existing Augmentation, or convert an existing Augmentation into a dif-ferent one. Ideally, these should represent the character’s Augmentations improving –finding a natural progression is en-couraged.

Taint 0-2 0 XP/level Taint 3-5 2 XP/level Taint 6-8 4 XP/level Taint 9+ 8 XP/level Augmentations can be found in the Body Modifica-

tions chapter. See Drawbacks -> Aberrations for the flip side of this

Benefit. • Reduced Cost: Voluntarily acquiring permanent

Taint during character creation translates into 3 NP per dot of permanent Taint. During actual play, powers can be bought at half cost in exchange for acquiring a point of permanent Taint

• Transhuman Ascendancy: The quantum energies coursing through the nova mutate her body far past human lim-its, both for good and for ill. At Taint 4, a nova chooses one at-tribute. This attribute no longer is capped at 5, and Augmenta-tions which adjust or eliminate this cap are converted back into XP. Every point of Taint above 4 removes the rating cap from an additional attribute.

How to Gain Taint

Unfortunately for novas, there are many ways for them to acquire Taint. They walk a razor’s edge between pow-er and insanity, might and destructive force. There are two types of taint: temporary and perma-nent taint. Temporary Taint can become permanent Taint, but not vice-versa.

Temporary

A nova may acquire temporary Taint via any of the following means:

Dying for Power Desperate novas have a couple options for rapidly recovering their quantum pool, but doing so may give them temporary taint. See Dying for Power for more information.

Mental Disorders Some mental disorders, rather than being the result of Taint, actually impose temporary Taint upon a nova. Accord-ing to recent (and Utopia-censored) psychological research, the mental instability affects the nova’s quantum processes, gaining strength from them and making the nova more inhu-man than ever.

Power Maxing When novas overcharge themselves with quantum energy, sometimes the power goes out of control. See Power Maxing for more information.

Quantum Powers Certain quantum powers can give novas temporary taint, either because they fail or… because they succeed…

Other Methods There might be other methods of acquiring temporary taint. The Storyteller should use her discretion when deciding whether a situation warrants a point of temporary Taint. Such situations should be rare, reserved for the most impressive and horrifying of circumstances. For example, a character might acquire temporary Taint from surviving a nuclear explosion, absorbing a star for sustenance, ravaging an entire continent with a flesh-eating virus, or altering the course of human histo-ry on a whim. Such insane acts may detach a nova from his baseline origins.

However, such a step away from humanity should happen perhaps only once per series. The temporary Taint is meant to reinforce the detachment generated by such awe-some acts, not punish characters for being awesome.

Permanent

A nova may acquire permanent Taint via any of the following means:

Buying Powers or Quantum Tainted Uncontrolled eruptions (and many are) often take an immediate toll on novas, granting them more power than they can control, and mutating their body commensurately. Likewise, some novas either never learn how to properly control their powers’ development or purposely push themselves hard and fast either for amusement or because they feel it is necessary. This results in a faster progression of power, but is accompa-nied by an equally rapid growth rate of Taint. See Reduced Cost under Taint -> Benefits for more details.

Excessive Temporary Taint If a nova gains 10 temporary Taint points, she imme-diately trades in those points for a point of permanent Taint. Her temporary Taint track is reset to zero, but she now has an

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extra point of permanent Taint, along with any of the effects that come with the increased rating.

Too Much Quantum Quantum represents a basic measure of the nova’s power, and the more power a nova has, the more tainted he becomes. When a nova’s Quantum reaches 5, he acquires one point of Taint. Each point of Quantum gained thereafter adds another point of Taint. Such is the price of power.

How to Lose Taint

The drawbacks of acquiring Taint can be severe. Alt-hough some revel in it, most people want to avoid gaining Taint; or if they fail, they want to rid themselves of it as soon as possible.

By default, characters cannot lose Taint. However, following are several optional systems for losing Taint.

Temporary

We recommend the Storyteller allow at least one of these following systems for removing temporary Taint:

Glitches Instead of acquiring a point of temporary Taint, the

character will automatically botch a power-related roll later in the same story, at a time of the Storyteller’s choosing. This is a player choice, not character choice, and represents the nova’s powers going on the fritz from overstressing them.

Reformatting A nova may attempt to "reformat" their informational

template and burn out temporary Taint. This empties the No-va's quantum pool and fills all but his last Incapacitated level with Aggravated damage. In turn, it removes all temporary Taint from the nova's temporary Taint track. Dumping tempo-rary Taint in this fashion is always a spectacle, manifesting in a way which makes "sense" to the Nova. A fire-wielding Nova may self-immolate, a cyberkinetic may seem to fuzz out into static, and so on.

Resting Novas may bleed off temporary Taint by relaxing. To

properly relax, a nova must go one session or one week of downtime without using powers at more than half strength (in-cluding Mega-Attributes). If the character botches any power rolls during this time, the clock resets. After that time, the play-er may roll Willpower at +1 difficulty. Each net success bleeds off a point of temporary Taint.

The Taint Resistant Augmentation (10 XP) With this Augmentation, your body channels quantum

energy particularly efficiently, and you are therefore unusually resistant to the effects of taint. A Taint Resistant nova reduces all involuntary gains of temporary Taint (botches, failures, Taint radiation) by 1 (minimum 0). Furthermore, at the end of each story, a Taint Resistant nova loses 1 point of temporary Taint.

Permanent

There exist no publicly known ways of bleeding off permanent Taint. It is rumored that the Teragen have discov-ered a way to accomplish this feat, but naysayers are quick to point out that many members of Teragen are far more horrific than their non-aligned counterparts.

Other, equally far-fetched rumors include: • Project Utopia has a cure that it gives only to its

best employees. How do you really think they get some of

those guys to work for them? They can’t all be in it just for the money or the work itself.

• There is a drug or surgery that can remove Taint. You can find it on the black market. The only problem? It shuts down, sterilizes, or removes the M-R node, meaning the sub-ject becomes a baseline.

• If a nova lives for a really long time without using any of their powers, eventually their Taint dissipates. That’s why some famous people disappear from history: you’ll notice people like the Buddha and Jesus disappear at the height of their power. The reason? Too much Taint: they needed to bleed it off. Heck, they might be the same person, just popping up in history, doing great deeds, then disappearing when they need to “cool down”

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MEGA-ATTRIBUTES &

ENHANCEMENTSAll novas have the same nine standard Attributes as

any other human. However, novas’ mastery of quantum ener-gies enables their Attributes to go beyond those of mortal men into the realm of the superhuman. These enhanced attributes are known as Mega-Attributes.

Like normal Attributes, Mega-Attributes are rated from 1 to 5. However, a Mega-Attribute cannot be rated higher than the nova’s corresponding Attribute or his Quantum +1, whichever is lower.

Possessing a Mega-Attribute gives a nova several benefits. Each dot in a Mega-Attribute counts as two dots of the corresponding Attribute when calculating static values. Also, each dot grants one automatic success to all rolls based on that Attribute. Individual Mega-Attributes sometimes give other benefits at certain levels.

Savantism

Some novas have Mega-Attributes which only work in a very narrow manner. These focused Attributes are bought as Level One powers, may not have Enhancements (see below), and only work with a single ability or power. Furthermore, they do not give any of their other bonuses. So for example, buying Focused Mega-Stamina does not grant additional soak, in-creased healing, or additional health levels, Focused Mega-Strength does not provide the bonuses to damage and lifting, etc.

Novas may upgrade these Focused Mega-Attributes to full ones via the "upgrading powers" rules.

Enhancements

Enhancements are special Traits associated with Mega-Attributes, representing particular ways that Mega-Attribute has developed for her. In a sense, Enhancements are subtle and relatively minor quantum powers (in flavor, if not mechanics). When a nova wishes to activate an Enhancement, assume it costs 1QP unless otherwise stated.

General Enhancements

These are enhancements which can be applied to any Mega-Attribute. They are bought individually.

[Attribute] Paragon

This enhancement decreases the cost of purchasing superhuman attributes for the chosen Mega-Attribute. The ef-fective rating of the attribute for purchasing additional dots is reduced to (current value -5; minimum 1). This only affects the cost of purchasing an attribute above human levels (i.e. above

5), and does nothing to cheapen the cost of purchasing an at-tribute up to 5. This enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

Gifted ([Attribute])

This enhancement decreases the cost of purchasing the attribute governing the Mega-Attribute, reducing the expe-rience cost from (current value x4) to (current value x2). This enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

[Attribute] Specialist

This enhancement allows a nova to count 10s on a roll using the mundane attribute as 2 successes. This en-hancement costs nothing and is always on.

Unbounded [Attribute]

This enhancement allows a nova to increase a Mega-Attribute to a higher rating than the corresponding normal At-tribute. However, the nova may not normally use the Mega-Attribute’s full rating, being limited merely to whatever rating she could normally possess. To use the full potential of her Mega-Attribute she must pay 1 Quantum point per dot of Mega-Attribute above her normal Attribute for every use. This Enhancement lasts for one roll.

Physical Mega-

Attributes

Mega-Strength

Mega-Strength is perhaps the best known of the Mega-Attributes. It’s certainly the least subtle. Novas with Mega-Strength usually have enormous muscles and a love of showing off what they can do with them. In nova circles, it’s commonplace to see them tossing cars around, smashing through buildings, picking up ships and crushing guns into pa-perweights.

Each dot in Mega-Strength adds:

five automatic successes to rolls involving physical power (lifting, throwing, jumping, etc.), or one auto-matic success to any other strength-based roll (such as attack rolls)

+5d to Strength-based damage rolls

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[2xMega-Strength] automatic successes to Strength-based damage rolls

One -0 Health Level (being impossibly strong and having your frame reinforced by quantum energies to lift impossible weights provides some minor durability benefits) Additionally, each dot of Mega-Strength multiplies the

nova’s maximum encumbrance and lift. These values are mul-tiplied by (from 1-5 dots respectively) 10/100/250/500/1000. For every dot beyond 5, increase the multiplier by 10.

Finally, this enormous strength also enables them to throw objects of weight equal to their base lifting ability, other-wise following the normal rules for throwing. Characters with Mega-Strength 1-3 may throw objects up to Handgun range; characters with Mega-Strength 4-5 may throw objects up to Ri-fle range.

Mega-Strength and Body Modi-

fications

There are multiple body modifications which increase a character’s maximum encumbrance and lifting capability. These modifications do not multiply with each other. A charac-ter with Mega-Strength first calculates his lifting capacity and encumbrance modified by Mega-Strength only, then does the same for bonus lifting capacity and encumbrance granted by Body Modifications. The character then totals the two.

Mega-Strength Enhancements

Cog of War

Your character's biceps are so huge they act as body armor. Novas with this Enhancement are ridiculously muscled to the point where any attack that attempts to hit their vital or-gans requires shooting through the equivalent of a brick wall.

System: The Nova gains an additional (Mega-Strength) -0 health levels, adds (Mega-Strength) to Stamina for the purposes of soaking damage and looks more than a little like an overmuscled FPS protagonist or a mitoid. This en-hancement costs nothing (but your ability to fit through most doors) and is always on.

Crush

Mega-Strength is, by itself, deadly to many people – most normal humans can’t survive blows from someone strong enough to pick up and throw cars. However, novas with this power have refined their ability to use Mega-Strength to kill. They are adept at causing instantaneously lethal wounds, de-livering punches powerful and focused enough to go through a body.

System: All unarmed damage defaults to Lethal (a character may still choose to do Bashing damage instead).

A nova with Crush can pay 1 or more QP to charge up his attack. Doing so adds [1] to the attack’s damage per Quantum spent. The nova may continue winding up over the course of multiple turns or pay all of it at once, increasing the damage by up to (Mega-Strength x 2) automatic successes. The character may charge a hand-to-hand attack in conjunc-tion with winding up a Smackdown or Aiming, but must take at least 1 turn to charge an attack up and may not make an un-armed or melee attack while doing so.

Cyclone

Weaker foes are as insects to you. When faced with multiple opponents, you see nothing but an endless wave of temporary weapons waiting to be smashed against each other.

System: A nova with this Enhancement may pay 1QP after a successful grapple attack, allowing the nova a re-flexive Pound attack on the enemy immediately after grabbing her. This Enhancement may be repurchased once, allowing the nova to make multiple grapples and Pounds in one round as long as each attack successfully kills the victim, until the nova either fails to kill a target, does not pay the Enhancement cost, or makes (Mega-Strength + 1) consecutive successful attacks. This Enhancement lasts for a single attack and costs 1QP per attack made.

Demolition

Novas with Mega-Strength are all capable of doing incredible feats of destruction, but among them, you are an un-stoppable wrecking machine whose destructive abilities make wrecking crews green with envy. Novas with this enhancement often barrel through buildings, rip up foundations, and crush tanks with their bare hands.

System: Novas with this enhancement add 5 to their attack's AP rating for every dot of Mega-Strength against inan-imate objects only, and may ignore Size when attacking inani-mate objects, allowing feats such as leveling a house with a single punch or shattering a skyscraper with a well-aimed kick. This enhancement costs 1QP and lasts for one attack.

Ferocity

Legends and popular culture talk about the capability of old martial arts masters to break through concrete walls or shatter steel with their fists. Any Nova with Mega-Strength can emulate these feats, but a nova with this Enhancement can go one step above, shattering half-meter thick tank armor under karate chops and cutting through powered armor with kitchen knives.

System: This Enhancement adds (Mega-Strength) to the armor piercing rating of any unarmed or melee attack, costs nothing, and is always active.

Fist of God

Novas with this Enhancement can punch so hard, you'd think you were hit by a nuclear weapon.

Prerequisite: Mega-Strength 6, Quantum 6 System: When used, the Nova quadruples the dam-

age automatic successes of any unarmed, melee, or thrown at-tack he makes, and doubles the base damage dice.

This Enhancement may be purchased one more time at Mega-Strength 8+, Quantum 8+, which lets the character ig-nore Size and quadruples the attack’s armor-piercing rating, and a third and final time at Mega-Strength 10, Quantum 10, which allows the Nova to halve enemy soak against unarmed, melee, or thrown attacks (round down) before the attack's ar-mor piercing is applied. This Enhancement costs 3QP to acti-vate and lasts for a single attack.

Hypervelocity

A nova with hypervelocity is rarely without a weapon. The smallest rock becomes a bullet. Some novas with this en-

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hancement also possess high levels of Mega-Dexterity, ena-bling them to literally throw back the bullets that other people shoot at them, often inflicting more damage than if those bul-lets had been fired out of a gun.

System: The Nova can accelerate a small projectile to up to literally astronomical velocities via muscle power alone, giving the Nova's thrown weapons unbelievable reach and deadliness. Any projectile massing less than (Mega-Strength) kg can be thrown with this enormous velocity. All such projec-tiles deal Lethal damage, add (Mega-Strength x 2) to their AP, are treated as bullets for dodge/block difficulties due to their immense velocities, and have their range increment increased by 1 level. This Enhancement costs 1QP and lasts for a single attack.

Irresistible Force

Things get out of your way, whether they want to or not. When you apply yourself, very little manages to stay where it is if you think it should be somewhere else.

System: This enhancement doesn’t make it easier for the nova to attack – instead, it makes it harder for others to stay standing if she hits them. Each point of quantum spent adds +2 to the difficulty of the opponent’s roll to resist knock-down when struck by the nova. The enhancement remains in effect for one scene.

Outside combat, spend one quantum point to add the nova’s Quantum rating to Mega-Strength for one scene for feats of sheer brute force: walking through walls, shoving tanks over and the like. The bonus also applies to efforts to resist Immobilize and other powers that try to physically fix the nova in place, but not damage.

Lifter

A Mega-Strong nova with this Enhancement is really strong – he makes even other Mega-Strong novas look puny. He’s the guy to call when you need to move something like, say, a mountain.

System: The nova can double the amount of weight he can carry for each QP he spends. The increase is exponen-tial (so spending 1 QP doubles the nova’s max carrying capaci-ty, spending 2 QP quadruples it, spending 3 QP octuples it, spending 4 QP multiplies it by 16, and so on). This enhance-ment stays active for one scene or one “feat of strength,” whichever comes first.

Precision

Through experimentation and an innate sense of your own power, you can inflict just the amount of damage you want when you hit something.

System: When the nova inflicts damage, you can choose how many of the rolled successes to apply. This en-hancement is always on and costs no quantum to use.

Quantum Leap

The character’s leg muscles are prodigiously strong – so much so that she can leap enormous distances. It’s faster than the subway and twice as fun.

System: A character with this enhancement covers far more distance in a leap than the usual two meters per suc-cess on a Jumping roll. Instead, each success on a Jumping roll allows the nova to leap up to two kilometers horizontally, or

half a kilometer vertically, times her number of dots in Mega-Strength.

Don’t forget that such prodigious jumps are essential-ly an uncontrolled form of movement. Once she launches her-self, a nova can’t deviate from her course, avoid obstacles, or do much to dodge attacks. Unless she has a power that allows her to see for many kilometers, she won’t know where she’s going to land until it comes into sight – and it won’t necessarily be a pleasant landing spot. However, as long as the landing is controlled, the nova takes no fall damage no matter the Quan-tum Leap height.

In combat or in a chase, using Quantum Leap allows the character to apply 5 automatic successes per dot of Mega-Strength (as if it was a roll based off of raw physical power) to her movement roll. However, in combat, the uncontrolled na-ture of Quantum Leap prevents the character from seeking cover, evading, or finding an advantageous position-all the character can do is move closer or farther from enemies and the character may not dodge while Quantum Leaping.

This enhancement costs 1 Quantum point per jump.

Shockwave

A Mega-strong nova with this ability can generate earthquakes at will. If he hits the ground with all his strength, he can create shockwaves that might be more localized than a normal earthquake but are just as dangerous to anyone in the area of effect.

System: When a nova uses this enhancement, he strikes the surface he’s standing on with the equivalent of a heavy unarmed attack (Strength + 3B damage), dealing half that pre-soak damage, rounded up, to all enemies in contact with the surface. This attack has an Area rating of (Mega-Strength) and has an Accuracy of +5. Flying targets are im-mune.

Anyone hit by this attack must make a Strength + Athletics roll at a difficulty of (Mega-Strength + 2) to stay up-right. Targets may take extra damage if other objects (such as falling crockery or collapsing tunnels) fall on them. The surface the nova is hitting suffers full damage from the heavy unarmed attack – so it isn’t a very good idea for a character to use this maneuver when he is on things like aircraft, bridges or boats. Note: Crush may not be used to make damage caused by this enhancement Lethal.

This enhancement costs 1 Quantum point per attack, and the nova may make only one Shockwave attack per turn.

Thrower

You’re better than most novas at using your Mega-Strength for throwing things, whether it’s through strength in the particular muscles that throwing uses or the intuitive grasp of how to use what you’ve got.

System: The nova may spend 1 Quantum point to add 1 range increment to all throwing attacks made during the scene.

Thunderclap

A nova with this Enhancement can generate a mas-sive shockwave just by bringing her hands together and clap-ping. The force of the effect is comparable to a concussion grenade, deafening bystanders and shattering glass.

System: When a nova uses this enhancement, she makes an Area attack centered around herself with Area (Mega-Strength) that deals (Strength + [Mega-Strength x2])B

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damage. Characters who take 1 or more levels of Bashing damage from the attack must roll Stamina + Resistance at diffi-culty (nova’s Mega-Strength) or be deafened. Surgery is re-quired to repair this damage in baselines if they have taken more than (Stamina) levels of damage, but Novas regain their hearing immediately after healing the Bashing damage.

Hard targets – such as most walls, vehicles or metal objects – and extremely soft targets – such as cloth – are not affected. Only living creatures and relatively brittle or fragile things, such as glass, take the damage. Note: Crush may not be used to make damage caused by this enhancement Lethal.

This enhancement stays active for a single attack, and the nova may make only one Thunderclap attack per turn.

Mega-Dexterity

Mega-Dexterity is one of the more common Mega-Attributes. A Mega-Dextrous nova is faster, more agile and stealthier than normal, and he often has a better reaction time. Mega-Dexterity is especially useful for novas whose powers are not quite so overt or “flashy” as most.

Not only does Mega-Dexterity improve speed and agility, but Mega-Dexterous novas are often incredibly coordi-nated. Even a single dot of Mega-Dexterity gives effectively perfect ambidexterity, and at 2+ dots a nova may use her feet to do anything her hands can.

When a nova with Mega-Dexterity is in combat and another character tries to use a delayed action to interrupt the nova’s action, the interruption is not automatic. Instead, both characters must make Dexterity rolls; the one with the most successes goes first. If a nova with Mega-Dexterity and a character without it act at the same time, the Mega-dexterous character goes first. If both characters have Mega-Dexterity, the standard rule applies.

Also, the nova can dodge bullets or other fast-moving ranged attacks more effectively. Every dot of Mega-Dexterity cancels 1 point of difficulty penalty to evade fast-moving at-tacks. This means a nova with Mega-Dexterity 2 can dodge bullets as easily as he can dodge thrown rocks, and a Mega-Dexterity 5 nova can easily dance through laser fire.

Mega-Dexterity Enhancements

Accuracy

Some Mega-Dexterous novas have an uncanny abil-ity to aim attacks and judge how to place their blows for best effect. Certain novas claim that this enhancement is the ulti-mate in hand-eye coordination, while others speak of “mystical forces” guiding them. Whatever the reason, anyone who’s seen them in combat can’t help but admire their ability.

System: Accuracy improves the effectiveness of aimed shots, allowing for additional precision. A nova with this Enhancement adds (Mega-Dexterity) to the maximum bonus dice she can gain from aiming, gains 3 additional dice from the first turn of aiming, and aiming increases attack damage as well as accuracy, with each +1 to accuracy from aiming giving +1 to damage as well. This enhancement is always active and requires no QP to use.

Catfooted

In a dangerous world, sometimes it’s the unobtrusive person who survives the longest – and gets the most accom-plished. A nova with this Mega-Dexterity ability is the stealthi-

est of the stealthy, able to walk on dead leaves without making a sound or run through sand without leaving footprints.

System: A Catfooted nova does not leave an im-pression unless she wants to. She can touch objects without leaving fingerprints, walk across ropes without them swaying, and run across mud or water without leaving footprints or rip-ples. This makes it impossible to trail the nova by tracks. Note that this doesn’t stop an object from making noise if destroyed; the nova can step on a loose floorboard without it creaking, but if a twig snaps underfoot, it still makes a noise. This costs 1QP and lasts for a scene.

Enhanced Movement

All Mega-Dextrous novas are fast, but a nova with this enhancement is far faster, capable of achieving sprint speeds equivalent to racecars or helicopters.

System: The nova doubles his Mega-Dexterity bonus successes for movement purposes. This enhancement costs 1 quantum to activate for an action.

Fast Tasks

When it’s time to clean out the house, strip down and rebuild an engine or knit a sweater, your friends call you. You can do it much faster than they can – sometimes literally in the blink of an eye.

System: This ability allows a nova to perform tasks at extremely rapid speeds without sacrificing any care or work-manship. On extended rolls which require effort and knowledge, divide the timeframe of a roll by (Mega-Dexterity). Simple tasks such as painting or gardening can be completed in one combat round (three seconds). When Fast Tasks is active, a nova may take advantage of their increased speed, reloading, drawing, or changing ammunition for weapons as a reflexive action. At the Storyteller’s option, Fast Tasks may turn certain extended rolls into simple rolls.

The character must be able to perform the task in question; Fast Tasks does not grant any new or additional skills. For example, a nova who wants to repair engines at su-perspeed must know the Engineering Ability. Furthermore, the player must make the standard rolls required to accomplish the work – Fast Tasks doesn’t make the job any easier; it just gets it over with more quickly.

Fast Tasks will not help a character perform research more quickly. While it might help him build a laboratory, it would not be of any use while waiting to see if laboratory rats transfer certain genes to their offspring.

This enhancement stays active for one scene.

Fine Manipulation

You can move your body in very, very precise ways. Your aim never wavers. You can, for example, draw a perfect circle, every time. You unconsciously account for autonomous functions, and adjust accordingly, making it possible to hold a sniper rifle perfectly steady. If you can see what you’re doing, you can shift a finger just a fraction of a millimeter and manipu-late microscopic objects.

System: When resolving microscopic manipulation, the nova must have the means to resolve microscopic distanc-es, like an actual microscope or Electromagnetic Vision. Each dot of Mega-Dexterity increases the precision of the nova’s movement 10-fold: 1/100th of a centimeter at 1 dot, 1/1000th of a centimeter at 2 dots, and so on. Fine manipulation can en-

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hance tasks like watchmaking, lockpicking, extreme-range sniping, and computer repair. The nova adds (Mega-Dexterity) dice to rolls where fine manipulation is important. The nova is furthermore always considered to have tools for such fine ma-nipulation.

This enhancement is always active and requires no QP to use.

Freeflow

Human traceurs can do feats of acrobatics that seem impossible to the untrained eye. Mega-Dextrous novas can triv-ially match human traceurs. Nova traceurs can do feats of ac-robatics that are impossible, even for Mega-Dextrous novas, making obstacles to human locomotion utterly irrelevant.

System: When this enhancement is activated, the nova may jump extremely high (multiply jump distances by Mega-Dexterity + 1), may run across any surface (including vertical surfaces and the surface of a liquid such as water, walls, or ceilings), takes no damage from moving over danger-ous surfaces (such as acid or lava), and suffers no damage from falls. The net result of these enhancements is that the no-va also reduces any difficult terrain penalties in combat or chases by (Mega-Dexterity). This enhancement costs 1QP and lasts for a scene.

Perfect Balance

The nova has no problem standing, walking or even driving a motorcycle over ice or other treacherous surfaces. Log-rolling, surfing, running along the top of a moving train, bouncing along a tightrope and walking along a building’s icy ledge are all simple feats for novas with this enhancement. The nova feels and adjusts for tiny shifts in his balance and mo-mentum with such precision that he has no problem keeping his feet. Novas with this enhancement will also invariably land on their feet if dropped from any height over three feet or if something sweeps their feet out from under them.

System: The nova automatically maintains perfect balance and does not need to roll to keep her balance. Only in extraordinary circumstances (such as balancing on a greased tightrope while in a hurricane), the Storyteller may require the player to spend a QP to keep his feet. This enhancement costs no QP to use and is always on.

Physical Prodigy

A nova with this ability possesses a certain “genius” for all physical activities, such as sports or running. Somehow he knows instinctively how to act, what to do and how to posi-tion himself for the best results in any given athletic endeavor. It’s as if he had the greatest coaches in world history whisper-ing in his ear and giving him tips.

System: The character adds a bonus of (Mega-Dexterity) dice to her athletics ability for all noncombat purpos-es, can no longer botch Athletics rolls (treating them as simple failures) and automatically succeeds on non-opposed Athletics rolls with a difficulty lower than (Mega-Dexterity + 1). The char-acter does not automatically succeed on dodging, extended rolls, or any actions opposed by another character. Further-more, the character has an instinctive understanding of the rules of any form of physical sport or game she participates in and never suffers penalties for being unfamiliar with an activity, no matter if she’s played it since childhood or has heard of it for the first time literally ten seconds ago. This Enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

Quantum Tunneling

A nova with this enhancement may take advantage of quantum tunneling on a macroscopic level, phasing through seemingly impassible barriers.

Prerequisite: Mega-Dexterity 6, Quantum 6 System: This enhancement allows a nova to ignore

barriers and escape any restraint short of being buried meters deep without a roll or even an action. Because this is a form of locational indeterminacy, not teleportation or density decreas-ing, a nova may not use this to bypass the armor on a vehicle or person, and may only use it to surmount barriers or escape from restraints. This enhancement costs 1QP per use.

Rapid Strike

A nova with this enhancement can deliver a blur of rapid-fire attacks to a single target. While the individual blows are not any more powerful than an ordinary strike, they strike so fast and furious that the cumulative effect is much more powerful.

System: A character with this Enhancement adds (+Mega-Dexterity) to either the accuracy or the damage of a close combat attack. This function of the Enhancement costs 1 Quantum per action to use. In addition, the character may un-leash a fusillade of thousands of rapid-fire blows as an attack, giving the character an effective Mega-Strength score of his Mega-Dexterity for damage only for that one attack. This fusil-lade may not be part of a multiple action and costs 1 Quantum point to unleash.

Ten Thousand Weapons

Movies are chock-full of characters improvising weapons from everyday objects, like martial artists fighting with chopsticks, Arnold Schwarzenegger defeating soldiers with gardening implements, or Jason Bourne stabbing someone with a pen. A Nova with this Enhancement can go beyond that and improvise weapons from the most implausible objects. Cutting someone in half with a sheet of paper, breaking some-one’s bones with a thrown pillow, or killing people with their own fingernails are all possible for a nova with this Enhance-ment.

System: A character with this Enhancement may treat any object, no matter how unsuited for use as a weapon, as an improvised melee weapon as having these statistics: Ac-curacy +1, Defense +1, Damage (Strength +2L) or Damage (Strength + 4B). These weapons may be thrown for the listed damage. Objects with anything resembling a sharp edge or point (letter opener, paperclip, sheet of paper, fingernail) deal Lethal damage, while other objects deal Bashing damage. This Enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

Untouchable

A nova with this enhancement is exceedingly fast and difficult to hit, dodging even faster-than-light weapons, nuclear blasts, or other attacks that normally cannot be dodged.

Prerequisite: Mega-Dexterity 6, Quantum 6 System: The nova may attempt to dodge any physi-

cal attack, including massive area attacks, no matter how im-probable. For example, if he were on an island, and a nuke was dropped that would decimate the entire island, activating this enhancement would let him move off of the island, even if he normally could not move that far. This enhancement would

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only be wasted if there were literally no place he could physi-cally go to escape the attack.

Also, he never suffers penalties for dodging, no mat-ter how large the area of effect is or the nature of the attack. Furthermore, if the nova fails to dodge an attack, he may pay 1QP to buy an additional point of DV. This enhancement costs 3QP if used to dodge a normally undodgeable attack, plus whatever is spent on failed dodges, and lasts for a single at-tack.

Weapons Master

Any Mega-Dexterous nova can handle a weapon bet-ter than a baseline. Novas with this enhancement take it to the next level. A nova with this enhancement is an unparalleled master of every weapon, past, present, or future. No matter if it’s a wooden club or a high-tech plasma cannon, a nova with this Enhancement can use it like a master.

System: This enhancement replaces any weapon's RoF with (Mega-Dexterity x2) if the weapon normally fires slower, doubles its Range, and allows a nova to reload a weapon without taking an action. For melee weapons, a nova may increase the maximum Strength a melee weapon can use by (Mega-Dexterity x2). More importantly, all weapons in the nova's hands gain +2 accuracy and +2 damage. This en-hancement costs nothing and is always on.

Mega-Stamina

A nova with Mega-Stamina is hardier, more durable and more resistant to injury than your average nova. Although not always as resilient as novas who actually buy defensive powers such as Barrier, novas with Mega-Stamina are still mighty tough. Furthermore, they tend to have a great deal of endurance; it’s almost impossible to tire them out. Some of them display little need for sleep, staying up for days at a time.

Perhaps most importantly of all, a nova with Mega-Stamina feels very little pain. Regardless of the source – injury, disease, accident – a nova with Mega-Stamina can shrug off the pain and keep on going. Unconfirmed rumors speak of no-vas who were so resistant to pain that they didn’t feel the ef-fects of injury until their wounds killed them. In game terms, novas with Mega-Stamina gain several benefits. Each dot of Mega-Stamina provides these benefits in addition to the bo-nuses all Mega-Attributes give to rolls and static values:

Doubles the nova’s lifespan (x2 for M-Sta 1, x4 for M-Sta 2, x8 for M-Sta 3, etc.)

Multiplies the nova’s healing rate by ([dots in M-Sta +2])

Gives the nova 1x -0, 1x -1, 1x -2, 1x -4, and 1x Inca-pacitated Health Levels

Reduces the nova’s wound penalties by -1

Enhancements

Adaptability

This enhancement allows the nova to survive nearly any adverse environmental condition. The nova may survive hard vacuum, radioactive wastelands, or the inside of volcanos as easily and comfortably as she survives a warm summer day.

System: This Enhancement provides complete pro-tection from any and all environmental conditions, whether it’s the surface of the sun, hard vacuum, or the bottom of the Marianas Trench. However, Adaptability does not generally

protect the nova from attacks, such as weaponry or a nova’s flame blasts.

Adaptability also protects against airborne and other environmental toxins but does not protect against disease, nor does it protect against deliberate, targeted poisoning. A nova with Adaptability will be unaffected by a planet with an atmos-phere made of nerve gas. However, if hit by a gas bomb full of the same substance, or if it was applied by an armor-piercing syringe, Adaptability would provide no protection, as it protects against environmental hazards, not deliberate attacks.

Adaptability normally requires no QP and is always on. However, the Storyteller may choose to require QP ex-penditures under especially harsh conditions, depending on the needs of the game. Any such changes should be consistent. Example: if the Storyteller wants to discourage outer space exploration, she might require 1QP to be spent every round of exposure to the vacuum of space.

Autonomy

With years of dedicated practice, and massive will-power, some baselines have learned how to do wondrous tasks like slow down their heart rate. They were pretty proud of that. And then they found out there are novas who can com-pletely control their physiology just because. Needless to say, more than a few were jealous. System: The nova can completely control his own nervous system, enabling him to shut off his reflexes, prevent pupil dilation, slow down his heart, or perspire on command, amongst other things. Adjusting his system’s nevous system requires a full turn of obvious concentration. This Enhancement may be taken a second time to make the alterations happen re-flexively.

The exact effects of this Enhancement depend on the situation, and what is being adjusted. As a rule of thumb the Nova may add +(Mega-Stamina) bonus dice to any noncombat roll involving physical activity or resisting environmental condi-tions if given enough time to optimize his body to the task. This Enhancement costs 1 Quantum point to use and lasts for one roll.

Blood and Tears

This enhancement allows a nova to pour his life into a goal – literally. A nova with this Enhancement can burn her body instead of expending her will, giving her a seemingly infi-nite supply of resolve as she fights to accomplish her goals.

System: The nova may pay 1 Aggravated health lev-el instead of any willpower cost, up to (Mega-Stamina) times a scene. Doing so doubles the benefits of expending Willpower on that action (so if used for automatic successes, add 2 in-stead of 1, etc.) This enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

Durability

A nova with this Enhancement is significantly tougher. Although attacks still hurt, her body naturally disperses incom-ing attacks across a much wider area, turning what would be bullet holes and stab wounds into bruises and laser blasts into sunburns.

System: A character with Durability downgrades up to (Mega-Stamina + 1) health levels inflicted on him per attack during each round from Lethal to Bashing or Bashing to Stun, post-soak. Repurchasing this Enhancement allows the charac-

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ter to downgrade damage from Aggravated to Lethal as well. This Enhancement is always on and costs no Quantum points.

Hardbody

This enhancement offers protection of a different sort from Resiliency. Although it doesn’t help defend a character against ordinary damage, it allows him to soak certain forms of damage against which he ordinarily would have no protection at all.

System: A nova with Hardbody gains a soak score against Aggravated damage equal to his Mega-Stamina. This costs 1QP, but the nova may activate the enhancement reflex-ively, even while unconscious. This enhancement stays in ef-fect for one turn.

Health

Your body resists disease, poisons, chemical agents of all sorts and similar complications.

System: One level of this enhancement subtracts the nova’s Mega-Stamina from the Potency rating of any poison, disease or other biological or chemical intrusion, including those caused by quantum powers. If this would reduce the dis-ease or poison’s potency below (Mega-Stamina), the nova is automatically immune to it. Two levels allows the nova to se-lectively apply the reduction – for instance, letting alcohol through long enough to get buzzed, then detoxifying when done carousing to become instantly sober. As a final ‘minor’ perk (although to most characters this is the primary benefit of the Enhancement) the nova is biological immortal-he will live forever (barring violence, accident, or disease) and will not age past his mid-to-late twenties.

This Enhancement costs nothing to use and is always on.

I’ll Be Back

You’ve been pulverized, vaporized, pulped and dis-solved, but you just won’t stay dead. Novas with this En-hancement often seem nearly immortal, surviving far more damage than anyone would expect.

System: The nova has (Mega-Stamina x5) additional Incapacitated health levels. These levels may only be filled with damage capable of incapacitating the nova. The health levels of your corpse are also multiplied by (Mega-Stamina +1), alt-hough mundane resuscitation techniques will not work beyond the standard track, as the body is beyond the reach of medical science. This enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

Immovable Object

When you plant yourself, you don’t move unless you want to. It’s hard to knock you down or knock you back.

System: The character subtracts (Mega-Stamina) from the difficulty of any rolls to resist knockdown or knockback, and adds (Mega-Stamina) to the difficulty of any rolls to move the character against his or her will. This Enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

Indestructible

Some novas are nearly immune to harm. Novas with this Enhancement can face the pinnacles of 20th and 21st cen-tury military weapons, and the apex of nova destructive powers and laugh them off.

Prerequisites: Mega-Stamina 6, Quantum 6 System: This enhancement allows a nova to reduce

all rolled damage after soak, halving the number of health lev-els filled with Bashing, Lethal, and Aggravated damage result-ing from hostile attacks (round final damage up).

At Mega-Stamina 8+ and Quantum 8+, the nova may purchase this again, changing the divisor to 3. At Mega-Stamina 10 and Quantum 10, the nova may purchase this en-hancement a third and fourth time. The third repurchase changes the divisor to 4. The fourth repurchase allows a char-acter to pay double its normal activation cost (6 QP) to reduce the damage from an attack, no matter how high, to 1 level after soak. This enhancement costs 3QP to activate and lasts for a single attack.

Marathon Man

Where other people get tired from repetitive work, you just get warmed up.

System: This enhancement allows a nova to reverse difficulty penalties due to fatigue for extended rolls, transform-ing each +1 difficulty penalty into 1 additional automatic suc-cess. Naturally, the player no longer rolls to resist fatigue this Enhancement is active, as fatigue is now beneficial to him. The nova may gain up to a number of bonus successes or dice equal to (Mega-Stamina) per roll. However, this enhancement requires the nova to continuously work on the task at hand; stopping, even for a minute, resets the bonus. This enhance-ment lasts for a single extended task and costs 1 Quantum Point.

Masochist

Some novas enjoy pain. Others find it a useful tool, focusing on the task at hand, reminding them that no matter how powerful they are, they are still mortal. Novas with this en-hancement gain more than psychosomatic pleasure and ephemeral benefits from pain. When they get hurt, they get better at their job.

System: A nova with this enhancement reverses all wound penalties, turning them into bonuses instead. This en-hancement also overrides Augmentations such as Pain Editor and Aberrations such as Low Pain Tolerance (If a player wish-es, they can be converted back into XP or XP debt). This en-hancement costs nothing and is always on.

Regeneration

This Enhancement allows a nova to heal far faster than any human. Life-threatening wounds can heal in hours, and in stressful situations injuries may fix themselves in a mat-ter of seconds. Even the worst injuries

System: A nova with this enhancement may spend QP to instantly heal Bashing and Lethal damage, at the rate of 1QP per health level healed. Doing so is an automatic action, but the nova may heal a maximum number of health levels per turn equal to her Mega-Stamina Rating. Regeneration may not be used in this fashion to heal Aggravated damage.

Also, a nova with Regeneration heals (Mega-Stamina +1) levels of Bashing or Lethal damage per hour. Regeneration allows a Nova to regrow missing limbs or organs in (30/Mega-Stamina) days.

Regeneration may be purchased an additional two times. The second purchase doubles its passive out-of-combat healing rates, allows it to function even if the character is Inca-pacitated, and allows the character to regenerate Aggravated

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damage. Aggravated damage costs 5 Quantum per health lev-el to heal, and out of combat naturally heals at (Mega-Stamina) health levels per day. The third purchase, requiring Quantum 6+ and Mega-Stamina 6+, allows Regeneration to function even after the character’s death, healing the character via out-of-combat healing rates until the character heals all Dying and Incapacitated health levels.

Resiliency

Toughened by the rigors of channeling quantum en-ergies, the nova’s frame is exceptionally resistant to damage. Although he might not be able to bounce a missile off his chest (yet), he can bounce pistol rounds off his eyeballs and the claws of a rabid bear hurts about as much as those of a kitten. And that’s before armor or any other extra protection comes in-to play.

System: The nova’s Mega-Stamina rating is doubled for the purposes of calculating soak. This enhancement is al-ways on and costs no QP to activate.

Resiliency may be purchased twice. The second pur-chase triples the nova’s Mega-Stamina for the purposes of cal-culating soak.

Robust

Novas with this enhancement are particularly adept at taking a terrible beating before showing the least sign of injury.

System: The nova gains a duplicate of his basic 7 health levels (1 additional -0, 2 additional -1 and -2, 1 addition-al -4, and 1 Incapacitated level). This enhancement may be purchased up to (Mega-Stamina) times, costs nothing, and is always on.

Tireless

You can keep going and going…. You don’t fight off disease or other complications better than anyone else, but your resist fatigue unusually well. A nova with this enhance-ment could sprint two marathons back to back without even el-evating her breathing rate.

System: This Enhancement multiplies the length of time a character may spend doing strenuous activity before making a Stamina + Endurance roll by (Mega-Stamina x 2). The character can march or run longer, perform a particular task longer and so on. In addition, the character no longer needs sleep and regains 1 temporary willpower point every 24 hours instead of with a good night’s sleep.

Mental

Mega-Perception

Scientists theorize that normal humans use only a fraction of their ability to observe things. Ask a normal person to describe what he just walked past, and he probably won’t be able to tell you too many details about it, if any. That’s not true of novas with Mega-Perception. They take it all in – every detail, every nuance, every little fact. They may not remember them very long (that’s a function of Intelligence), but they don’t over-look things. They make excellent sentinels, guards, detectives and trackers.

Novas with even one dot of Mega-Perception can fo-cus on and notice everything in their sensory range unless hid-den (deliberately or otherwise). This gives them a perfect awareness of fleeting glimpses, objects in his peripheral vision, subtle smells or noises, and all the other sensory impressions people normally filter out. A Mega-Perceptive nova can effec-tively “freeze” a particular moment in his mind, allowing him to, for example, read the serial number stamped on a speeding bullet the moment before it hits his mark. Of course, his recall is still limited by his Intelligence, so these impressions will eventually fade, as any other memory would.

Mega-Perception Enhance-

ments

Achilles’ Bane

A nova with this enhancement can find and exploit weak points in enemy combatants far better than any baseline can. The subtle flaws in warped space, the weakest chinks in a suit of armor, the subtle flaws in a reinforced wall-to a nova with this Enhancement, all of these might as well announce themselves in glowing red. In fact, for some novas raised on a constant diet of videogames from youth, that’s exactly how they see weakpoints.

System: The nova adds (Mega-Perception) to the maximum number of successes on an attack roll that apply as extra damage. The nova also reduces an enemy’s soak, or an object’s armor, by (Mega-Perception) to a minimum of 0. For example, a nova with this Enhancement and Mega-Perception 3 could apply up to 8 additional successes on an attack roll as additional damage, rather than only 5, and subtracts 3 from the enemy’s soak scores. In addition, against powers and condi-tions which increase the difficulty of attacks, the nova may re-duce their difficulty increase by (Mega-Perception), down to a minimum of 0. This enhancement is permanent and always on.

Analytic Taste/Touch

There are plenty of gourmets out there who can fig-ure out what spices were used in a particular dish by tasting it. A nova with this power can go them one better. He can detect everything in the food. Give him a casserole, and he’ll tell you every ingredient in it, as well as how much of each was used. Give him a pretzel, and he can tell you how many grains of salt there are on it. Give him poisoned food, and he will detect the poison as soon as he touches it with his tongue, then spit the food out immediately before the poison can affect him.

The character’s sense of touch is also enhanced. Everyone knows what a dollar bill feels like – it’s got a unique feeling like no other type of paper. Mix a dollar bill up with a bunch of pieces of newspaper and other papers, and someone can still find it by touch alone. But only a nova with Analytic Touch can tell you without looking whether it’s a twenty or a c-note.

A character with this enhancement may use both functions.

System: With Analytic Taste, the character’s sense of taste is so heightened that he can determine the composi-tion and nature of food he eats, as described previously. This enhancement is most useful for detecting poison or other tam-pering, but it has other uses as well. If the Storyteller decides that a particular substance is present only in trace quantities, he may require a Perception or Awareness roll to allow the

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character to detect it. But even in such situations, the character receives a minimum of three extra dice when making any Per-ception roll based on taste. Furthermore, by flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth in the manner of a snake, the character can halve any penalties relating to darkness, as the character literally “tastes” vibrations in the air.

With Analytic Touch, the character’s sense of touch is so heightened that he can differentiate many objects by touch alone. This ability can be extremely useful if the character can-not see. It also provides bonuses in situations where an acute sense of feel would be helpful – such as lockpicking or trying to figure out the combination to a safe by feeling the tumblers fall into place. The character receives a minimum of three extra dice when making any Perception roll based on touch. Fur-thermore, the character’s skin is so sensitive that he can sense faint air currents, which adds two dice to Awareness skill totals when attempting to detect stealthy opponents like invisible no-vas.

This enhancement is always on and costs no QP to use.

Blindfighting

Most people are helpless when blind – particularly in combat – but not this character. Thanks to his enhanced sens-es, he can perceive where his foes are even when he cannot see them. Some Asian (or Asian-influenced) novas snidely re-fer to this enhancement as “Zen fighting.”

System: The character is not subject to the difficulty penalty for fighting blind. In some situations, such as those with bad or glaring lighting, he might even be better off to shut his eyes and fight without using his sight. The nova also reduces any difficulties to detect and attack invisible (but not inaudible) opponents by (Mega-Perception).

This enhancement costs 1QP and lasts for a scene.

Bloodhound

Like the animal for which it is named, this enhance-ment allows a nova to track a person by scent.

System: The character may make an Awareness roll to follow someone by scent alone. If the scent is particularly strong (for example, the person hasn’t bathed in a week), re-duce the difficulty by one. If the person being tracked passes through an area with a lot of other scents (like a crowded city street), walks through a stream or does anything else that might confuse or mask his scent, the nova must make another roll at an increased difficulty (+2 or more, usually).

If the nova is exposed to a particularly strong odor – such as having pepper thrown in her face – her Bloodhound ability is temporarily “blinded.” Until she can get that scent out of her nose, which could take anywhere from a turn to an hour depending on the circumstances, she won’t be able to follow any scents.

This enhancement is always on and costs no QP to use.

Body Awareness

Everyone is aware of their body to some degree, but novas can be aware of their own physical condition with a pre-cision greater than a battery of sophisticated medical tests. A character with this enhancement is aware of any changes in his physical condition, regardless of the source.

System: A nova with Body Awareness instinctively knows everything about his body’s physical condition: heart

rate, respiration, blood-sugar level, and so forth. He also im-mediately knows when any foreign substance (from drugs and alcohol to viruses and bacteria) enters his body and how his system is reacting to it. He can sense the development of any illness or physical imbalance even before symptoms manifest themselves, down to alterations to his genetics due to radiation, nova powers or some other source. With a successful Medicine roll, the nova can identify the exact condition or foreign sub-stance (if he’s already familiar with it). The character always knows his exact Health Level (and how much more damage he can suffer) and his exact level of Temporary and Permanent Taint.

In addition to the minor benefits gained, Body Aware-ness also gives anyone operating on or attempting to treat the nova in question +(Mega-Perception) additional dice to their Medicine rolls as long as the nova has had time to advise the doctor in question (or the nova is treating/diagnosing himself). More critically, when diagnosing or treating a nova with Body Awareness who is capable of giving real-time advice, a doctor can reroll all failed dice in his dice pool once. Rerolled dice which come up as failures may not be further rerolled.

This enhancement is always on and costs no quan-tum points to use.

Electromagnetic Vision

By processing and amplifying waves in the middle end of the electromagnetic spectrum (infrared, visible light, ul-traviolet), the character provides herself with a number of sen-sory abilities.

System: The character spends 1QP to activate the power for a scene. While doing so, the character adds (Mega-Perception +1) dice on any Awareness roll related to vision. Additionally, this enhancement provides a number of benefits.

Ultraviolet vision: The character can see in the ul-traviolet (“UV”) spectrum, allowing her to see clearly and with-out penalty whenever UV illumination (such as from the sun, moon or stars) is present. Like a cat, she is able to see in con-ditions of very little light. The character can see as well in dark-ness as in daylight, provided that there is at least some light (even faint starlight is enough). If she is in total blackness (such as an unlit underground room), she cannot see.

Infrared vision: The character is able to see in the infrared (“IR”) spectrum. Not only can she see anything illumi-nated by an IR light, she can see the heat given off by living things and hot objects. Hot things appear “bright,” cool things “dark.”

Visible light attuner: The character can magnify objects in her line of sight, as though she were a high-powered telescopic scope or electron microscope. Usually, novas use this ability to view tiny objects which would ordinarily be be-yond the character’s range of vision, but it can also help to see objects at a distance. The character can also see distant ob-jects as if they were close up. For each dot of Mega-Perception, the character can magnify distant or tiny images by a factor of 10 (x100 at Mega-Perception 2, x1000 at Mega-Perception 3, etc.) Use of this enhancement negates penalties to see (but not attack) extremely distant objects, and reduces range penal-ties by 1.

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High-End Electromagnetic

Scan

The character can transmit and receive waves from the gamma- and x-ray end of the electromagnetic spectrum. This allows him to “see” through solid objects.

System: By spending 1QP, taking an action and making a Perception roll, the character may see through solid objects at a range equal to (Perception x 20). The Storyteller may increase the difficulty to scan through particularly dense objects. Each use of this power lasts for one action – to look through a wall, for instance. For 3QP, the enhancement lasts for the scene.

Hyperenhanced Hearing

A nova with this enhancement can hear and transmit sounds that are too high- or low-pitched to be audible to the normal human ear, such as dog whistles, radio waves, or secu-rity devices that utilize ultrasonic sound.

System: The character spends 1QP to activate the power for a scene. While active, the character gains (Mega-Perception +1) dice on any Awareness, Intrusion or other ap-propriate roll related to hearing. Additionally, this enhancement provides a number of benefits:

Infra/ultrasonic hearing: Most characters cannot hear infrasonic or ultrasonic sound at all. A nova with this en-hancement can, though the Storyteller might require an Awareness roll if the sound is extremely soft or distant – just like he would with any normal whisper or distant sound.

Sonar: Like a bat, the nova can emit sonar waves which travel away from her, hit objects and “bounce” back to their source. This sense tells the character where things are, how big they are and other gross physical qualities. On the other hand, sonar does not reveal finer details or visual details, such as the number of fingers on a hand, color, fine texture or print. Sonar works in a 360-degree radius around the character and is sufficiently accurate to allow the character to launch at-tacks without any loss of dice or other penalties. Sonar can be detected with Radio Scan.

Radio scan: The name of this technique is slightly misleading, since it actually allows the character to perceive all wirelessly transmitted communication. The character may also transmit along such wavelengths, though he can transmit voice only.

The character may voluntarily “shut off” the sense (to keep from being inundated with signals). He can also edit out specific frequencies so that he hears only a specific radio broadcast rather than all radio broadcasts, television, and other broadcasts.

Move Reading

The nova is instinctively and constantly evaluating nearby people and objects for threatening movements.

System: When the nova is attacked, he may reduce any dodge difficulties against fast-moving attacks, speed of light weapons, hidden attackers, or even spread/area attacks by up to (Mega-Perception), down to a minimum of 0. This en-hancement costs nothing and is always on.

Quantum Attunement

All novas can detect quantum energies, but some have evolved a talent for it. Such novas are the first to know of local novas erupting and are experts at gauging how well oth-ers can control quantum forces.

System: The nova no longer needs to spend a full turn of concentration in order to detect quantum energies; she does so reflexively.

Additionally, the nova gains much more precise in-formation about quantum sources she observes. She can pin-point these sources and even follow trails of quantum emis-sions. She can tell roughly how much quantum energy is stored in a person, place or thing; how powerful a nova is com-pared to her in a relative sense; how Tainted a nova has be-come.

Novas with Quantum Attunement can make an Intel-ligence + Science: Quantum Mechanics roll to determine the properties and principles of a quantum source. In other words, the nova could tell that the subject is able to fly by manipulating gravitational forces, create icy armor by absorbing radiant heat from the atmosphere, and survive in vacuum because his body is spontaneously adapting to the change. Frequently, the ex-planations come intuitively; novas trying to comprehend other novas sometimes find their own conclusions Businessarre – and it is entirely possible for a source to read as something im-possible, like shapeshifting that clearly violates conservation of mass.

Panopticon

The original Panopticon was a prison where its in-mates were always visible, having no privacy whatsoever. A nova with this enhancement can do much the same, surveying the area around her with a million different electronic eyes and ears.

System: Mega-Perception and its Enhancements normally do not work through electronics such as video camer-as or microphones, but this enhancement allows them to do so. The nova may apply her Mega-Perception and Mega-Perception Enhancements through electronics, such as using Mega-Perception to see someone’s face or a blurred license plate clearly through an old CCTV camera or hear footsteps using a cheap microphone. This enhancement costs 1 quan-tum point to activate and lasts for a scene.

Plasticity

The human mind is remarkably plastic. The blind learn to use hearing and touch to make up for sight, the deaf can learn to read lips instead of hearing speech, and some Mega-Perceptive novas can exceed all of these amazing feats. A nova with this enhancement can see by feeling reflected photons bouncing off her skin, hear by seeing the slight vibra-tions in the air created by sound waves, smell and taste by chemically analyzing atmospheric composition via sight, feel via the slight sounds made when her fingers touch something, and more.

System: A character with this enhancement can sub-stitute one sense for another fully and completely. Disabling a sense (via called shots, gross physical damage, or something as simple as blocking it via a physical object such as a blind-fold or earplugs) does not prevent the nova from perceiving the world normally. In addition, being able to see with one’s skin and other clever substitutions allow the nova to perceive every-

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thing around her, negating any bonuses attackers may gain for attacking from the flank or rear. This enhancement costs noth-ing and is always on.

That Creepy Feeling

The nova knows when he’s being watched, over-heard or monitored in any way.

System: The nova is always aware of whether he is being monitored – whether being watched from the shadows, peered at through binoculars, eavesdropped on from around a corner, or even by ESP/Telepathy. By default, the nova has only a vague sense of how he is being monitored (visually, electronically, telepathically, etc.). By spending 1 QP, the nova gains an intuitive sense of the source of the monitoring, such as which person is monitoring him, where the electronic device is located, or where the telepath is (if in range of any of his senses).

Timeless

Some say that great beauty never fades. Clearly, a nova with this enhancement sees some great beauty in every-thing, because for a nova with this enhancement, everything is timeless, from the most precious works of art and the longest-lasting artifacts to things that degrade nearly instantly such as DNA samples and footprints in snowy fields. Novas with this enhancement are incredible archaeologists and detectives, able to investigate years-old crime scenes as if the crime had just been committed yesterday.

System: Normally, the passage of time erases infor-mation. Data breaks down, writing fades, DNA degrades. The nova, however, may reduce the effective time passed for the purposes of analyzing something such as a book, a tablet, or a crime scene, reducing the effective time passed by one step from 100,000 years - 10,000 years - millennium - century – decade – year – month – day – hour – minute – second per dot of Mega-Perception for gathering information only. However, this does not let the nova actually see into the past, and the nova may not see anything no longer at the scene. So, for ex-ample, a nova with this enhancement and Mega-Perception 3 could investigate a years-old murder scene as if it was a few minutes ago, but would not be able to see the face of the mur-derer, and if anything was ever moved from the scene would not be able to gather clues related to those items. This en-hancement costs 1QP and lasts for a single task.

Mega-Intelligence

Intelligence, according to some, is the ultimate weap-on. If that’s the case, a nova with this Mega-Attribute is the ul-timate warrior.

A character with Mega-lntelligence is intelligent be-yond the dreams of even most geniuses. His ability to make deductive “leaps” from unrelated facts to a conclusion, to solve difficult problems and to analyze situations is nearly unparal-leled. In some cases, novas with high Mega-lntelligence ratings have put powerful computers to shame. Like lntelligence itself, Mega-Intelligence mainly represents the quality of a character‘s thinking processes - how clearly and precisely he can put facts together and draw conclusions from them.

However, unlike lntelligence, to a certain extent it also measures the speed at which a character goes through the

processes of comprehension, contemplation and calculation. For those purposes, multiply the nova’s subjective time by one time category: seconds->minutes->hours->days->weeks->months->years. For categories beyond years, multiply by 10. Furthermore, the nova does not require tools to perform these mental tasks, and reduces any difficulties associated with them by [Mega-Intelligence]. Practically, this means the nova can in-stantly digest and analyze most information, and at higher lev-els of Mega-Intelligence can even prove more brilliant than a philosopher who just proposed a theory. After all, the nova may have effectively been considering the subject for a century or more.

As a side-effect of this, the nova gains an impressive memory (as he effectively has more time to study the material). However, true Eidetic Memory is its own Enhancement.

Mega-Intelligence Enhance-

ments

Analyze Weakness

Virtually everything – every object, every system, every procedure – has flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerable points. In many instances these problems are so minor as to be unnoticeable to the average person. A nova with this ability, however, is not the “average person.” By dint of her vast intel-lect and analytical prowess, she is able to detect where these weaknesses are, and she knows how to exploit them to her advantage.

System: A nova with this enhancement is able to de-tect weaknesses in objects, systems and procedures. Some-times this flaw is physical (a place where a crack is likely to de-velop) and sometimes a less tangible weakness (a part of a security net where protection is lightest), but in either case, the nova can locate the problem.

To find and analyze a weakness, the nova must spend an action looking at and considering an object or system. The nova then knows what aspects of it are not as good as they should be; what parts of it are flawed, weak or inefficient; and how the system or procedure could be improved or dam-aged. The nova gains (Mega-Intelligence) bonus dice for relat-ed Ability rolls to affect the object in some way. For example, if a Mega-Intelligence 2 nova analyzes the guard patrols and other security measures protecting a mercenary base in Africa, she gains two extra dice for lntrusion rolls to sneak into that base. If she were trying to get information out of the Federal court system and analyzes that, she would receive two extra dice for her Bureaucracy roll.

This analysis costs 1 Quantum point per use and lasts for 1 scene.

Compartmentalized Mind

You can split your conscious thought processes re-markably well. In the face of a physical or mental assault on your thoughts or emotions, you can pull back and protect a por-tion of your consciousness.

System: When subjected to physical or mental trau-ma, spend 1QP and make an Intelligence roll. Each success lets the nova buffer one dot of Intelligence; it takes two suc-cesses to compartmentalize one dot of Mega-lntelligence. Acti-vating Compartmentalized Mind is a reflexive reaction and does not count as an action.

The mental compartment isn’t aware of the outside world, but can attempt to shock the foreground consciousness

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back into self-control. Make opposed rolls of the lntelligence in the mental compartment versus the Intelligence left in the pri-mary compartment. If the mental compartment’s successes equal or outnumber successes on the roll that imposed Domi-nate, Hypnosis, Telepathy, torture or other manipulation on the nova, the foreground consciousness shakes off the effects of the power used on it. The mental compartment can try again if the initial attempt fails, but each repeat effort adds +1 difficulty.

The mental compartment reunites with the foreground consciousness at the end of the scene, or earlier if the nova so chooses. Note that while Compartmentalized Mind is in effect, the nova has conscious access only to the dots of Intelligence and Mega-Intelligence remaining in the foreground conscious-ness. This impairment is very obvious to anyone who knows the nova at all well.

Discerning Mind

While a sharp mind is no guarantee of being able to resist a pretty face or a charming personality, some novas with Mega-Intelligence are able to see through attempts to influence them, and their quick, analytical minds allow them to escape from such traps where others might not. System: The nova gains +(Mega-Intelligence) dice to any roll to resist Sway. Furthermore add +(Mega-Intelligence) to the nova’s Willpower when determining the points of casual Sway necessary to create intimate sway.

Eidetic Memory

Any nova with Mega-lntelligence has a well-developed memory. A nova with this enhancement, though, has a memory that’s totally foolproof. He can remember in pre-cise detail just about anything that has happened to him. Any-thing he takes the time to study remains lodged in his mind. However, just because he can store a particular fact in his memory does not mean he can recall it instantly. Sometimes a character with Eidetic Memory has to stop and think for several seconds or minutes, slowly reading down a mental page or through a mental file until he retrieves the fact he wants.

System: A character with Eidetic Memory is as-sumed to have perfect, and nearly instantaneous, recollection of anything that has happened to him. For example, suppose that the characters have spent an hour working their way through the labyrinthine halls of some Nova Vigilance base. Af-ter the climactic encounter, the characters realize, to their dis-may, that they cannot remember how to get out again. Fortu-nately, one of them has Eidetic Memory, and he can lead them back the way they came in without any problem or even a need to roll.

In addition, the character has the ability to “memorize” skills quickly. In theory, the character has perfect recall of any-thing he has studied, from the phone book to advanced quan-tum physics textbooks. In practice, the character doesn’t have enough practice with them to work at a high level of compe-tence, and books are often no substitute for experience.

Therefore, the nova may in effect have up to (Mega-Intelligence +3) “phantom” dots of abilities stored in his memory, with no single “phantom” Mental or Social ability hav-ing a rating higher than (Mega-Intelligence/2, rounded up) dots. The nova may even choose to memorize physical abilities, alt-hough such abilities are limited to a maximum rating of 1 in all cases - this only covers intellectual recall, not muscle memory or physical conditioning. These abilities act identically to ‘nor-mal’ abilities but are not actually purchased, and may be ‘for-gotten’ to make room for new knowledge. Novas with this En-

hancement can change their phantom ability dots as long as they have access to information which would allow them to do so. A nova stuck in the company of illiterate peasants with this Enhancement might be able to learn Survival, but not aero-space engineering.

This enhancement is always in effect and costs no QP to activate.

Emulation

A nova with this enhancement can emulate other, simpler minds with sufficient data, creating fully formed models which can be used to better manipulate or appeal to the sub-ject.

System: The nova gains (Mega-Intelligence) bonus dice to any social roll as long as the nova has had enough re-search information (a detailed Google+ page, a personal dia-ry/journal, hours of constant social interaction, or any other way to find out their likes and dislikes and general personality) and a higher Mega-Intelligence rating than the other party. This en-hancement costs 1QP and lasts for a single roll.

Linguistic Genius

Quelle heure et il? ¿Habla español, señor? Born dia! Sprechen sie deutsch? These phrases are all as good as his native language

to a nova with this enhancement. A character with Linguistic Genius is, literally, a genius at linguistics and language inter-pretation. He can usually speak a lot of languages fluently, but more than that, he has an intuitive understanding of the struc-ture and nature of language. Even if he has never heard a par-ticular language before, if he listens to someone speaking it for a little while, he will be able to determine what the person is saying. He won’t necessarily be able to speak the language himself, so he might not be able to respond or participate in a conversation, but he will know what’s being said to him, and sometimes that’s enough to solve any problems.

System: A character with this enhancement receives five automatic successes when the player makes Linguistics rolls. Furthermore, the number of additional languages with which he is familiar is quadrupled. Thus, a nova with Linguis-tics 5 and Linguistic Genius would be familiar with 80 additional languages.

Even better, the character has a limited ability to comprehend speech in languages with which he is not familiar. When he hears a language he does not know, the player may make an lntelligence roll. On a success, he understands what is being communicated. The Storyteller should add a difficulty modifier for especially complex languages, situations where the character has difficulty hearing the language being spoken or when the character is not able to listen to the language for very long.

This enhancement is always in effect and costs no QP to activate.

Mental Prodigy

This broad enhancement is actually several different enhancements grouped under a common heading. Each of them represents a nova who has an innate talent for, “feel for” or skill at a particular type of lntelligence-based (or -related) ability. The character must select a specific category of this

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enhancement. This enhancement is permanent and costs no QP to use, and may be repurchased any number of times, each repurchase giving the nova an additional category of tal-ent.

Categories include: • Administrative: A nova with this enhancement un-

derstands how organizations work. He knows about the prob-lem of subordinates only telling superiors what the subordi-nates think the superiors want to hear, about the Mythical Man-Month and about all the other social complications that inter-fere with a group’s ability to act on its shared goals. He gives orders in the language that others in the group understand and senses where others are hiding weaknesses (or even ad-vantages they want to exploit themselves). It’s not flashy or dramatic, but an Administrative Prodigy gets things done through group action better than any other nova.

• Detective: Sherlock Holmes has nothing on a nova with this ability. The character is a deductive and investigative genius, able to read volumes of information from the smallest clues. Although he does not necessarily have any knowledge of forensic science, he has an intuitive ability to figure out what clues mean. This ability makes him a matchless detective - or a nearly uncatchable criminal.

• Engineering: An Engineering Prodigy is a certifia-ble genius when it comes to working with electronic and me-chanical devices. He has an innate understanding of how such devices work, how to repair or improve them and the synergies that result when particular technologies are combined. He can make intuitive leaps that leave ordinary engineers scratching their heads in puzzlement.

• Financial: Economics isn’t such a “dismal science” to a nova with this ability. He has a natural understanding of economics and economic systems, high finance, market ma-nipulation and money in general. Give him a few dollars to in-vest and he’ll soon turn them into a fortune. Give him an econ-omy to manage and it will soon be humming along efficiently and productively. Let him analyze the stock market for you, and you will be able to chart a productive investment strategy for years to come.

• Inventive: Some people are just full of ideas. Novas with this enhancement are brimming over with them. They have a gift for seeing things in new ways and finding new ap-plications of existing technology and techniques. Their inven-tions change the world, provided they’re not confiscated by concerned governments. They excel at inventing or developing new technology, including gadgets.

• Mathematical: Calculator? Computer? Who needs them? Nova Mathematical Prodigies are incredibly brilliant with numbers, capable of pulling off the feats which made the Rain Man so interesting but to an even higher degree, pairing this innate capability with a mathematical genius which would make Einstein and Newton envious.

• Medical: Marcus Welby, eat your heart out - and if you do, this character might just be able to patch you back up. A nova with this enhancement is able to diagnose diseases, treat injuries and heal the sick as well as an experienced phy-sician. If he actually has formal medical training (i.e., the Medi-cine Ability), he’s even better.

• Scientific: A Scientific Prodigy is to general science what an Engineering Prodigy is to working with technological devices. He has an intuitive understanding of scientific subjects in general, including the interrelationships of various scientific specialties and the best ways to perform experiments or ana-lyze scientific data.

• Strategic: A nova with this enhancement may not know the optimal course of action for a specific battlefield, but

understands the broad sweep of events and possibilities. Ana-lyze Weakness provides greater insight into the present mo-ment and Tactical Prodigy covers short-term engagements like specific battles, while Strategic Prodigy gives insight into pos-sibilities, courses of Augmentation, situational outcomes and catastrophic changes that may unfold.

• Tactical: A nova with this enhancement is a genius when it comes to analyzing tactical and battlefield situations, evaluating resources and determining the best way to apply those resources to achieve victory in that situation. His ability to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, beat numerically superior enemies and concoct brilliant strategic and tactical plans is nothing less than phenomenal. And this ability often works just as well when applied to less dangerous, but no less violent, “battlefields” - such as the cutthroat corporate arena. Note: In addition to everything else the System provides, Tactical Prod-igy adds bonus dice equal to the nova’s Mega-Intelligence to Initiative rolls.

System: The player may add (Mega-Intelligence) dice to any roll made related to the field in question, can no longer botch rolls related to the field (treating them as simple failures) and she automatically succeeds on non-opposed rolls related to the field that have a difficulty lower than (Mega-Intelligence + 1). The roll does not even need to involve the skill after which the field is named, so long as it relates. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of what is sufficiently related to that field.

Additionally, the nova has an instinctive understand-ing of any principle behind the field in question and never suf-fers penalties for comprehending material related to that field.

Oracle

One of the markers of intelligence is the ability to predict the course of actions. All novas with Mega-Intelligence are extremely good at predicting the future, but only a nova with this Enhancement is so brilliant, they can calculate the fu-ture to near-perfect accuracy.

Prerequisites: Mega-Intelligence 6, Quantum 6 System: A Nova with this ability may reroll up to

(Mega-Intelligence) failed dice on any roll or force an opponent to reroll up to (Mega-Intelligence) successful dice on any roll attempting to harm the nova, as they have seen the future and know potential points of failure or weaknesses in their plan of action. The nova adds (Mega-Intelligence) bonus dice on all Anticipation rolls. This Enhancement costs 3 Quantum Points and lasts for a single roll or one turn, whichever is longer.

Self-Analysis

You’ve driven yourself a little bit crazy, setting aside part of your mind to review the rest. When you engage in Self-Analysis, it’s almost like having someone else look for all the dumb mistakes and wrong conclusions you’ve drawn, except that nobody else needs to know how thoroughly you’ve messed it up.

System: The nova must spend one scene of waking time or one night’s sleep using Self-Analysis. During this time, his effective Mega-lntelligence is one lower than usual, as part of his mind is otherwise occupied. When finished with the anal-ysis, make an lntelligence roll (with full dice pool restored). Each success lets the nova identify one conclusion drawn er-roneously since the last time he engaged in Self-Analysis. This enhancement is most entertainingly played out between the player and the Storyteller, with the player speaking aloud what the character is thinking and with the Storyteller giving hints

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and suggestions until the character arrives at the right conclu-sions.

Submind

The nova has enough spare processing ability to cre-ate fully-formed intellects, lesser than the nova but still human-level in intellect.

System: A nova with this enhancement can create one submind at Mega-Intelligence 1, doubling this number with each additional dot of Mega-Intelligence she possesses. Sub-minds have half of the nova's mental attributes (round down, minimum of 1) and no mental Mega-Attributes, but possess all of a nova's abilities, and may make full use of the nova's physi-cal and social attributes if given control. Subminds do not have any body, but may take any mental actions. A repurchase of this enhancement at Mega-Intelligence 2+ gives the nova's subminds Mega-Intelligence 1 and all the nova's enhance-ments.

This Enhancement costs 1QP per scene to sustain, and lasts until the nova stops paying the quantum cost.

Mega-Wits

Mega-Wits is the flip side of Mega-Dexterity. Mega-Dexterity reflects how quickly some novas can move and react physically. Mega-Wits is how fast some novas can act and re-act mentally. As with Mega-Dexterity, each dot of Mega-Wits adds 2 to Initiative ratings. Also, a nova with Mega-Wits sub-tracts his Mega-Wits rating from multiple action penalties.

Mega-Wits is one of the most disturbing Mega-Attributes for normal humans to deal with. Watching a nova pick up a truck or outrace bullets just seems sort of surreal af-ter a while. But to see someone standing there calmly in the middle of a firefight or working a social situation like a grandmaster that can see 20 moves ahead is disconcerting. It’s strange to see such level-headedness in the face of terrifying (to a normal human) danger or the application of superpowers in such “ordinary” situations.

Mega-Wits Enhancements

Artistic Genius

A nova with this ability possesses an intuitive artistic sense and skill. He knows what “works” artistically, what doesn’t, which colors complement each other and how to knock a chip off a sculpture here and there to turn a pedestrian piece into a masterwork. He may also be a skilled writer, able to express with a single sentence or paragraph what it takes others pages and pages to say. Novas who are Artistic Geni-uses are often the darlings of the highbrow art scene.

System: Whenever the character is attempting to create or analyze art, literature, cinema or similar works or sub-jects, he gains (Mega-Wits) extra dice. A character with this Enhancement may also use it to analyze the artist behind the art, with each success on a Wits + Art roll (including the extra dice from this Enhancement) allowing the character to learn 1 fact about the artist per success. Analyzing an artwork in this fashion may tell you something about the artist’s associates, his or her taste in human beauty, the artist’s dreams and yearnings, if he/she is a upbeat or unhappy individual, and more. This may only be done effectively on works with a clear ‘lead’ artist or done by a single artist-works with multiple artists

add +1 difficulty per additional artist unless the character knows who worked on which part.

Curiously, this latter part of the power enables the nova to likewise analyze a person by what clothing they wear.

This enhancement is always in effect, and it costs no QP to activate.

Enhanced Initiative

Reacting in combat isn’t just a matter of physical re-flexes - it’s a matter of quick thinking and mental reaction time as well. Someone who is able to comprehend and analyze a combat situation quickly - such as a nova with this enhance-ment - has a definite advantage over combatants who react more slowly.

System: The nova adds 2 automatic successes to all Initiative rolls per purchase of this Enhancement. Enhanced Ini-tiative may be purchased up to (Mega-Wits) times. This En-hancement costs nothing and is always active.

FTL Reflexes

Scientists have theorized that all faster-than-light travel methods can be used as time travel methods. Novas with this Enhancement have proven this theory correct. The nova's nerve impulses now travel faster than light, carrying in-formation back through time.

Prerequisite: Mega-Wits 6, Quantum 6 System: The nova always acts first and declares last,

unless facing another FTL Reflexes-enhanced nova (in which case both of them determine initiative order normally and eve-ryone else goes behind them in normal initiative order). Fur-thermore, all characters without FTL Reflexes, Pretercognition, or any other form of precognition add +2 difficulty to all rolls made to attack or defend against the nova in question. This Enhancement costs 3QP and lasts for a turn.

Behavioralist

This Enhancement does enables the nova to predict behavior with uncanny accuracy. The nova senses the sub-conscious impulses of people. She can tell when somebody is about to walk away, what they will say next, how close they are to panic or rage, or any other way the person is about to be-have. The nova can then turn around and use that behavior to her advantage.

System: This enhancement lets the nova read the mood of the people around her. Make a Wits + Rapport roll, re-flexively resisted by the subject’s Manipulation + Subterfuge (if the subject is intentionally being discreet) . If it’s successful, the nova can tell what the person will do in the next few turns - one turn per dot of Wits. Successes on the Rapport roll provide a pool of bonus dice to use in efforts to affect that person’s be-havior. Each bonus die can be used in one roll made during the period the nova foresees. The player cannot carry over dice earned from one use of Behavioralist to the next. Each use creates a new dice pool; any remaining from the last use are forfeit (no harm done, but no gain from them, either).

This Enhancement may be used against large groups, too; rather than reading what any individual will do, the nova reads how the crowd plans to act as a whole, and could learn whether a group is about to become a mob or stampede like a herd of wild animals.

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Indomitable

Novas with this enhancement have superhuman will-power, withstanding mental stress which would crush lesser men and taking it in stride.

System: This enhancement adds one automatic suc-cess to all Willpower rolls per purchase. Note that this does not alter the costs of improving Willpower, nor does it give the nova additional points of temporary Willpower to spend. This en-hancement may be purchased up to (Mega-Wits) times. Indom-itable costs no quantum points to use and is always on.

Lead The Target

Novas with this Enhancement are capable of accu-rately calculating complex physics problems in real-time by in-stinct, allowing them to use guided and unguided munitions against fast-moving targets much more effectively. Although this allows novas to do complex equations very quickly, it is subconscious and does not make the nova better at solving explicit mathematics questions. That is the purview of Mega-Intelligence and Mathematics Prodigy.

System: All attacks the nova makes gain the Fast Tracking (FT) tag, ignoring any defensive benefit enemies gain from high speed. This Enhancement costs nothing and is al-ways on.

Lightning Speed

Novas with Quickness act extraordinarily quickly and may attack and defend in combat much more quickly and ef-fectively than a normal human can. Novas with Quickness and this Enhancement can act even faster, dropping a dozen tar-gets before the first body even hits the floor.

System: When activated, this Enhancement allows the nova to take an extra action simultaneously with his normal actions, instead of taking them after everyone else has acted. This Enhancement costs 1 Quantum point for every extra ac-tion so enhanced in this fashion, and may not enhance more than (Mega-Wits) extra actions.

Natural Empath

Despite their inhumanity (or, as some would say, transcendence of humanity), some novas are very skilled at figuring out what people are feeling. They have an instinctive ability to gauge emotions and emotional states. More honora-ble novas use this power as a way to relate to (and offer com-fort to) normal people; selfish novas use it as a tool to manipu-late, harass or degrade humans.

System: The player spends 1 QP and rolls Wits + Rapport (if the subject is unwilling, then resisted by the sub-ject’s Manipulation + Subterfuge). Every success tells the character one of the following pieces of information:

The subject’s current emotional state, including con-flicting or suppressed emotions. A second success gives the nova a general impression of why the subject feels that way, and what to do about it.

The subject’s Virtue and Vice.

Whether the subject is lying.

The subject’s mental Aberrations. Disturbingly, the nova can use this power to deter-

mine the emotional state of people who aren’t around (+1 diffi-

culty), or even whom he has never met or previously success-fully analyzed (difficulty of +3 instead of +1).

Also, add +1 difficulty for each point of permanent Taint or Chrysalis the target possesses over 3, as the cues such individuals give off become increasingly exotic and unre-lated to human norms.

This enhancement costs 1QP to activate.

Quickness

This enhancement allows a nova to take extra actions in combat. A nova with multiple levels of this ability becomes a whirlwind of carnage and destruction in combat, incapacitating his enemies before they can even react.

System: By spending 1QP, the nova gains an extra physical action for the turn. This extra action is taken at the end of the turn after everyone has acted. If more than one charac-ter is taking a Quickness action, resolve them in the normal Ini-tiative order. If multiple characters have more than one Quick-ness action, keep cycling through the current Initiative order.

A nova may not take any more Quickness actions than he or she has Mega-Wits. A nova may purchase this en-hancement multiple times, thus granting more extra actions. Activating Quickness costs 1 QP per extra action the nova chooses to benefit from that turn.

Razor Wit

You’re never at a loss for a quick comeback or clever comment. Your cutting remarks have a razor edge to them that can slash someone’s confidence to the bone. Your Wits are an effective weapon, whether in battle or in the social arena. System: A use of Razor Wit can add +(Mega-Wits) to the difficulty of any action related to the insult in question until the opponent succeeds. Alternatively, Razor Wit can be used as a directionless taunt, forcing an opponent to roll Willpower at a difficulty of (+Mega-Wits - 1) or else attack/insult the Mega-Witty comedian in a fit of rage. Enemies with rage-related Ab-errations suffer from both effects automatically, and add any difficulty penalties to keep their temper in check to the difficulty of the Willpower roll. Razor Wit costs 1QP per cheap shot.

Redirection

You may not be faster than anyone else at your level of Mega-Wits. You just avoid confusion when changing cours-es of action better.

System: The nova can abort planned combat actions without spending a point of Willpower and takes no penalties from being surprised. This enhancement costs no QP to use and is always on.

Synergy

A nova with this enhancement works and plays well with others. He has an instinctive ability to figure out what other people he is working with are going to do and what he can do to assist them or complement their efforts. He becomes the oil that keeps the machine working at peak efficiency.

System: Whenever the nova is working with other characters to accomplish a shared goal, the nova may add (Mega-Wits) to her dice pool, or the dice pool of a character working with the nova. This may be used in combat, but re-quires the nova to be actually assisting the other character (such as a spotter calling targets for artillery or sniper fire) ra-

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ther than just fighting against a shared enemy. This Enhance-ment is permanent and is always on.

Unfazeable

The Nova Age has produced some spectacular (and disturbing) sights, and new things seem to crop up every day. Even the most jaded people are continually surprised by some-thing that new novas are capable of, but not you. A nova with this enhancement isn’t fazed by anything and manages to keep his wits about him in any situation. System: The nova gains an additional (Mega-Wits) dice to any roll to resist Sway. Furthermore add (Mega-Wits) to the character's Willpower when determining the points of casu-al Sway necessary to create intimate Sway.

Social

Mega-Appearance

Mega-Attributes represent the extremes of nova na-ture (and thus, some would say, of human nature as well). No-where is this more apparent than Mega-Appearance. It shows, in the most obvious and up-front way possible, just how much better - and how much worse - novas can be than humans.

Mega-Appearance comes in two forms, which color the nova’s appearance in general. One makes people want to get close to you; another makes people want to keep their safe distance.

Mega-Appearance (Enticing) is the default, which is generally attractiveness of a more conventional sort. It might be sexy attractiveness, or object d'art attractiveness, or so on, but it's generally aesthetic, harmless beauty. The character’s beauty or handsomeness is such that he is able to make even the worst clothes look good (not fashionable, maybe, but good). Similarly, the character usually makes a good first impression on looks alone. These novas are among the most popular of the “new humans,” and they are frequently featured on various media outlets. These novas add +1d to Style rolls per dot.

Mega-Appearance (Dangerous), in some cases, may be the predatory beauty of the tiger or another apex pred-ator. It may still be beautiful, but it is regal and intimidating, ra-ther than friendly and enticing. In other cases, it may represent a horrifying visage, which evokes fear instead of pity or simple revulsion; such creatures often evoke the imagery of monsters sprung from the most twisted of psyches. These novas add +1d to Intimidation rolls per dot.

Both types of Mega-Appearance tend to allow the no-va to look appealing or dangerous, respectively, no matter how they’re dressed or whatever the situation. Even one dot of Mega-Appearance is enough that a nova will never have to worry about bad lighting or other unfortunate circumstances spoiling their dramatic entrance whether they intend to charm or intimidate. Novas with Mega-Appearance (Enticing) never have to worry about bad hair days or their wardrobe clashing with their image, while novas with Mega-Appearance (Danger-ous) can be intimidating even if dressed in fluffy pink bunny costumes and brandishing lollipops.

Mega-Appearance Enhance-

ments

When choosing a Mega-Appearance enhancement, the player decides how it functions: the default assumption is usually visual, but an enhancement might actually function on any or all of the senses. A nova might have an addictive touch, a seductive scent, and so forth. Many of these enhancements are written with the as-sumption that the nova is enticing. However, with minor me-chanical alterations and story explanations, they can be trans-lated into dangerous-style enhancements; for example, a Dan-gerous nova’s Appearance Alteration might make him look more like what a person fears instead of what they want.

Addictive

The nova's words are like opium, his scent like nico-tine, his appearance as addictive as heroin. He might be en-trancingly gorgeous; or he might be fascinating in a grotesque way. Either way, people can’t get enough of him and will do anything to stay around him.

System: To use this enhancement, a nova forces an unfortunate victim to roll Stamina + Resistance against a diffi-culty of (Mega-Appearance -1). Failure addicts the victim to the nova's presence, forcing her to succeed on a Willpower roll to do anything which may endanger her ability to sate her addic-tion. Spending 1 Willpower point will allow a character to over-come their addiction for a scene. The character will undergo withdrawal if kept from the nova for more than a day, and will only be cured by being out of the nova's influence for (Mega-Appearance) days. During this time, their dice pools are all halved, rounded down.

This Enhancement may be purchased up to (Mega-Appearance) times. Each purchase after the first adds an addi-tional +1 difficulty to the Willpower roll needed to overcome the addiction.

This Enhancement costs 1 Quantum point per addic-tion attempt.

Almost Live

Whatever the particular features Mega-Appearance gives you, they remain just as potent when you’re recorded. DVDs, photos, holographic storage and the like all convey your overwhelming attractiveness.

System: The nova can be recorded while using Ap-pearance-related Abilities. They apply with full strength when shown to audiences elsewhere. Viewers/listeners must resist

the successes the nova achieves, just as if they were present when the nova used his power. This is particularly insidious and disturbing with novas whose Mega-Appearance is scent-based.

Appearance Alteration

Don’t like your looks? If you’re a nova with this en-hancement, you can do something about them.

Appearance Alteration allows a nova to make minor changes to his or her appearance. This can be done simply on a whim, or for fun. However, one of its main uses for novas who rely heavily on their good looks is to make sure they live up to a particular person’s or culture’s idea of what is “beautiful.” Someone who is beautiful in, say, America may not meet the

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standards for beauty among certain Third World tribes; great beauty in China may be ugliness in Argentina. Even more im-portantly, individuals’ ideas of what is beautiful differ wildly. One guy is a “leg man,” another goes wild for women with red hair. Some women like men with “tight,” muscular bodies, oth-ers look at the eyes or some other feature instead of the figure. A nova with Appearance Alteration can satisfy all of these peo-ple.

Conversely, there are novas who use Appearance Al-teration to convey a sense of danger or repugnance to those around them. This is useful if the nova doesn’t want to be bothered, or wants to actually frighten those in her company. She might carry a certain tone in her voice, appear ill, grow fat or skinny, and so forth. Occasionally, changes are even more exotic, like an unnatural eye color. Whatever the case, people will be inclined to leave her alone.

System: The nova can make minor changes or sub-tly remold her body to conform to the desires or fears of those around her. “Minor changes” include: changing hair, eye or skin color; gaining or losing up to about 50 pounds; gaining or los-

ing up to about four inches of height and increasing or decreas-ing any particular aspect of figure or appearance by up to ap-proximately 20%. These changes can occur either consciously or unconsciously. A nova might let herself wander through a crowd, changing to match the whims of those around her, then find a specific person to focus on, and change to match his specific desires to the exclusion of all others; or choose to keep her form in stasis and, with no conscious effort, retain her nor-mal shape.

Any changes other than those listed require the Sto-ryteller’s permission. In no event can the character reshape his body to grow claws, wings or eyestalks, for example. Only out-ward physical appearance can change. Since this enhance-ment depends upon the perceptions and tastes of those ob-

serving the character, it cannot function as a disguise or to conceal the character’s identity.

While this enhancement is active, the nova gains (Mega-Appearance) dice on any Sway roll where her appear-ance could be an additional advantage. If there is any question, it is the Storyteller’s discretion as to whether the bonus applies. This bonus applies only against one person at a time, and only once completely matched to that person’s desired appearance.

To change her appearance consciously, the nova need only pay the 1QP and will the changes into effect. To change appearance to match what a particular person or group of people find desirable, the nova must pay the QP and be in that person or persons’ presence for a minute or two. During that time the changes will slowly but surely take place. The no-va can draw the changes out over a period of up to a day if she prefers, which is sometimes done to keep from frightening people who are not used to nova powers.

Changing appearance unconsciously requires no QP expenditure, but leaves the nova’s appearance to the whims of those around her.

A nova cannot use Appearance Alteration to make herself resemble a specific other individual; that requires the Copycat enhancement. Nor can she use it to hide particularly grotesque Aberrations unless the Storyteller specifically per-mits it. For example, some forms of Aberrant Eyes might be af-fected by Appearance Alteration; Vestigial Limbs could never be hidden this way.

The power lasts for one scene.

Copycat

Being yourself gets kind of boring sometimes. Why not be a famous model or actor? Or the President?

Copycat will let a nova do just that, at least as far as outward appearance goes. After studying the subject to be imi-tated (either in person or from a good photograph), the nova can make himself look like that person – even a person of the opposite gender. However, these changes are purely cosmetic; no changes to internal organs occur.

System: Copycat allows a nova to shape himself into an exact duplicate of another person. Making the change does not require a roll. However, the nova must be in the presence of the person to be duplicated, or have a high-quality visual representation of him or her to work from. It takes about one minute to make the changes; the nova can cut this time in half by making an Appearance roll. Copycat costs 1QP to activate, and the changes last for a scene. This adds +(Mega-Appearance) dice on any attempts to impersonate the charac-ter in question. Characters who have no reason to suspect the copycat is someone other than who he claims to be are auto-matically fooled, with no roll required.

Copycat does not allow the character to add to or re-move anything from his physical form. He can’t grow a tail, lose his Vestigial Limbs, create a sixth finger on his left hand, change his fingerprints or retina prints, or do anything similar.

Face of Divinity

Many myths tell of deities and other supernatural be-ings whose visages were too glorious or horrifying for mortals to look upon directly. A nova with this enhancement lives up to those tales, making his appearance so glorious or terrifying that it inspires worship or terror, or both! Even strong-willed people feel intimidated, inadequate and cowed. It’s not un-

common for such novas to be surrounded by an entourage of fawning, adoring lackeys or terrified minions wherever he goes.

System: This enhancement gives +(Mega-Appearance) dice on social rolls where looking impressive is especially useful (commanding, etc.), as well as on rolls where inducing terror may provide an advantage (for example, on tor-ture). In especially fitting situations, a character may be able to add 1 success to the roll along with the bonus dice. This en-hancement costs one quantum point and lasts for the scene.

Some novas with this enhancement project a “merci-ful” side and a “wrathful” side, and transition between them. Such transitions are unforgettable; those that see such a dis-play often fear seeing the fearsome aspect of their “god” or yearn to once more see his more “merciful” aspect. Even when Face of Divinity isn’t actively “on,” the nova is still phenomenal-ly captivating, and the Storyteller should keep this in mind (servers are deferential, groupies throw themselves at the nova, etc.).

Fade

While it hasn't become quite as pervasive as George Orwell feared, electronic surveillance is widespread in the de-veloped regions of Earth circa 2027. Given that a person is likely to be monitored by at least one video camera in any pub-lic area (and in many private areas as well), the development of this enhancement was inevitable. Novas with Fade are virtu-al ghosts as far as electronic surveillance is concerned.

System: The nova adds +(Mega-Appearance) diffi-culty on rolls to spot the nova using non-autonomous electronic surveillance. The nova's ability to effectively "photoshop" her-

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self out of security camera feeds has no effect on autonomous systems such as robots or AI-monitored cameras, and also does not affect her ability to hide from living creatures. I.e. a nova with this Enhancement disappears from the monitors of a security office and can’t be targeted by a remote-controlled drone, but would not benefit from this Enhancement if faced with an autonomous robot or a grizzly bear. This Enhancement requires 1QP to activate for a scene.

First Impression

First impressions are just as important as everyone says. A character with a high Appearance rating is typically quite good at making them; one with Mega-Appearance even more so. However, a nova with this enhancement beats them both. Unless he deliberately tries to offend or annoy someone whom he is meeting, he always makes just the right impression. Depending upon what the person he meets is seeking, he may seem to be an enjoyable, likable person; someone who can get the job done; a potential mate; you name it. Whatever the other person is seeking, she will find it in the nova.

System: When meeting someone for the first time (or perhaps after a long time apart), the nova may spend 1QP to activate this enhancement. If he does so, the other person au-tomatically gains a good first impression of him. He may delib-erately say or do something to negate this effect, but even an accidental faux pas or unthinkingly tactless remark will not be enough to shake the good impression he makes. That good impression will remain with the other person until the nova does something to ruin it (whether in the person’s presence or not; bad reports about the nova in the media, for example, may ruin many uses of First Impression) or other people convince the target of First Impression that he has the nova all wrong. Of course, even a good first impression may not get the nova what he wants – making a good impression on the guards at the White House doesn’t mean they’ll let you in.

Furthermore, this effect also makes the nova seem like just what the other person is looking for. If the nova is on a job interview, First Impression will make him seem to be per-

fectly suited for the job. In a singles bar or nightclub, it will make him seem like the perfect date, potential spouse or one-night stand (depending upon what the other person is there for).

Heartstopper

Mega-Appearance novas are all entrancing. A nova with this enhancement is the most fascinatingly beautiful or horrifying thing many will ever see, to the point where even a glance can be fatally distracting.

System: The nova spends 1QP to use this En-hancement, rolling her (Appearance + Style) against a target’s (Wits + Resistance). Success means the victim is successfully distracted, suffering a +1 difficulty penalty to all actions, plus an additional +1 difficulty for every 2 net successes rolled. The penalty fades at the rate of 1 per combat round in combat, or 1 per minute outside of combat.

Incognito

Novas with Mega-Appearance tend to be easily re-membered. This enhancement prevents other people's short-term memories of the nova from being turned into long-term memories. As short-term memory only lasts for a minute or two, a nova with this enhancement can go everywhere, be identified everywhere, but still remain anonymous. Unlike Mr. Nobody,

Incognito doesn't make the nova unobtrusive, reduce Mega-Appearance, or prevent on the spot identification. It only pre-vents other people from remembering the nova.

System: The nova subtracts -(Mega-Appearance) dice from any attempt to identify him or her by memory or de-scriptions created by these memories. This Enhancement re-quires 1 Quantum to activate for a scene.

Mirroring

All people subtly mimic the facial characteristics and mood cues of those around them; it’s one of the reasons that long-term couples are often said to resemble one another. This enhancement uses that tendency to the nova’s advantage. Those around the nova take their emotional cues from her fa-cial expressions and physical gestures. A bubbly, laughing no-va using this enhancement can cause a whole room to lighten up and start laughing, while an angry, pacing nova can incite those around her to riot.

System: The nova spends 1QP and then takes on the demeanor she wants to instill in those around her. The length of time it takes to make the change depends on the am-bient mood in the room. Taking a crowd from calm and happy to boisterous and jovial takes only one turn. Taking a neutral or bored crowd to jovial takes three turns. Going from one ex-treme to another, say from cheerful to morose, takes six turns of the character moping around and looking grim. This effect lasts for one scene.

Mr. Nobody

In some ways, this paradoxical power is the opposite of Mega-Appearance, since it allows a nova to make himself look completely normal. The otherwise beautiful, handsome or horrifying nova is able to convert his features into the unobtru-sive ones of Joe or Jane Average. The bright side to this ano-nymity is that it becomes easy to pass for a normal human.

System: By spending 1QP, the nova is able to mask his Mega-Appearance. For all intents and purposes he has an Appearance score of 2 - average. He looks just like the every-day person on the street. Although he cannot hide the fact that he radiates quantum energy (which other novas can often de-tect), to the average person he will seem like just another av-erage person.

Alternatively, the character can spend 3QP to be-come completely unobtrusive (“I’m not the droid you’re looking for.”). Either function adds +(Mega-Appearance) difficulty to at-tempts to find the nova in a crowd or detect the nova via facial recognition or similar methods.

However, a character with this enhancement still may have difficulties passing for normal if he has acquired any aber-rations. Mr. Nobody masks two points of Taint, plus one extra point per dot of the character’s Mega-Appearance. Additional points of Taint still affect the nova’s ability to interact with base-lines without disturbing them. Furthermore, Mr. Nobody will not hide grotesque physical aberrations such as Vestigial Limbs or Sloughed Flesh; it will, however, cover up Unearthly Beauty.

The effects of this power last for a scene.

Platonic Ideal

Attractiveness is based off of dozens of cues, some conscious, others subconscious, which work to create the whole of someone's appeal. Novas with this enhancement can entirely bypass cultural, sexual orientation, racial and other

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barriers, allowing them to be attractive to those they want to be attractive to.

System: This enhancement allows a nova's attrac-tiveness (or intimidation factor) to apply normally and fully without penalty to sapient characters the nova wishes to ap-peal to, even if they’re beings of living crystal, psychic balls of gas, or genetically engineered combat crustaceans. The nova ignores all penalties from biological differences, size, culture, etc. when making Appearance-based rolls. This Enhancement is always on and costs no QP.

Soothe

The nova is a natural at soothing others’ jangled nerves. Just being around him has a calming effect. He even makes it easier for normal humans to cope with novas.

System: When the player spends 1QP and makes an Appearance + (relevant ability) roll, the character and everyone within 10 meters of him becomes calm. Stress drains away, leaving people happier and calmer. No one affected by Soothe (including the nova using it) can attack or take any other hostile action unless the person either makes a Wits + Resistance roll and scores more successes than the nova achieved on his Soothe roll, or spends a Willpower point to overcome Soothe’s effects. Additionally, Soothe can help to overcome the effects of Taint. For each success achieved on the Charisma roll, one point of Taint-derived social penalty possessed by any novas within the radius of effect is temporarily negated.

The power lasts for a scene. All effects of this en-hancement disappear if any affected person wanders beyond the 10-meter radius.

Mega-Manipulation

A Mega-Manipulative nova has the world wrapped around his little finger. He is a master at influencing people in many different ways, from subtle methods persuasion, person-al charm, bribery) to more in-your-face tactics (intimidation, blackmail, devious trickery).

The fact that the nova is able to see through attempts to deceive or influence him is equally as important. Mega-Manipulative novas are so good at perceiving ways to affect others’ opinions that they can tell when someone else is trying to do it to them. To simulate this effect, each dot of Mega-Manipulation also adds 1 bonus die to detect or resist being manipulated or tricked.

Mega-Manipulation Enhance-

ments

Conflicting Accounts

When addressing two or more people, you can slant your appeal so that each one hears just what he wants to. Each one gets the distinct impression that the nova favors him, though if they compare notes, they’ll find that they remember the event quite differently.

System: Spend 1QP and make a Manipulation roll just before using Mega-Manipulation or one of its enhance-ments. Each success on the Conflicting Accounts roll lets the nova create an additional account that some of the audience will remember; the nova decides who hears which story. What the nova really says must be relatively bland and open to inter-pretation. Though the audience will not hear it that way at the

time, recordings of the nova’s words will reveal this to be the case.

Example: Dr. Newton wants to clear out a crowd of people from a building she wishes to use as the base for some upcoming experiments. She has Trickster. But it’s a motley crew and she’s not sure a single story will do it. She makes her Conflicting Accounts roll and gets two successes. Then she successfully uses Trickster, gesturing and speaking in elliptical, allusive language. The street people go off in search of a shel-ter they think she’s told them about, while the building inspec-tors leave with the distinct anticipation of a big payoff and the artists head home to wait for calls from the new street-art gal-lery they think will be opening there soon.

Creeping Paranoia

Baselines naturally hang on every word of Mega-Social novas. After all, such beings far transcend the normal boundaries of human communication and impress deeply upon the psyche. Though many garner love and adoration, the no-vas are, to humanity, virtual gods - and humans have always feared their gods.

A nova with the Creeping Paranoia enhancement has the sort of authority that causes doubt, fear and guilt. While the nova doesn’t necessarily cause humans to feel such emotions all the time, she does have the capacity to play upon this sub-conscious turmoil. With a properly-stressed phrase, a casual choice of certain words or a look to accentuate a bit of innuen-do, the nova causes some of her speech to burrow into the subject’s subconscious mind, there to fester and roil until it bubbles forth in a morass of psychosis, trauma and self-inflicted paranoia.

At first, the nova’s words seem normal – the subject simply treats them like any other part of casual conversation. Over time, though, they cause tiny doubts and questions - did the nova really mean what she said, or was she hinting at something else? Was it really a veiled threat or just innocent conversation? Does she actually know secret things about me? Has she judged me and found me wanting? The subject’s own fears and guilt latch on to the nova’s words and take root. The subject can do nothing but fixate on the phrase, turning it over and over obsessively to paranoically scrutinize the nova’s in-tent. Eventually, the subject may overcome this dread fascina-tion ... unless the nova deliberately reinforces the terror until the subject breaks.

A nova might, for instance, agree to an interview with a particularly loathed media personality. At the end of the inter-view the nova simply states, “Glad to be here. Be seeing you.” The interviewer heads off to edit the tapes and go about his business, but later that night, he starts thinking about the no-va’s words - “be seeing you”? Does the nova intend to drop in unexpectedly? Was that a threat because of the interview’s penetrating nature? Or is the nova secretly spying on the inter-viewer - and with the nova’s phenomenal powers, aware of all the reporter’s hidden secrets? The interviewer watches the tapes over and over, looking for other hints that perhaps the nova was concealing some other motive or innuendo, and his mind automatically latches on to perceived behaviors and slights. To any other observer, the interviewer seems obsessed, delusional; after a few days, when nothing happens, he finally starts to put it from his mind - until he heads home and checks his voice mail, discovering a message from the nova: “Just wanted to catch up. Thanks for the interview. Be seeing you.” And the cycle continues until the interviewer finally cracks….

The obsession needn’t focus on the nova himself. He might, for example, say “Have you always had that mole?”,

ABERRANT

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then sit back and watch as his victim changes his entire diet, constantly scratches the mole, and searches his family tree for instances of cancer.

System: Spend 1QP; the nova simply stresses a par-ticular phrase while in personal conversation with someone. The nova must be physically present with the victim. Roll Ma-nipulation (+1 difficulty for each point of Willpower that the vic-tim has over 5). Every two successes scored (rounded down) implants the necrotic suggestion for a day. At first, this has no immediate effect. Within eight hours, though, the nova’s phrase keeps cropping up in the subject’s mind. Concentration suffers; the victim takes a +1 difficulty penalty on all actions. Sleep be-comes difficult and fitful, and the nova’s words keep creeping into the subject’s head even during other actions, sometimes driving the victim to interrupt other actions and go back over the phrase again and again. Once the power subsides, the vic-tim pushes the phrase back into the subconscious and is able to concentrate normally again. However, the nova can rein-force it by repeating the phrase to the victim with another QP (and this time, doesn’t have to do so in person).

Each day that a subject languishes under this power, the player of the victim must make a Willpower roll. If failed, the subject loses a Willpower point. If the subject runs out of Will-power, then he gains a Derangement - typically, some variation of Paranoia or Obsession. If the subject goes for a full week with the Derangement and no Willpower, then he suffers a psychotic break and may seek to kill the nova or himself, simp-ly to escape the torment.

Hypnosis

A nova with this enhancement can hypnotize a per-son against his will. Although not as effective as Domination, it’s still a useful ability when the character wants to persuade someone to do something.

System: The nova must be able to communicate with the person to be hypnotized. Usually, this involves actually speaking with the victim, but some novas’ hypnosis works through skin contact or pheromones. Unlike mundane hypno-tism, which requires the subject to want to believe the hypno-tism will work, this quantum-powered hypnotism can work on the unwilling.

An attempt to hypnotize takes a little while – a num-ber of turns of uninterrupted exposure to the vector equal to the victim’s Willpower. At that point, the player spends 1QP and makes a Manipulation roll in a resisted action against the tar-get’s Willpower (with bonuses and penalties appropriate to the Sway rules, except no penalty for time reduction). Successes generate Casual Sway. This Casual Sway may evolve into In-timate Sway, as normal. This Sway lasts for one day per dot of Manipulation the nova has; thereafter it loses all effect.

If the nova takes this Enhancement a second time, it may be used without the nova being physically present. The nova might hypnotize a person over a chat room session, or even leave a hypnotic suggestion buried in a web page. If merely part of an active conversation, the power works as normal. If left with a recording, the nova must invest one point of quantum in the recording, which retains its potency until the nova draws the quantum point back into himself.

Inquisitor

“So, were there other people in the car with you? How many; One? Two? Three? So, there were three.

“Were any of them related to you? Father? Uncle? Brother? Oh, your brother was there. Were any of the others related to you?...”

A nova with this enhancement is an expert at gauging other people's reactions to questions and finding out as much information as possible. He has a sense of when they are tell-ing the truth, when they are being evasive, and what their limits are. Typically this takes place during a grueling conversation, but it will also work with harsher interrogation methods.

System: The nova adds +(Mega-Manipulation) dice to any Sway roll based on Interrogation or finding the truth. This explicitly does not work for creating false confessions, de-spite the name of the Enhancement. This Enhancement re-quires 1QP to activate for a scene.

Overwhelming Concept

The nova presents the target with a conceptt, and for the duration of the nova’s concentration, the target can do nothing but react to the concept.

System: Spend 1QP to activate this enhancement for one scene. Once the nova makes eye contact and presents the concept, the target makes a contested Wits + Resistance roll against the nova’s Manipulation + Interrogation. If the target fails, he can do nothing for the duration of the nova’s concen-tration but focus on the concept. If the target is attacked or tampered with in any way, this enhancement fails.

Example concepts: Jokes, questions, and mind-shattering truths about the universe, which would cause the subject to laugh uproariously, babble whatever answer comes to mind (or cry and scream in frustration at his inability to an-swer) or curl up screaming, respectively.

Persuader

A nova with this enhancement is an expert at bringing people around to his point of view. He has an innate talent for knowing what people are thinking and subtly manipulating their opinions until they are thinking what he want them to think. He’s a spin doctor supreme.

System: Reduce the target's Willpower by (Mega-Manipulation) when calculating the amount of Casual Sway needed to start creating Intimate Sway; minimum 1 effective Willpower. Costs no QP and is always on.

Trickster

Unlike P.T. Barnum, you can fool all of the people all of the time. Trickery, treachery, deceit and sneakiness are your stock in trade.

A nova with this enhancement possesses an intuitive talent for tricking and fooling people. She could trick Arabs into buying sand or Eskimos into buying refrigerators. Somehow she can sense a person’s vulnerabilities and “soft” spots and use them against him. No one is safe from a Trickster’s wiles.

System: Add (Mega-Manipulation) dice to any roll made to create Sway that would convince a character of a fun-damental untruth or otherwise deceive them. In especially fit-ting situations, a character may be able to add 1 success to the roll along with the bonus dice. This enhancement requires 1QP to activate for a scene.

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The Voice

Just talking to a nova with this enhancement can be dangerous. She is able to pitch her voice so that she uses in-frasound and subharmonics, mixed in with her normal talk, to give nearly irresistible suggestions and commands to whomev-er her speech is directed at.

System: Spend 1QP to make a Sway roll via Manipu-lation + Relevant Social Ability, creating Intimate Sway, which has a difficulty of (Opponent's Wits). The victim may roll Will-power to resist. The timeframe of this action is one combat turn, but this can only be applied to one target and only may apply once per scene. Sway generated by The Voice cannot have its duration extended at all - it only lasts for the instant in question.

Unsettling

Your very presence is enough to throw someone off their game. With a few carefully worded or intoned phrases, you can cause even the most eloquent to start tripping over their words and failing to impress.

System: Roll Mega-Manipulation when this en-hancement is activated. Each success adds +1 difficulty to an-other character's social attribute-based rolls. This Enhance-ment costs 1QP and lasts for a single roll.

Mega-Charisma

Mega-Charisma represents the ultimate in personal charm and appeal. A nova with this Mega-Attribute exudes such self-confidence, poise and charm that she can win over just about anybody. Other people want to like and to please her, and they do. In fact, when a Mega-Charismatic nova turns on the charm, it’s incredibly hard for people to turn away no matter if she’s speaking of something exciting or talking about the weather in Boise, Idaho. Turning away from a Mega-Charismatic nova when she is addressing you (in general, not in specific) requires a Willpower roll or the expenditure of a point of temporary Willpower, adding +1 difficulty to the roll for each dot of Mega-Charisma above 1. This doesn’t make her any more convincing, but it does mean that you’ll probably at least let her finish before disagreeing.

Characters with Mega-Charisma are naturally at home in social situations. They carry themselves so well that they are the life of any party. They are bon vivants par excel-lence; even if they don’t really feel like being at a party, they’re able to mask their feelings and seem extremely amicable to one and all. Even a single dot of Mega-Charisma allows a character to avoid or brush off social faux pas - whenever the nova might offend a group around them, the ST should inform the player of this (but does not need to tell the player why the actions are offensive) and allow the player to reconsider.

Mega-Charisma Enhancements

Audacious

There are faux pas in every social situation, in every culture. Baselines and even Mega-Charismatic novas generally need to keep these in mind, as transgressions of these unwrit-ten rules may have punishments as harsh as death. Someone with this Enhancement can ignore those completely. He could threaten your family in gruesome detail on live TV and nobody would care, or tell you to do unspeakable acts with a goat and not lose your friendship.

System: The nova doesn’t offend people unless he intends to. Period-if he makes you mad, it’s because he wants you to be mad. Characters who wish to take offense at the no-va’s deeds or actions must roll (Wits + Resistance) at a difficul-ty penalty of the nova’s Mega-Charisma. Failure means no matter how personally offensive the nova’s words or deeds were, the character just can’t take it as an insult.

This does not protect the nova from consequences nor does it allow the nova to shirk responsibilities, although people may be more lenient. If the nova starts shooting at po-lice or soldiers, they’ll still fight back with lethal force, it just means that they won’t take it personally. Similarly, if the nova never shows up to work, the boss won’t be angry about it and might continue being friends with the nova, but the nova’s still getting fired. This Enhancement costs nothing and is always on.

Commanding Presence

A nova with this enhancement is a born leader. When he gives an order, people obey right away – even if it exposes them to harm. Even when they are away from him, people re-member his words and try their best to fulfill his orders and live up to his example.

System: The nova adds (Mega-Charisma) bonus dice to rolls made to create Sway which use superior rank or social class as an element of persuasion. In especially fitting situations, a character may be able to add 1 success to the roll along with the bonus dice.

A nova with Commanding Presence does not neces-sarily have to be formally authorized to give orders to someone for this enhancement to work - he does not have to be the per-son’s boss, commanding officer or parent. He can simply give orders and wait for them to be obeyed - that’s what this power lets him do. However, if he is notably “beneath” the person - an ordinary citizen trying to order a high-ranking governmental of-ficial around, a corporal giving instructions to a major, or the like - the Storyteller may reduce the bonus for the power, at his discretion, or give the target a bonus on any rolls he makes to resist the order.

Dreadful Mien

When you really like someone, their anger or disap-pointment can come as a crushing blow. Some Mega-Charismatic novas use that phenomenon to their advantage. They use their charm as a weapon - even in combat, enemies want to like them, and that, combined with the force of the no-va’s displeasure, makes it difficult for the enemy to attack.

System: The nova focuses his displeasure on one person, and the player makes a Charisma roll. Each success increases the difficulty to take any action which might harm the nova, including attack rolls, by 1. The victim becomes charmed by the nova; in particular, he is afraid of displeasing the nova.

A nova using this enhancement who takes any vio-lent or threatening actions toward the target (as perceived by the target) while using it automatically negates its effects. The nova may attack the target’s friends and compatriots; however, this allows the victim to make a Willpower roll to resist the suc-cesses scored by the nova. If the nova has previously attacked the victim during the scene, increase the difficulty for using Dreadful Mien by one per turn during which the nova attacked the victim.

Dreadful Mien does not work at range. If the target is more than three meters away from the nova, it is ineffective.

The enhancement costs 1QP to activate, and the ef-fects last for the duration of the confrontation.

ABERRANT

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Inspiration

Your fervor carries. People rally to your side and car-ry with them a bit of your passion for whatever ideas you pro-pound.

System: Pay 1QP to give a person or group +1d to accomplish an action that you have led them towards. This dice bonus lasts until the task is completed or for (Mega-Charisma) days, whichever comes first, and can apply to any roll directly related to the goal. A character may be Inspired to take multiple actions or reach multiple goals. In that case, the bonuses do not stack, but the character may gain the +1d bo-nus when any one of the Inspirations would apply.

Natural Agitator

When people like you, sometimes they will do things for you, or things that you ask them to do. That’s doubly true for a nova with this power. Since everybody likes him so much, they hang on his every word. If he tells them to do something, they’ll seriously consider it.

System: This power enables creating Casual Sway with large groups of people simultaneously. Pay 1QP to make a Sway roll via Charisma + Relevant Social Ability, creating Casual Sway, which has a difficulty of (Average Wits). Larger crowds add to this difficulty, adding +1 difficulty for a crowd from 10-99 people, +2 difficulty for a crowd of 100-999 people, and another +1 difficulty for every tenfold increase in the crowd size. The group may roll their average Willpower to resist be-yond that if they want to. Success creates points of Casual Sway applicable to the entire group. Note that as Casual Sway, Natural Agitator cannot be used to get a group to do something which it isn't already inclined to do.

Perfect Guest

You’re the paragon of whatever group it is you’re a part of at the moment. You’re the one who does all the right things and none of the wrong things. When others in the group say, “You should go get a clue about what we’re doing,” you’re the one they point to as an example.

System: Spend 1QP point to turn this enhancement on for one scene. The nova can make a Charisma roll before attempting an action endorsed by the group she’s with or be-

fore making a Wits roll to realize a faux pas in the making. Add the successes on the Charisma roll to the ensuing roll. The end result is to make the nova seem like one of the group, particu-larly clueful about the group’s shared likes and dislikes. It doesn’t prevent the nova from giving individual offense - it ap-plies to the consensus of the group.

Persona

Persona is the psychological counterpart to the Cop-ycat enhancement, as it lets the nova temporarily rearrange his thought processes into a two-tiered structure. The first tier is a “psychic façade personality” that duplicates another person's mind and conceals the second tier (his own psyche) from tele-pathic inspection. Aside from the obvious benefits for deceiving telepaths and in aiding one's infiltration attempts; this form of psychic mimicry can grant a nova a truly stunning ability as an actor, as it puts a whole new twist on “getting in character”.

System: The nova may overlay a completely false personality over her own at the cost of 3 QP per scene. This personality temporarily overwrites the nova's Virtue and Vice with its own and can only be detected with a successful Rap-port roll with a difficulty of +(Mega-Charisma + 3), or Telepathy roll with a difficulty of +(Mega-Charisma + 1). As a side benefit, the nova may use this to become a better actor, gaining +(Mega-Charisma) additional dice to any acting rolls.

Seductive

This enhancement is the behavioral complement to Seductive Looks. A nova that possesses it is able to determine instinctively what behaviors a given individual finds sexy, de-sirable and attractive – then unconsciously adopt those behav-iors.

System: The nova adds (Mega-Charisma) bonus dice to rolls made to create Sway via sexual attractiveness. This enhancement requires 1QP to activate for a scene.

This enhancement is based entirely upon behavior or body language; it does not alter looks at all. Altering looks in that fashion requires Seductive Looks. The two enhancements may be combined to create an almost irresistibly attractive package for any victim.

ABERRANT

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QUANTUM POWERS More than any other Trait (except perhaps Taint),

Quantum Powers define novas and their transcendence of hu-manity. Even more than Mega-Attributes, powers separate the superhumans from the humans in a way that’s clear for all to see.

The term “powers” is not a term of art. It refers to all powers that novas possess, whether an inherent part of the nova condition, Mega-Attributes, Enhancements or quantum powers. Quantum Powers is a term of art, referring specifically to the powers found in this chapter.

Choosing Your

Powers’ Effects

The upshot of this seeming variety, in game terms, is that nova characters should choose some phenomenon or “special effect” for their powers. When you buy powers, cus-tomize them - or at least their names – to represent the type of phenomena they resemble. For example, if a nova has powers based on manipulating fire, when his player buys Quantum Bolt he can write “Fire Strike” on the character sheet to give the power a little bit of individuality. Each nova’s powers are differ-ent, even though they are built using the same game effects and rules, and your character’s powers should reflect his unique nature.

In some cases, a nova’s manifestation of quantum energies might provide useful plot hooks for stories. For exam-ple, an lmmolate power based on control of fire could be extin-guished by dumping the nova in water or covering him up with sand. A nova whose lmmolate is based on nuclear forces would probably be completely unaffected by such treatment. A nova with magnetic powers might not be able to work with computers or other magnetic storage media. In short, quantum powers always have an effect on the world around the nova, and vice versa, and the player and Storyteller should always keep that in mind.

Many novas’ quantum powers are obviously not de-rived from “natural” forces. For example, a nova might lmmo-late herself with “raw nuclear forces” rather than fire, and even if she seems to wield “flame,” it might burn eerie green, feel cold to the touch or in some other way betray its distinction from “real” fire. Or it might not even be earthly fire at all; but ra-ther some type of hellfire.

Creating or Altering

Powers

We’ve tried to create a list of general quantum pow-ers representative of what novas are capable of doing. Howev-er, each nova is an individual, and no rigid guidelines can ac-curately capture every aspect of every nova’s powers. These power descriptions are guidelines, rather than absolutes. As such, feel free to twist them around to suit your concept and chronicle needs. Below are some suggestions for altering pow-ers.

Extras, Masteries, and Strengths: At the end of this chapter, you can find a general list of Extras, Masteries

and Strengths, which can be used to further define or enhance a power.

Reflavoring: If you like a power’s mechanics, but not its description, consider reflavoring the power to fit your needs.

Higher/Lower Level Powers: Certain powers, such as Transmit and Teleport, can be seen as more specific or more powerful versions of each other. A character who wants to be able to “teleport” whenever touching bare earth could just take Transmit.

If nothing else works, consider altering the parame-ters of an existing power. The Storyteller must approve any such changes and may need to alter the power’s level if the al-terations make the power significantly stronger or weaker. The Storyteller should consider the totality of the circumstances, in-cluding (but not limited to) the versatility of the power and needs of the campaign. In general, we recommend the Story-teller lean in favor of raising a power’s level, but lean against lowering a power’s level. If a quantum bolt travels farther, but loses damage with distance, its level and quantum minimum might remain the same. Claws that extend 30 feet and can slice diamond probably have a higher quantum minimum (or may be an entire level higher). Healing that affects only ani-mals might be a lower level.

Using Quantum

Powers

All powers are rated from 1 to 10; this power rating adds to the dice pool when calculating the skill total of the power. Like any other Trait combination, the skill total is used to wield the power; thus, a nova with a Dexterity of 4 and a Quantum Bolt of 3 rolls seven dice to hit targets with her Quan-tum Bolt.

Any nova can buy any of her quantum powers up to a rating of five. However, only novas with Quantum 6 or greater can buy quantum powers at a rating higher than 5. Beyond 5, a nova’s quantum powers’ ratings are capped at the nova’s Quantum rating.

Powers activate automatically and instantaneously on the character’s Initiative rating; for example, a character with a Quantum Bolt does not have to concentrate to fire. However, each activation of a power counts as an action for purposes of determining multiple actions. For the most part, powers are governed by the same rules that apply to other attacks. They can be blocked or parried. Furthermore, some powers can be used to power block against other powers. Mental powers (those noted as such in their description) may not be dodged or parried, but they may typically be resisted; see the individual power description for specifics.

All novas are immune to all effects of their own pow-ers; thus, a nova could cloak herself in her own Shroud, or stand at ground zero of her Quantum Bolt, with no ill effects. This immunity grants no immunity to similar or even identical effects generated by other novas.

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Suites

Sometimes, a single power does not fully express a concept the player wants to convey. In that case, the player may give his character a Suite instead. A Suite always reflects a single coherent concept, such as “mastery over blood”, “mind control”, or “earth su-premacy”. The player finds the highest-level power that he would use to reflect part of that concept. The Suite’s Level and Quantum Minimum are generally both 1 higher than that power. For exceptionally broad concepts, such as “control over mole-cules”, the suite may have a Level and/or Quantum Minimum 2 or 3 higher than the highest-level power. In exchange, the character can draw on any power below its Level and Quantum Minimum, so long as that power is related to the concept. The player doesn’t need to create a list of component powers, but should have a good idea of what he can and can’t do with this Suite. These component powers are called Techniques. Techniques function normally, except they are more difficult and expensive than if they had been bought as individual pow-ers. Using any power as part of a Suite costs double the nor-mal quantum points for a power of the Suite’s level, and the power is rolled at a +1 difficulty penalty. However, for every dot in the Suite, the player designates one Technique as mastered. A mastered Technique costs the normal cost for a power of the Suite’s level, and is rolled normally. For example, let’s say a player wants his character to run with the “earth supremacy” concept. He would probably have Earth Manipulation, Crush (wave of earth), Shockwave (earth eruption/earthquake), Barrier (earthen barrier), and Transmit (through the earth), in addition to other effects he could conjure with that broad power. However, permanent powers, such as Armor and Invulnerability, cannot be part of a Suite. Instead, a character may willingly downgrade the dura-tion of a power to make it part of a Suite. The Storyteller decides if a concept makes sense as a Suite. Remember, there is no need for a Suite if a single power can be adjusted to encapsulate the concept. Also, Story-tellers should discourage players from trying to squeeze dis-parate powers into a coherent Suite just for a price break: for example, taking Claws, Intuition, and Magnetic Manipulation as a Suite probably wouldn’t make much sense. Suites are meant to represent interesting concepts, not an inexpensive way for players to buy whatever they want. Suites cannot be fit into other Suites, no matter how desperately you want to make an Inception reference. If a character has a Suite power, they may buy Extras for the power either for individual techniques or for the entire Suite. These should be clearly delineated as there are signifi-cant mechanical differences. Buying Extras for individual tech-niques provides more flexibility but can be very cost-inefficient. Buying Extras for the entire suite is efficient but inflexible.

Pre-packaged Suites

Certain powers are actually pre-packaged Suites. They come pre-packaged because we assume players would usually want to take these powers together. Regardless, a player may still choose to take individual Techniques as indi-vidual powers of the appropriately lowered Level and Quantum Minimum. (Generally 1 level lower and 1 Quantum Minimum lower, although a ST may choose to further reduce their Level and cost).

Technically, Pre-packaged Suites list only some of the powers that might be associated with that Suite. If a player can think of others, they may add more powers to the Suite. Pre-packaged Suites should not be confused with broad powers. Certain powers, by their complex nature, must be represented with several systems; however, they are not Suites because they could not reasonably be sub-divided and leave a coherent power. Practically, this means you also can-not add new powers to that power (without making it part of a Suite, as per the usual rules). A power is only a Suite if it is designated with the term (Suite) after its name.

Power Descriptions

Each power’s description contains the basic infor-mation about that power, including:

Level: There are six “levels” or classifications of powers, in Aberrant. A power normally has a power cost equal to its Level. Normally, characters may only purchase up to Level 3 powers. Level 4-6 powers are generally used by high-level novas and are outside the scope of default play.

Level 1. Most of these powers produce effects that can be replicated with luck, skill or technology. They make life easier for the nova, but rarely decide a conflict.

Level 2. These powers can tend to have a narrow use, but can make or break a conflict for one side or another when properly employed. Replicating these powers via mun-dane means is often very difficult (not to mention expensive), if not impossible; even if they can be replicated, the mundane version is usually more limited or less powerful than the corre-sponding power. Few novas ever graduate beyond Level 2 powers.

Level 3. Most level 3 (and above) powers are either suites (composed of numerous techniques, grouped around a particular theme or effect) or are a single power with broad ap-plication. In either case, they are very potent, and many let the nova manipulate reality in some way. Novas with Level 3 pow-ers are rare and highly sought out.

Level 4. These powers affect entire cities or even small countries. In some ways, these (and higher level) powers are refinements or expansions on lower level powers. Novas with Level 4 and above powers are nearly unheard of, and may be easily “mistaken” for gods and monsters.

Level 5. Powers that affect nations or worlds. They allow changes on geographical scales.

Level 6. Powers that affect fundamental structures in the universe. Many produce no directly visible results, and notions of “scale” don’t really apply. Anything, anything, is pos-sible with these powers.

Powers are rated in terms of the number of dots the character has in the power. Each dot makes the power better in some way; often by increasing its parameters or adding dice to roll, but sometimes having special effects, like increasing how often the power can be used.

Unless the power description states otherwise, use of a power forces the character to spend a number of quantum points equal to its Level (not its rating). In the case of powers with multiple applications, such as Elemental Mastery, the quantum cost is levied for each technique activated. Of course, there’s no requirement that a character use a power at full strength; he can save one quantum point by using it at half power.

ABERRANT

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Quantum Minimum: This number sets the minimum Quantum Trait rating a nova must have in order to purchase this power.

Dice Pool: The dice rolled to determine whether the power is used successfully, as well as its effect. The nature of the roll, or sometimes multiple rolls, is detailed in the text. This dice pool typically combines the power rating plus an Attribute. Some powers have several different techniques, each with its own dice pool.

Range: The power’s maximum range bracket. “Touch” indicates the character must touch the target in order to affect it. The nova must make a roll (using the power’s dice pool) to touch the victim. The victim can dodge or parry, but parrying may be ineffective because it might still allows the touch to oc-cur.

Area: The maximum area affected by the power. This is the maximum area the power may affect-characters may reduce the radius as they desire down to zero unless the power states otherwise.

Duration: The power’s duration, if applicable.

Instant. Indicates that the power lasts only long enough for an attack to be launched. The effects may last much longer; an injury does not go away just because the power that caused it is no longer in existence. An Instant power must be paid for each time it is used.

Action. Indicates that the power cost must only be paid once every turn it is used in, rather than once every use in a turn.

Concentration. The power lasts as long as the no-va concentrates on it. While concentrating, the nova is at +2 difficulty on any other actions he takes. If the nova is Incapaci-tated or otherwise rendered unconscious, a Concentration power ceases immediately. A Concentration power must be paid for when first activated; thereafter, it remains in effect without additional quantum point cost for as long as the nova concentrates.

Maintenance. The power, once activated, remains in effect for a small cost. It does not require him to concentrate on maintaining it, however. Thus, once a Maintenance power is active, the nova does not lose any dice for any other actions taken while maintaining the power. Every 2 active maintenance powers or fraction thereof reduce a nova’s quantum regenera-tion during stress by 1 point per turn. If this is reduced to a negative number, the nova must pay that many quantum points per turn to keep all her powers active. Outside of stressful situ-ations like combat, Maintenance powers last for a scene with-out any additional costs.

Scene. The power, when activated, lasts for the en-tirety of the scene.

Permanent. The power, once bought, is considered to be on or present at all times and does not cost quantum points to use or maintain.

Effect: An encapsulated description of what the pow-er does.

Multiple Actions: Whether it is possible to use the power in a multiple action. Some powers (Cyberkinesis, Ele-mental Mastery, etc.) have many applications. If such a power is able to be used in a multiple action, the nova may use sev-eral aspects of the power simultaneously, so long as she pays the quantum-point cost for all uses. She must still subtract dice normally for multiple uses of the power in the same turn.

Description: A description of what the power does and the rules applicable to it.

In cases of powers that inflict damage, a distinction is made between damage dice and automatic damage successes.

Damage dice are listed in (parentheses); automatic damage successes are listed in [brackets].

Several powers (like Boost or Sizemorph [Grow]) are described as providing bonuses to Attributes. Sufficiently po-tent uses of these powers can raise Attributes above 5. Attrib-utes gained through such temporary measures may be raised higher than their natural limits. Extras: This heading comprises any unique Extras available for purchase for the power, as well as its effects. Unique Extras should be bought like any other Extras.

Mastery: Any special benefits that can be gained from taking levels of Mastery in this power.

Level 1 Powers

Arsenal

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Allows the nova to store and retrieve items from an extradimensional pocket Multiple Actions: Yes

This power allows a nova to store certain types of items in an alternate dimension for retrieval on demand. The alternate dimension could be a literal alternate dimension that the nova reaches into, or summons from; it could also be something more visceral or disturbing, like opening her mouth impossibly wide to store items within her stomach (or a void therein). The sight of a nova vomiting up a railgun is as dis-gusting as it is frightening.

Upon purchase, the type of item stored in an arsenal must be chosen, such as "ranged weapons" (covers all sorts of firearms, heavy weapons, etc.), "explosives" (rockets, gre-nades, their launchers, and so on), "tools" (various toolkits and medical/engineering equipment), "melee weapons" (blades, clubs, etc.), and so on. Only items of this type can be placed in an Arsenal. Under no circumstances can an Arsenal store un-willing objects or living beings. Items in the Arsenal are not af-fected by the passage of time and will remain as they were when stored until they are retrieved, whether that’s 1 minute or 10,000 years later.

Arsenal allows the storage of (Power Rating x 2) dif-ferent individual items in this pocket dimension, as long as each has a Size less than or equal to (Power Rating – 5). These items may be retrieved as an unrolled action by activat-ing this power (normal multiple action penalties apply to other actions taken). To attune an object to a nova's Arsenal requires an action, and cannot be done to any object the nova believes is immediately dangerous (such as a ticking time bomb). The effects of accidentally storing such an object are up to ST dis-cretion, but could involve the device going off in the nova’s face when she next uses the power, the bomb reappearing at an in-convenient time, or similar.

If a nova loses this power by any means (Disrupt or Dormancy being the most common), the items in this pocket dimension are still stored but may not be accessed by the nova until he regains the power.

Extras

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Bottomless Reserves: A nova with this extra may store an unlimited number of identical expendable or one-use items (medicines, rockets, grenades, ninja stars, explosives) in the Arsenal as a single item. All other restrictions apply.

Explosive Ordinance Disposal: A nova may now commit immediately dangerous objects to his Arsenal, such as containers full of acid about to crack, nuclear bombs with live fuses, a bundle of dynamite with a lit fuse, or so on. These items can only be stored for up to [Arsenal] days and then are involuntarily expelled from the dimensional pocket, buying the nova some time.

Oversize: A nova with this extra may store over-sized items. Oversize items count as a number of separate items in a Nova's Arsenal equal to the difference between the maximum Size individual items in the Arsenal can be and the item’s actual Size (so for example, an item of Size 1 counts as 4 items in the Arsenal for a Nova with an Arsenal rating of 2).

Reflexive: As normal, but particularly useful here.

Versatile: A Versatile Arsenal may store an addi-tional type of item in them, such as "guns and grenades", "tools and guns", "tools and food", or so on.)

Deflect/Redirect

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Deflect/Redirect Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: By spending quantum, the nova can deflect various ranged attacks and, with skill, redirect them. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: By activating this power, the nova can deflect incoming ranged attacks. This is a standard power block defensive maneuver usable against Quantum Bolts, El-emental Blasts, other ranged energy attacks and missile weapons (including bullets). If the incoming attack fails by a margin of failure of 2 or more, she can redirect the attack at her opponent or another target in range. To redirect, the margin of failure on the opponent’s attack roll becomes successes in an attack roll. Use the same damage as the initial attack.

To use this power, the nova must be aware that the attack is coming, and the attack must be visible. (With attacks like bullets and forms of energy beyond the visible spectrum, one must first be able to perceive them, using Mega-Perception or power effects.) Deflect/Redirect does not work against powers with explosive or area effects or against mental powers (like Mind Blast).

Extras

Aegis: Deflect/Redirect may be used against area-effect powers or explosive weapons with this Extra.

Catch: This power will trap the incoming attack on a net success. The attack can then be fired as per Redirect in subsequent turn. Holding the attack for more than a turn costs two quantum points per extra turn.

Psychic Mirror: The power may now be used against mental powers.

Dim Mak

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1

Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Converts character’s close combat damage into Lethal damage. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Named after the fabled “death touch” of pop-culture martial arts, this power allows the nova to enhance his unarmed attacks. This can manifest in many ways-the most basic is growing claws, but other common forms include quan-tum fields around the hands resembling fire or electricity, a magical weapon summoned out of nowhere, or just supernatu-ral martial arts prowess (the last is most common in novas whose powers are inspired by wuxia, action movies, or anime).

When used in close combat, this power converts the Bashing damage caused by the character’s normal unarmed attacks into Lethal damage before soak and improves the character’s hand-to-hand accuracy, defense, damage, and ar-mor-piercing by (power rating).

Extras

Chi Projection: The character’s non-grappling close combat attacks can be used at Thrown range while the power is active. This can take the form of ‘fireballs’(especially if the nova’s powers are inspired by fighting games or anime), in-credible flexibility, or just being able to punch the air and hit someone meters away. This does not allow the character any ability for fine manipulation at range.

Weapon Amplification: The character can chan-nels this power through anything she touches. This allows the character to add the extra damage and armor penetration (but none of the other additional benefits) to melee as well as hand-to-hand attacks. The character may also spend 1 Quantum point per attack to enhance a ranged weapon with this power’s additional damage and armor piercing ability.

Fortitude

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Permanent Effect: Character has increased resistance to various hazards. Multiple Actions: N/A Description: All novas share certain universal “pow-ers”, side effects of their eruption that provide them superior resistance to disease, faster healing, improved endurance and resistance, and enhanced durability. This power, “Fortitude”, is a natural outgrowth of these universal powers, enhancing some of these aspects, or extending them. The capabilities of this power are defined when it is taken, and cannot be changed. Fortitude provides one of the effects listed below.

Toughness: The character adds +1 to Quantum for each dot of Fortitude when determining the character’s soak. This does not increase the character’s Quantum score and does not provide the character any other benefits which would be gained by increasing Quantum.

Resistance: The character adds +1 automatic suc-cess to rolls to resist environmental hazards, poisons, and dis-eases per dot of Fortitude. Powers which act similarly to poi-

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sons or diseases, such as Phenoptosis and Poison, are also affected.

Fast Healing: The character adds +2 to her Mega-Stamina score per dot for the purposes of healing times only. The character also treats Aggravated damage as Lethal dam-age for the purposes of healing times only.

Psychic Shield: The character adds +1 automatic success per dot of Fortitude to any rolls to resist psychic pow-ers such as Mental Blast, Hypnosis, Mentalism, or Dominate per dot in the power. This does not provide protection against Sway, nor does it protect against emotional manipulation such as Empathic Manipulation.

Sensory Shield: The character adds 1 automatic success per dot of Fortitude to any rolls to resist powers or weapons that attack the senses, such as flashbang grenades or Strobe. This does not provide protection against illusions.

Extras

Versatile: The character’s Fortitude provides an additional benefit chosen from the list. This may be taken mul-tiple times, with each purchase allowing the character to gain an additional benefit from his Fortitude.

Illuminate

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Illuminate Range: Variable Area: Special Duration: Scene Effect: Character emits light. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with Illuminate can emit light. The nova can change the frequency of the light emitted to any-thing from ultraviolet to infrared at will. This light can be emitted in three ways: A soft glow, a flashlight-like beam, or a coherent laser. The character spends 1 Quantum point per mode used per scene.

Glow: The character can surround himself with a soft aura of light. This may reduce stealth difficulties in bright areas at a distance (due to backlighting and washing out shad-ows) by 1, and can be used to illuminate an area as well.

Beam: The character is equipped with the equiva-lent of a very powerful flashlight. If aimed at someone's eyes (a called shot at +3 difficulty using Dexterity + Illuminate that is ef-fective up to Handgun range), this can temporarily blind the target for a turn.

Laser: The character can emit laser beams. Unlike quantum bolt or Elemental Mastery (Light), the lasers fired by Illuminate are extremely weak and not suitable as a weapon. If used as a weapon, these lasers do (Illuminate x 2)L damage and are aimed by (Dexterity + Illuminate). However, they can be used for laser surgery (with enough Medicine), cutting through thin metal and other objects, cauterizing wounds, as an impromptu laser pointer, or as a laser designator. Reduce difficulties for rolls by 1 or add +1 to a character's dice pool if having a laser cutter around might be helpful. As a laser desig-nator, bioluminescence can emulate any features of a military system, which does, in theory allow a nova to guide (or mis-guide) guided weaponry. However, 21st century military laser designators are almost universally frequency-hopping, requir-ing a nova to have at least 3 dots in Mega-Wits and 1 in Mega-

Intelligence to do so. In such cases, the Nova may power block incoming laser-guided missiles and bombs.

Intuition

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Perception + Intuition Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Permanent Effect: Heightens character’s awareness of danger. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: lntuition grants the nova a “sixth sense” that warns her of danger. The nova makes a Perception + lntui-tion roll to determine if there is danger. The difficulty of this roll may increase by ST discretion for subtle threats (hidden bombs, poison umbrellas, etc.) but decreases for particularly danger-ous threats, again at ST discretion.

The warning provided by lntuition is extremely impre-cise. If the character succeeds on the roll, the Storyteller simply tells him that he feels that “something is not right here.” and a rough direction where the threat is coming from.

lntuition alerts the character only to dangers to him-self. It provides no warning if someone nearby is in danger.

Ambush Avoidance: The character adds (1 + In-tuition) to the difficulty of an attack that would otherwise take the character from surprise. This applies even if the surprise at-tack is successful.

Precise: The character is provided a better under-standing of the threat. With 1 net success, the character knows exactly where the threat is coming from but not what. With 2 net successes, the character has a timeframe for the threat, such as “in thirty seconds”, “when you open the door”, “when a person rounds the corner”, and so on. With 3 or more net suc-cesses the character is given an understanding of the nature of the threat (bomb, gunman, poison) that becomes more and more precise with additional successes.

Luck

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Luck Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Permanent Effect: Character may manipulate probability to a lim-ited extent. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with this power is extraordinarily lucky. Somehow his quantum consciousness is able to tap into and manipulate fate, probabilities and perhaps even reality it-self. Regardless of how it’s done, Lady Luck smiles on the character and looks out for him.

A character may use Luck up to (Luck/2) times a scene, rounded up. However, it is the storyteller’s discretion whether the character may actually use the power; sometimes it’s better for the game if the character depends on his own abilities.

If used to add to rolls, Luck’s power rating is added to the roll as bonus dice, If used to add to defensive maneuvers, Luck adds its rating directly to the DV used for one attack. Luck may also be rolled to influence random events. A success

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means something generally favorable happens, more success-es mean even better fortune.

Remember, though, that Fate is a fickle bitch. If a character botches a roll enhanced by Luck, he suddenly be-comes really unlucky for a scene. An unlucky character loses 1 success on any roll for every ‘1’ that comes up on a die.

Extras

Misfortune: This Extra allows the character to neg-atively affect others with her Luck. The power may instead be used to subtract 1 success from another character’s rolls per dot. This may turn a roll into a botch.

Jackpot: This Extra allows the character to benefit further from his luck. Any roll which gains a benefit from Luck counts 10s as 2 successes each (or 3 successes if combined with another Enhancement or power that allows 10s to count as 2 successes).

Mastery

In addition to its other effects, when used to augment a roll, Luck may now allow the character to reroll up to 1/3/5 failed dice.

Sickness

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Stamina + Poison Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Character’s touch can poison or infect anoth-er person. Multiple Actions: Yes. Description: Sickness gives a character a pool of (Quantum + Stamina + [Power Rating x2]) points, which may be assigned as follows to potency, duration, penalty, damage and interval as follows:

2 points: Increase potency by +1 (starts at +0)

1 point: Increase duration by 1 minute (starts at 1 minute) for a poison, 1 week for a disease (starts at 1 week)

2 points: Increase target’s dice penalty by 1 (starts at 0 - target Stamina)

1 point: Increase damage by 1B (starts at 0 - target Stamina) per interval

2 points: Increase damage by 1L (starts at 0 - target Stamina) per interval

Damage Cost x 2: Change all damage from dice to levels.

5 points: Reduce time interval for damage (weekly -> every 2 days -> daily -> once per 6 hours -> hourly -> every 15 minutes -> every 3 minutes -> once per minute -> once per 5 rounds -> once per round)

At the ST's discretion, points in this pool may be trad-ed for more exotic side effects to add further inconveniences. Minor inconveniences (diarrhea, constant coughing, watery eyes, bad odor, etc.) which may add +1 difficulty to rolls in spe-cific situations (surviving in a desert, stealth, sight-based per-ception, in-person socialization) etc. cost 1-2 points, while se-vere problems (such as immune system failure, sudden and massive bone loss, paralysis, and so on) which add +4 difficul-ty or more to certain tasks, +1-2 difficulty to most actions, or make some actions outright impossible should cost at least 5 points, possibly more.

Sickness may only deal either Lethal or Bashing damage, not both, and deals damage either once per minute as a toxin or once per week as a disease. A character may have up to (Power Rating) separate types of poison 'template', and may only spend up to (Quantum + [Power Rating x 2]) points in any category. Sickness requires skin contact, by de-fault, to be effective.

A successful resistance roll halves the poison's ef-fects, rounding down. An exceptional success (5 successes or more above difficulty) negates the power entirely.

Extras

Envenomed: This Extra allows the character to en-venom melee or ranged attacks. These attacks inflict the Sick-ness effect as long as they are not fully soaked (i.e. deal more than ping) and deal at least 1 health level of damage.

Relapse: The nova can set aside up to half the successes for a second bout to occur after the first one is cured; the relapse occurs up to (Quantum) days after curing the first round, at a time chosen by the nova.

Suffocate

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Wits + Suffocate Range: (Quantum + power rating) x 10 meters Area: N/A Duration: Concentration Effect: Suffocates a target.

Multiple Actions: No Description: This power allows the character to suf-

focate opponents by either filling their lungs with sand, smoke or water or by creating a vacuum of air.

The player rolls Wits + Suffocate, resisted by the tar-get’s Stamina + Endurance, each turn the power is maintained. Success means the victim starts to suffocate (as explained in the Hazards section of the rules). If the target succeeds the Stamina + Endurance roll, the power ends and must be used again to restart the process.

This power does not work on anyone possessing the Mega-Stamina enhancement Adaptability, a life support system or a self-contained environment (scuba gear, space suit, bio-hazard suit or any environmentally sealed armor), or anyone who no longer needs to breathe. This does work against novas employing a Barrier because, unless specified otherwise, this defensive measure still allows air to pass through it.

Psychic Link

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Perception + Psychic Link Range: See below Area: See below Duration: See below Effect: Establishes a mental link between two or more characters. Multiple Actions: N/A Description: The nova imprints some of his quantum signature on another’s (nova or baseline) brain, allowing men-tal communication.

This power allows the nova to establish an unbreaka-ble “psychic link” between himself and another living thing (typ-

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ically another person, but possibly an animal companion). The link is in effect Permanent, though either member can turn it off at any time, and the nova may break the link to establish one with another character. Furthermore, the link has a maximum range equal to (1,000 kilometers x [Quantum + Psychic Link]); if the characters are separated by a greater distance, the link automatically deactivates. In either case, reactivating the link requires a Perception + Psychic Link roll. It costs five quantum points to initially establish a link, but no further expenditures are required to reactivate or communicate through it. Establish-ing the link requires concentration and effort by both parties and can be broken at will by either party.

A Psychic Link allows its members to communicate mentally. In essence it functions as a very limited form of Te-lepathy. But it also exposes the characters to mental attacks - if a power like Domination is used on one member of the Link, it affects all members of the Link. However, the presence of mul-tiple linked minds increases innate resistance to such attacks. Add +1 difficulty to all psychic attacks for each mind (beyond the first) in the link. Attempts to dominate other minds through the link must also overcome this resistance.

A telepathic nova who is within range of a linked indi-vidual may eavesdrop on conversations with a Perception + Telepathy roll, if his successes exceed the linking nova’s Quantum + Psychic Link total. A telepathic nova may sense the presence of a link by rolling Perception + Telepathy and achieving 4 successes (2 if the link is active). The nova must actively sense for a link. At the Storyteller’s discretion, a tele-pathic nova directly in the line of “broadcast” may attempt to eavesdrop. This should be difficult to arrange.

Extras

Extra Link: Allows the nova to psychically link to more people. With this Extra, the nova may link to 2 people at 1 dot of Psychic Link, doubling this number with each addition-al dot (so 4 people at 2 dots, 8 people at 3 dots, 16 at 4, and so on).

Quantum Conversion

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Stamina + Quantum Conversion Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Special

Effect: May convert quantum points into standard forms of energy. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Quantum Conversion is sometimes considered one of the more unusual powers novas display, yet it is undoubtedly one of the more useful ones in a practical, everyday sense. It allows a nova to convert part of his personal quantum energies - his Quantum Pool - into standard forms of energies such as light, fire or electricity. The player may choose what type of energy is generated when the power is used, and may choose any type of energy. The only restriction is that without an Extra, Quantum Conversion may not gener-ate extremely high-energy events such as gamma radiation.

Quantum Conversion may be used to power devices or do work, generating electricity, heat, or whatever a device requires. Quantum Conversion allows the character to power a single device or machine of Size no greater than (power rating) for a scene.

Items with high power draw (cars, tanks, heaters, in-dustrial machinery) count as 1 larger than their actual size, while items with extremely high power draw (railguns, lasers, other weapons systems, fighter aircraft) count as 2 Size larger than their actual size. A nova may not power more than 1 item at a time, but the system itself may transfer power to other items.

Finally, Quantum Conversion can be used as an at-tack. Flaming fists, laser blasts, and electrical shocks are all quite capable of killing someone. As an offensive power, Quan-tum Conversion deals (Power Rating x 3) dice of Bashing or Lethal damage per use, with [Quantum -1] automatic success-es.

Extras

High Energy: Power may convert quantum points into hard radiation such as gamma rays; as a direct attack this deals (Power Rating x 2) Aggravated damage per attack. Quantum Conversion with this Extra may also be used for pur-poses such as radiation therapy, replacing the particle acceler-ator in a scientific experiment, inducing radiation sickness, and triggering radiation alarms.

Mastery

Mastered Quantum Conversion allows a character to power more systems simultaneously. Instead of being able to support one object of the given power draw, the nova can sup-port 10/100/1,000 objects of that power draw.

Silence

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Quantum + number of successes versus op-ponent’s Perception to go unheard Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power renders its user virtually si-lent. If the nova cannot be detected via sight (due to darkness, the opponent being blind, the Invisibility power, or the like), Si-lence adds +(power rating) difficulty to any attempts to locate the nova. Acute hearing reduces this difficulty penalty by 1, and Hyperenhanced Hearing reduces it by up to (Mega-Perception). If the nova is visible, Silence adds +(power rating) dice instead. Silence extends a few inches from the nova’s body, rendering snapping twigs and rustling clothes inaudible. The si-lent use of firearms or similarly loud devices requires the object to be attuned. A silent nova using a firearm with some method of masking its visual signature will stay entirely undetected even after firing her weapon, unless the bullet is supersonic and gives her position away.

Silence does not make the nova transparent to sound waves-sonar or echolocation will detect the nova as normal.

Extras

Active Cancellation: The nova doesn't just silence sounds he makes, he cancels out incoming sounds. Echoloca-tion and sonar detection are similarly penalized by Silence.

Sustained: Objects attuned to the nova stay com-pletely silent for (power rating) turns after leaving the nova's at-tunement range. This allows the nova to silently deploy explo-

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sives, supersonic bullets, and other noisy tools without worry of detection.

Stretching

Level: 1 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Stretching Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Scene Effect: Allows nova to stretch and contort her body Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A disturbing but versatile power, Stretching does exactly what it says. Allowing the nova to ex-tend and contort her limbs and body, it is a relatively weak power but still useful in the right situations. A character with this power active may stretch her limbs and body up to 2 meters per dot in the power, giving her melee attacks that much effective reach (all melee attacks now have Thrown range). Furthermore she may reshape her form to escape confinement, giving her an automatic success per dot in the power to escape restraints, and allowing her to fit her entire body through anything she can put her fist through. If there is any doubt whether or not the character can fit through an opening or passage, the Storyteller has the final say. Stretching does not normally protect against any sort of damage or injury, although it may be used defensively to contort one’s body away from incoming harm, adding +1 per dot to a character’s Athletics for the purposes of dodging only.

Extras

Elasticity: The nova’s highly elastic flesh is re-sistant to blunt trauma, flesh and bone rebounding to its origi-nal shape within moments. The nova gains +2B/0L soak per dot in the power and soaks all fall damage as bashing when the power is active.

Flatform: The nova may thin herself down to a pa-per-thin width. This allows her to fit through any opening that could fit a sheet of paper.

Super-Stretching: The nova may extend her limbs up to 20 meters per dot in the power, rather than 2. This allows her to make melee attacks at up to Handgun range.

Level 2 Powers

Armor

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Permanent Effect: The nova is protected against harm by addi-tional soak. Multiple Actions: N/A Description: All novas are significantly tougher than normal humans, but this power represents a particularly ampli-fied capability of mitigating damage. Armor may either be dis-

creet, having no visible signature (except possibly when hit), or obvious, which means a character with this power is clearly armored, with steel skin or heavy armor plates surrounding her body. Each dot of this power gives the character +4B/4L soak against incoming attacks if the armor is obvious, +3B/3L if dis-creet. The type of armor (obvious or discreet) is chosen when purchased and cannot be changed. A character with obvious armor may activate or deactivate the armor in a single combat round, but may not do anything else during that round (so characters who really want to be protected from assassinations should choose discreet armor). Armor protects against incoming attacks, but does not protect against electricity, fire, radiation, falls, or anything else normal armor does not protect against.

Extras

Covert: The nova’s armor provides +4B/4L soak per dot and is also discreet.

Hazardous Environment: The nova’s armor is considered sealed and protects fully against all environmental hazards, including fire and falling. It still does not protect against anything that cannot be soaked, such as diseases and poisons. However, as the nova is considered hermetically sealed, he may avoid exposure to most toxic chemicals or air-borne diseases merely by holding his breath.

Superheavy Armor: The character can spend three quantum points to supercharge his Armor for a scene. When charged, the nova’s Armor doubles its soak and renders the nova totally immune to damage from attacks that deal less than (6 + [power rating x 2]) damage; however, the nova may no longer move faster than a walk and has an armor penalty of -2 that stacks with worn armor penalties. Such fortification is obvious, even if the armor is normally discreet. Maintaining this fortification costs 1 quantum point per attack deflected; if this cost is not paid the additional soak and damage immunities still apply for that one attack but this Extra shuts down immediately afterwards. Activating Superheavy Armor requires an action.

Aberration Transfer

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Manipulation + Aberration Transfer Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: The nova forces aberrations onto an oppo-nent for a brief period. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: The nova can use his own aberrations as a weapon, forcing his limitations upon others. Some novas exercise this ability to relieve themselves of their quantum-derived burdens, while others employ this as a method of cen-suring or blackmailing public novas.

To use this power, the nova spends one quantum point per 2 XP of aberrations; he must then touch the victim. The attacker then rolls Manipulation + Aberration Transfer against the target’s Stamina + Resistance. Success means the attacker has transferred one of his drawbacks to his victim. The aberration lasts for as long as the nova pays the maintenance costs for the power.

This power is usable against both novas and base-lines, though baselines suffer one level of Lethal damage per every 2 XP worth of aberrations inflicted upon them. During this

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time, a nova with Aberration Transfer is free from the aberra-tion’s effects.

Mastery

For every purchase of Mastery, the nova can perma-nently transfer (2 x [new level of mastery]) XP of aberrations to a baseline or another nova. Doing so costs 10 quantum points. This will not work on any target sharing the nova's quantum signature, including Clones and Homunculi.)

Absorption

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Stamina + Absorption Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Special Effect: The nova converts damage or energy into in-creased capability. Multiple Actions: No Description: This power allows a nova to convert in-coming energy, in the form of damage, into physical enhance-ments. The character chooses an energy type-kinetic (bullets, punches, falls), thermal (fire, heat, explosions, cold, plasma) or electromagnetic (lasers, masers, electricity), upon purchase, that the Absorption functions against. When a character is hit by an attack of the Absorption type that deals damage, he may activate this power, rolling its dice pool. Each success on the pool allows the character to reduce the damage taken by 1 health level (after spending 1 quantum point), transferring this into raising a physical Attribute instead. The player defines which Attribute when purchasing this power. Absorption can in-crease a character's Attribute by up to (Quantum + [Absorption x2]) dots. Absorption costs the initial 2 quantum points to acti-vate, plus an additional Quantum for every level of damage ab-sorbed. These additional Attribute dots fade away at the rate of 1 per (power rating) turns.

Extras

Energy Magnet: Character with energy Absorption can absorb energy from sources at (Quantum x 10 meters) range as an attack. If absorbed from a nonsentient source (such as a fire or electrical socket), no roll other than the one to determine how much power is absorbed is required. If used on a sentient source, such as another nova, the player must roll Manipulation + Absorption to succeed with his attempt, then roll the normal Stamina + Absorption dice to determine how much energy is absorbed.

Extended Effect: Attribute dots gained from Ab-sorption last for a scene.

Extra Attributes: The nova may split the Attribute dots between two Attributes. The new Attribute is defined at the time of choosing this Extra. This Extra may be taken more than once, each time allowing Absorption to add to another Attribute.

Mastery

Absorption divides the cost to absorb damage by 2/4/6, rounding final expenditures up. Therefore, a nova with Mastery 1 pays 1 Quantum per 2 HLs absorbed, while one with 3 pays 1 Quantum per 6 HLs absorbed.

Barrier

Level: 2

Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Generates a barrier that shields against harm

Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power provides extra protection for

a nova. Most novas are already pretty hardy, but one with this power may be virtually untouchable. However, unlike Armor, Barriers require activation.

The player picks one of the following options for the Barrier, based on its most appropriate manifestation. Despite its name, not every Barrier has to be external or even visible.

Ablative: This Barrier gives temporary external health levels equal to (Quantum + Stamina + [power rating x 3]) which regenerate at [power rating] levels/turn on the char-acter's action. An attack which penetrates the field must be soaked normally by the character, but loses as many dice and levels of damage (automatic damage levels are absorbed first) as were necessary to penetrate the field, assuming each dam-age die rolled a success. So a character with Quantum 3, Bar-rier 3, and Stamina 5 with Mega-Stamina 2 has a Barrier with 21 health levels that regenerates 3 of these levels a turn. If she was hit by an attack that did [15] + 20L damage that penetrated her field on the first hit, she subtracts the 21 health levels from the damage dealt (negating all 15 automatic damage levels and 6 damage dice), which means that she only has to soak 14L damage.

If all health levels are filled by damage, an ablative Barrier shuts down and may not be reactivated until the char-acter's next action.

Deflecting: The Barrier adds +1 difficulty per dot to hit the character with most attacks. The character must choose one type of attack (lasers, bullets, hand to hand attacks, area attacks, guided attacks) that the barrier does not protect against. This is common for powers that involve altering space or probability.

Dispersing: Attacks which hit the Barrier are evenly dispersed around the nova rather than fully focusing their en-ergies on a small point. This provides immunity to called shots, additional successes on the attack roll do not increase the at-tack’s damage, and all post-soak damage is reduced by (power rating) levels, to a minimum of 1 level.

Specialized: The shield works only against a fairly narrow set of attacks (much like Invulnerability). Combine two options to set how the shield protects against that set of at-tacks. Against all other attacks, choose one of those options and halve its effect, rounding up. If Ablative, instead of halving the HLs of the barrier versus attacks that the barrier is not spe-cialized against, those attacks deal double damage.

Barrier can be aborted to as a defensive action. A Barrier may be directly attacked by powers such as

Disrupt. Ablative barriers take damage as if they were quantum constructs. All other Barrier types are affected as any other power would be.

A Barrier cannot be activated and deactivated on the same turn. If Barrier's duration is increased to permanent, it still costs quantum points to reactivate in combat, but automatically regenerates all damage and reactivates at the end of the scene.

Extras

Absolute Protection: A Barrier with this Extra al-lows the character to pay 1 permanent Willpower to entirely

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negate an incoming attack. Permanent Willpower expended in this fashion heals at the rate of 1 dot per month.

Offensive: Anyone or anything touching the Barrier (say, by striking it with an unarmed attack) take (power rating x 3) dice Bashing or Lethal damage. The choice of Bashing or Lethal is made when the Barrier is activated and may not be changed without deactivating the Barrier.

Optimized: This Extra allows a Specialized Barrier to work as well as a normal Barrier against attacks it isn’t spe-cialized against. Instead of using only one of its options at half effectiveness against attacks that don’t fall under its Special-ized aegis, it uses one of its options at full normal effectiveness.

Redirect: A Deflecting Barrier redirects attacks that fail to pierce it. The nova with the Barrier rerolls the attacker’s failed dice as an attack against a target within range, including the original attacker. Use the same damage as the initial attack.

By spending one quantum point per turn, the nova can “hold” a projectile, choosing to release it later.

Super-Ablative: A Super-Ablative Barrier negates all damage from an attack that pierces the Barrier once per scene. Must be taken with the Ablative barrier. Normally this extra must activate the first time the barrier is breached, but purchasing this Extra twice allows the character to choose whether or not to use its ability whenever the Barrier is breached.

Volatile: A Volatile Barrier damages everything around the user when deactivated. When breached, the char-acter emits a Shockwave (as per the power, but substituting dots in Barrier for dots in Shockwave). By default the use of this Extra is chosen upon field activation and the damage does not distinguish between friend and foe. If purchased twice, though, the character may be selective with who or what the shockwave harms.

Wall: Allows character to project the Barrier as a wall at a range of three meters per dot in Barrier. The basic wall is two meters long by two meters high and can be made two meters taller or longer per dot in the power; the character can alter the dimensions with each use if he so chooses. Any-thing behind the wall benefits from the protection of the Barrier.

Mastery

Each level of Mastery increases an Ablative Barrier's regeneration rate by 2/5/10 HLs/round.

Boost

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Variable Effect: Temporarily improves an Attribute’s rating Multiple Actions: Yes

Description: Boost allows a nova to increase one of his Attributes temporarily. The Attribute affected by the power must be defined when the power is bought, and it cannot be changed thereafter.

Activating Boost is a reflexive action which adds (Quantum + [Boost x 2]) to the Trait being boosted. The added dots fade at the rate of one per (Quantum + power rating) turns, and the power may be used only once per scene.

Extras

Extra Attribute: Power affects one additional At-tribute at the same time.

Increased Duration: In this case, dots of Attribute gained from Boost last for a scene.

Bounce

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Bounce Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Allows the nova to bounce on, careen into and ricochet off of solid objects. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with this ability is able to re-bound off of solid objects. In a manner similar to the Absorption power, the nova may, when striking (or being struck by) a hard surface, convert the physical damage into kinetic force. While active, Bounce multiples all jump distances and heights by (Bounce + 1) as long as the environment has walls and other props to rebound off of, representing the nova's im-proved ability to rebound off objects without losing momentum. In a particularly cluttered environment, a nova may have to succeed on a Dexterity + Athletics or Perception + Science (Physics or Mathematics) roll to gain this benefit.

Any time the nova impacts with an object (or vice-versa), he may use this power to negate Bashing damage. The player pays may pay up to (power rating) Quantum points, with each quantum point negating 1 level of post-soak Bashing damage. In addition, every level of damage thus canceled con-verts to a bouncing distance of three meters. Bounce allows a nova to tackle opponents with great force as well, increasing the damage of an unarmed attack by up to +2 per dot. However, every 2 dice of damage added in this fashion adds +1 to the attack difficulty. Since the nova re-bounds from the target, he may not make consecutive attacks on the same target. The nova may, however, bounce back and forth between a pair of targets, or bounce, strike a target, jump off an object, strike the same target again, and so on.

Extras

Momentum Transfer: The character is able to more easily pass his momentum on to those he impacts. Char-acters successfully hit by a Bouncing nova’s melee attacks are knocked back a number of meters equal to the nova’s en-hanced horizontal jumping distance. Characters may attempt to resist this like any other source of Knockback.

Negate Lethal Damage: The nova may negate Le-thal physical attacks in addition to Bashing ones at the same cost.

Chimeric Aberration

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Stamina + Chimeric Aberration Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: A nova with this power can change his own aberrations. In essence, he is an aberration shapeshifter. Multiple Actions: Yes

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Description: lnitially believed to be a minor variant of Shapeshift, Chimeric Aberration has since proven a versatile power in its own right, especially when possessed by those with Aberration Transfer (increasing their repertoire of weap-ons) and Shapeshift (imitating novas down to their aberrations). This power enables a nova to alter his aberrations, changing them from one type to another. The nova can turn a severe aberration into several minor ones temporarily or alter a couple of medium ones into one major aberration.

To use this power, the nova must roll Stamina + Chi-meric Aberration. Each success allows the nova to alter up to 2 XP of Aberrations and Augmentations gained by Taint, trans-forming them into different body modifications of the same type. The nova must keep the same value of aberrations and aug-mentations. A nova can never change an already altered aber-ration.

Density Control

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Increases or decreases the character’s densi-ty, granting her protection or intangibility. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power allows the character to ei-ther increase her density or decrease it, but not both; the play-er must choose which ability the character has when the power is purchased.

A character that can increase her density becomes heavier but also tougher and stronger. When activated, multiply the character's mass by (power rating x 2) and add that same number to Strength as well as to the character's Lethal/Bashing soak. In many characters an increase in density is accompa-nied by visible effects such as the character’s body turning to rock or metal, but this effect is not required.

A character who can decrease her density reduces her ability to touch and manipulate objects physically but also reduces the ability of physical objects to interact with her. When activated, the character divides her mass by (power rat-ing x 2), reduces the post-soak damage of any physical attacks she makes by (power rating x 2), to a minimum of no levels of damage, and divides all incoming physical damage by (power rating + 1), rounding final damage up, to a minimum of 1 level. At 3+ dots this damage decrease also applies to energy-based attacks, such as lasers, fire, or the radiation from a nuclear weapon. A character with 3+ dots in Density Control (De-crease) may phase through walls at the speed of (power rating) meters per turn at 3 dots, walking speed at 4 dots, and at any speed at 5+ dots.

Extras

Affect Others: may change the density of persons or objects for a scene by touching them and rolling Manipula-tion + Density Control; an unwilling target may roll Resistance to resist. Each net success gives the character or object the benefits and penalties of 1 dot of Density Control (increasing or decreasing density, whichever the nova chooses) up to the no-va’s power rating.

Neutronium Density: A character with Density Control (Increase) may pay 3 quantum points to become in-credibly dense and tough for an instant, negating all damage

from a non-quantum, non-noetic physical or energy-based at-tack. This Extra may be used up to (power rating) times per scene.

Perfect Intangibility: A character with Density Control (Decrease) may pay 3 quantum points to become per-fectly intangible for an instant, negating all damage from a non-quantum, non-noetic physical or energy-based attack. This Ex-tra may be used up to (power rating) times per scene.

Full Control: Character can both increase and de-crease his density.

Disimmunize

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Intelligence + Disimmunize Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: The attacker strips away part of the target’s immunity to her own damaging power. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: The opposite of Quantum Forgery, Disimmunize allows a nova to disable a target’s power immuni-ty makeup. A fire-wielding nova becomes vulnerable to her own heat blasts, for example.

Disimmunize rolls (Intelligence + Disimmunize), add-ing a number of automatic successes equal to the opponent's (Quantum), which is resisted by the opponent's (Stamina + Quantum). Each net success causes 1 automatic level of unsoakable feedback damage the next time the nova uses an offensive power. When this happens, the victim takes an additional level of damage for every dot in the power used. This damage is of the most dangerous type of damage the at-tack inflicts, so a Mental Blast would inflict Bashing feedback damage, while Quantum Bolt would inflict Lethal, and Disinte-grate or Quantum Inferno would inflict Aggravated damage to the user. Disimmunize may never deal more damage than the victim's attack has damage dice + automatic successes.

Example: The Mathematician, with Disimmunize 3, Intelligence 8, and Mega-Intelligence 5, is attacked by Blitx, with Stamina 4, Mega-Stamina 2, Node 3, Quantum 5 and Quantum Bolt 5. Using Disimmunize, the Mathematician rolls 11d [5] base, adding an additional [5] automatic successes against a total of 9d [2]. The Mathematician gets 14 successes total to Blitx's 3, so any offensive power Blitx uses will deal 11 + Power Rating levels of Lethal feedback damage to himself. Next turn, Blitx uses Quantum Bolt, and suffers 16 levels of Le-thal feedback damage.

Disorient

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Manipulation + Disorient Range: Handgun+

Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Allows character to weaken opponents Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power allows a nova to take someone off balance via nausea, fatigue, hallucinations, or similar phenomenon. Disorient should be noted as either phys-ical or mental upon purchase. The nova rolls the power’s dice pool of Manipulation + Disorient to disorient the target. The vic-

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tim may resist via Stamina + Endurance, if physical, or Wits + Resistance, if mental. Each success acts as a penalty to all rolls, subtracting 1 die from the opponent’s dice pools per suc-cess. This penalty fades at the rate of 1 per (Power Rating) turns and a victim’s penalty from Disorient may not exceed (Quantum + Power Rating). Like a wound penalty, the oppo-nent may spend Willpower to negate the effects of Disorient for 1 turn.

Disrupt

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Intelligence + Disrupt Range: Rifle Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Reduces the effectiveness of powers Multiple Actions: Yes Description: With this power, a nova can disrupt an-other nova’s control over any quantum power (but not Mega-Attributes or enhancements). To use it, he rolls lntelligence + Disrupt. For every (target’s Quantum score) successes rolled, a power the target possesses is reduced by one dot per suc-cess for as long as the Maintenance cost is paid.

Disrupt can affect any power; the nova may, for ex-ample, disrupt his target’s Quantum Bolt one turn, and his Bar-rier the next turn. However, without an Extra it cannot affect multiple powers at once. Moreover, it is difficult to use Disrupt multiple times in succession against the same target; each subsequent use of Disrupt against the same target in a scene incurs a +1 difficulty penalty.

Disrupt may also be targeted at powers directly, as opposed to the nova generating the power. This is mostly use-

ful to defend against incoming quantum attacks or when facing creatures generated by Quantum Construct or similar powers. When attacking a quantum construct (from any kind of power), each success on the (Intelligence + Disrupt) roll becomes (Power Rating) levels of unsoakable Aggravated damage to the construct. Disrupt does not work against gadgets.

Extras

Extra Power: Disrupt may affect any two powers at once.

Domination

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Manipulation + Domination Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Concentration Effect: Take control of target’s brainwaves Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This mental power allows a nova to pro-ject his quantum consciousness into a sentient target’s brain-waves. With sufficient successes, he can make his victim do anything, up to and including killing himself.

To use Domination, the nova must spend the neces-sary quantum points and roll Manipulation + Domination in a resisted action against the target’s Willpower. If the nova scores more successes, he succeeds in achieving control. The degree of control depends upon how many successes the nova has left after subtracting the victim’s Willpower successes, as follows:

Successes Command Intensity One Minor/Quirky: Blink, eat a bug, wear a particular suit of clothes. Two Major/Noteworthy: Do the nova’s chores; buy lunch for someone

you hate. Three Complex/Antithetical: Worship a foreign god; follow a particular set

of commands (“Fill out this form, mail it to Wilkes-Barre, PA from Boise, Idaho, and after doing so, make an advertisement that reads …”); attack (or refrain from attacking) whomever the nova indicates in combat.

Four Total Control: Commit suicide; perform any task, no matter how difficult or vile.

After control has been achieved, a character affected by Domination may roll Willpower; if she succeeds, she may then spend one point of Willpower to decrease the attack‘s ef-fectiveness - the Willpower point reduces the successes (and thus the command intensity) by one. For example, a character who is being Dominated is told to shoot a friend. She makes a Willpower roll at normal difficulty, succeeds, then spends a point of Willpower to reduce the effect to Major. The Storyteller rules that she summons up enough strength of will to turn the gun aside and shoot a wall instead of her comrade. In order to use Domination, the nova must be able to com-municate with his subject - Domination is not inherently “tele-pathic.” If the target is too far away to hear a command or can-not understand a command for some reason, even Total Con-trol may be useless.

Extras

Telepathic: Domination is telepathic – orders can be communicated automatically, without the need for speech.

Weaknesses

Literal: The commands given by Domination must only be followed to the letter, not the spirit of the command. Literal Dominate may be resisted with Intelligence + Academics (Any) or Willpower, whichever is higher.

Empathic Manipulation

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: Variable (Willpower resisted) Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Special Effect: Controls and manipulates a target’s emotions Multiple Actions: Yes

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Description: Empathic Manipulation is, in essence, a highly specialized form of Domination or Telepathy. It allows a nova to detect and manipulate a single target’s emotions. For example, the nova can make emotions stronger or weaker. Do-ing so does not necessarily prompt the target to do anything, but it does make it more likely that the target will take some kind of action. For example, if a nova detects that a target is angry at the government, he might heighten that emotion to a blinding rage. How the target deals with his range is beyond the nova’s control. The target might begin a vitriolic letter-writing campaign, or he might pick up a submachine gun, walk into the nearest courthouse and begin firing.

To detect a target’s emotions, the nova must roll Per-ception + Empathic Manipulation in an opposed roll against the target’s Willpower. Even a single net success on the nova’s part is enough for him to determine the target’s emotional state and against whom or what that emotion is directed.

Manipulating those emotions requires a Manipulation + Empathic Manipulation roll, resisted by the target’s Willpower. For each net success achieved, the nova can adjust the tar-get’s emotions up or down on the following table by one step. The Storyteller should use this table as a guideline for emo-tions not covered. Each step adds +1 to the difficulty of acting in a way opposed to the emotion (so berserk anger adds +3 dif-ficulty to any rolls to not engage in violence, as an example). At the ST’s discretion, extreme emotions may also add +1d to any rolls aligned with the emotion (so the same character would get +1d for rolls to physically attack people, or to intimidate them).

The emotional changes brought about by Empathic Manipulation last for a scene in the case of weaker emotions, or for (Quantum + Power Rating) turns, in the case of stronger emotions. After that the character’s emotions will behave nor-mally, slowly returning to the ‘normal’ state (given the circum-stances).

Sadness/Happiness Anger Lust Love Hatred Jealousy/Envy Fear Not sad/happy Not angry Not lustful Apathetic Not hateful Not jealous/envious Not afraid Sad/happy Angry Interested Like Dislike Jealous/envious Nervous Depressed/elated Enraged Desirous Love Hatred Greedy Afraid Distraught/ecstatic Berserk Unabiding lust Mad love Blind hatred Blind jealousy/envy Terrified

ESP

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Perception + ESP Range: Support Area: N/A Duration: Concentration Effect: Allows the character to sense his surround-ings from a “focus point” at range Multiple Actions: No Description: By attuning himself to quantum ebb and flows, the nova may sense things at much greater ranges than he normally could. To use ESP, the nova need only spend the quantum points and concentrate. He then defines a “focus point” somewhere within the power’s range. He can sense from that focus point as if he were standing right there. Thus this power is perfect for “seeing through walls” or otherwise spying on people.

The nova must make a Perception + ESP roll (no range penalties) to target the power, and the clarity of the scan is based on the number of successes rolled:

Successes Clarity One Very hazy, as though

sensing through fog; one sense (sight, hearing, etc.) only.

Two Slightly blurry perception, one sense; or hazy per-ception, all senses.

Three Perfect perception, one sense; slightly blurry per-ception, all senses; can use one nova sense, though it will be very hazy.

Four Near-perfect perception with all normal senses; blurry perception with nova senses.

Five Perfect perception with normal or nova senses.

Extras

Distant Scan: Range is increased to (Perception + power rating) x 1000 km, but the process of scanning at this distance takes at least 15 minutes, and the nova may take no other actions, or even perceive his immediate surroundings, while so scanning. Furthermore, the Perception + ESP roll to target is at +1 difficulty per 2000 km.

Flight

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Flight Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Allows character to fly. Multiple Actions: Per normal movement rules. Description: This power allows the character to fly through the air, outer space and similar three-dimensional are-as. A character that flies using this power rolls (Dexterity + Flight) for movement in combat, adding [Quantum] automatic successes. The character moves at a rate of (Quantum + pow-er rating) x 100 kilometers per hour outside of combat.

If the character wants to perform aerobatics or fly through narrow openings at high speeds without hurting him-self, the Storyteller may require a Dexterity + Flight roll to de-termine whether the character succeeds. The character may also “power block” with Flight to dodge incoming attacks; de-pending on the character’s movement, this may allow him to dodge explosions and area attacks, though particularly large-scale blasts might cost the character his entire action.

If a character has Wings, add +1 to the effective rat-ing of the Flight power for purposes of speed and maneuvera-bility. Gliding Wings add +1 to maneuverability, but do not af-fect speed. A flying nova may make a charging attack at her maximum flight speed, adding +1 difficulty to an unarmed at-tack and (power rating) to damage.

Extras

Interplanetary: When out of atmosphere, the char-acter moves at a rate of (Quantum + power rating) x 10 kilome-

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ters per second. This has no effect on combat speeds even in space.

Interstellar (requires Interplanetary): A second purchase of the Interplanetary Extra allows a character to achieve faster than light speeds. A character may “fly” (Quan-tum + Power Rating) light-years per hour. While flying at these velocities a character may not take any other actions.

Underwater: Character may use his Flight under-water and through other bodies of liquid at full speed.

Mastery

Mastered flight is far more maneuverable, whether in combat or out of it. Combat flight speed multipliers are x3/x5/x8. Multiply noncombat speeds by x2/3/4.

Gravity Control

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Wits + Gravity Control Range: Thrown Area: (Power Rating) Duration: Concentration Effect: Character is able to sense and manipulate

gravity fields. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: The nova is always aware of the exact

gravity in the area, and the gravitic pull asserted by individual objects.

The nova can also alter the gravity in a given area. For each success achieved on a Dexterity + Gravity Control roll, he can warp local gravity by up to .5 g (normal Earth gravity is 1 g). See the ‘Hazards’ section of the rules for the effects of al-tered gravity fields. Objects in a negative-g field fall upward un-til out of the field. The nova can be selective if he wishes, in-creasing some objects’ mass, decreasing others and leaving yet others alone. A creature or object that becomes too heavy cannot move (or be moved), and it may collapse under its own weight if it becomes heavy enough. If the nova tries to affect a living thing with a Gravity Control, the target may resist with Willpower.

Healing

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: Stamina + Healing Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Heals wounds Multiple Actions: Yes Description: The character rolls (Stamina + Healing) to heal targets. Each net success on this roll allows the Nova to heal 1 bashing or lethal health level on the target. Each level of Aggravated damage healed in this way adds a 4 Quantum sur-charge to the use of the power, so if Healing is used to heal 3 Aggravated health levels, it costs (2 base + 12 [3 Aggravated HLs healed at 4Q each]) = 14 quantum points. A nova may heal even a dying character but that merely stabilizes them at Incapacitated. The cost for Healing may be split across multiple turns, if necessary, but the nova must burn through the re-quired quantum points as quickly as possible.

Healing can even regenerate severed limbs or ruined organs, but to do so costs four quantum points per limb and a Willpower point.

Alternatively, if a character is suffering from poison or a disease, the power adds (power rating) successes to the af-flicted character’s Resistance roll. Once the roll succeeds, the poison or disease stops affecting the character. Any damage already taken can then be healed with a normal application of Healing.

The nova may attempt to use this power only once per scene, per character. The nova may use Healing on him-self.

Extras

Inoculation: A character affected by a poison or disease who successfully resists it via Healing becomes per-manently immune. This only affects diseases or poisons creat-ed ‘naturally’ and not quantum powers such as Poison.

Lingering: Baselines who have been affected by Healing heal and resist diseases/sickness like novas for (Quantum + Power Rating) weeks, while novas heal and resist disease/sickness as if they had a Mega-Stamina rating 1 high-er than it actually is for the same duration.

Mastery

Each level of Mastery adds +1 to the number of times healing can be used on a character in a scene.

Holo

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Manipulation + Holo Range: Handgun Area: (Quantum + power rating) Duration: Concentration Effect: Creates images; each success adds one to the difficulty of Perception rolls to determine the true nature of the image Multiple Actions: No. Description: This power allows a nova to create im-ages - illusions, if you will - with which to trick and befuddle other characters. The player must choose which sense the im-ages affect when he buys the power. As its name suggests, Holo is usually used to create images which can be seen, but auditory images are also popular.

To use Holo, the nova rolls Manipulation + Holo to determine how precise and accurate his images are. Failure indicates that the nova fails to create an accurate image. Each success above the first increases the difficulty of Perception rolls to determine the true nature of the illusion by one. If an observer fails his Perception roll, he believes the images are real until he has reason to think otherwise (at which point he may roll Perception again). If he makes his Perception roll at any time he instantly recognizes the images for what they are and can perceive what (if anything) they are hiding.

Images created by Holo cannot directly cause harm even if they affect the sense of touch. However, the; could trick a character into harming himself. For example if Holo is used to make a cliff seem like a grassy meadow, anyone who fails his Perception roll could easily walk right off the cliff to his doom.

Extras

Extra Sense: Power affects one additional sense at the same time.

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Homunculus

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Scene Effect: Allows nova to separate parts of his body or

create small creatures from his body. Multiple Actions: No Description: This power allows a nova to separate

parts of his body yet retain control over them (for example, de-taching his hands and letting them strangle someone on their own) to create small creatures from his own body, or even to break down his body into a swarm of tiny creatures. Use of the power does not cause the nova any damage.

To use Homunculus, the nova spends the required amount of quantum points, and either creates a small creature or detaches a body part of his choice. The creatures in ques-tion cannot be perfect duplicates of the nova - that requires Clone - but they could be smaller, or warped and twisted, ver-sions of him. Detached body parts or creatures can move up to 10 meters per dot in Homunculus away from the character. As long as they stay within that distance, he can control what they do, just as if they were still a part of his body. Otherwise, they will continue with whatever actions they were performing until their tasks are completed and then stop moving until line of sight and range are reestablished.

If a detached body part is attacked, it acts separately from the character (i.e., if the character decides to dodge in a particular turn, his detached body parts do not have to dodge; they can attack, block, or do whatever else they want, just as if they were separate characters). If one is Stunned or knocked unconscious, the other may continue to act. If the detached body part is killed, the character loses that part of his body permanently. Note that most characters cannot survive losing their heard or torso. See the chart below for the attributes of most detached body parts.

Body Part Traits Arm/Leg 3 HLs (arm) or 4 HLs (leg), +2

per dot of Mega-Stamina, half Strength/Dexterity. Arms may only crawl, legs may only hop, moving (power rating x 2) me-ters/round. Normal soak but are Size -3 for taking damage and being hit (they deal damage as if Size 0). May only flail at charac-ters for (Str + 0B) damage, for feet, or attempt to strangle a character for arms.

Head 3 HLs, Str 0, half Dexterity, +2 per dot of Mega-Stamina. May grow spider-legs or some other form of movement to crawl. Normal soak but Size -5 for tak-ing damage and being hit. May bite, a Brawl attack at +2 difficul-ty that deals (Str - 2B) damage by default.

Hand/Foot 2 HLs, +1 per dot of Mega-Stamina, full Dexterity, Strength 1. May only crawl. Half soak and

Size -6. May attempt to strangle a character.

Finger/Eye/Toe 1 HL, may crawl at (power rat-ing) meters per round. Half soak. No attack. Are considered Size -12.

Torso + Head/Torso without Head

Character’s full HL track, Str 0, Dex 0, immobile, destruction kills character. Normal soak, Size 0.

A “small creature” homunculus has no quantum pow-

ers, but it is otherwise considered to have half the character’s Strength score, Dexterity and Stamina equal to the character’s, half the character’s health levels (round down, so a character with 3 -0 HLs, 5 -1 HLs, 5 -2 HLs, and 4 -4 HLs creates a Homonculus with 1 -0, 2 -1, 2 -2, and 2 -4 HLs) and soak. These homunculi may attack normally. The player may shift points around if he likes (reducing Strength to add to Dexterity, for example). If killed, the main character takes one unsoaka-ble health level of Lethal damage. Small Homonculi are con-sidered Size -3.

At two dots and higher, the character can create more than one homunculus. At two dots he can create two ho-munculi; at three dots, four homunculi; at four dots, eight ho-munculi; at five dots, 16 homunculi. These homunculi can all be the same, or can be different. It costs no additional quantum points to create multiple creatures.

Furthermore, if the character has Homunculus 4+, she can break down her entire body into a “homunculus swarm” of insect-sized creatures. The swarm moves at the character’s normal speed and can flow over foes, grappling up to (power rating) foes simultaneously. A homunculus swarm takes a max-imum of one health level of damage from most attacks, but fire, explosion and area attacks affect it normally.

Extras

Attuned: The character’s homunculi may make use of the character’s Mega-Attributes (capped at their strength/dexterity values).

Mutable: The character’s separated body parts or homunculi are capable of altering themselves for better inde-pendent movement and action. They may move normally (in-stead of being restricted in movement), and may increase their Strength or Dexterity by +1 per dot in Homonculus, up to the character’s normal trait values.

Redundant: The character may regrow a fully func-tional (but obviously unnatural equivalent) of a detached limb at no cost when using this power to detach a limb or body part, al-lowing him to make full use of this power without any fear of losing body parts. If a detached limb is destroyed the unnatural replacement limb “heals” into the original limb in 24 hours.

Hypermovement

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Hypermovement Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Increases character’s running, flying, or swimming speed Multiple Actions: N/A

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Description: A nova with Hypermovement can run, swim or fly at ludicrous speed. At higher levels Hypermovement allows a character to outpace bullet trains, jet-fighters and other vehicles. The player must specify which mode of movement Hypermovement enhances (running, swimming or flight).

When active, Hypermovement adds up to 5 automatic successes to a character’s movement speed rolls per dot. Out of combat, the character multiplies movement speeds by (Hy-permovement x 20).

Normally a character only uses 1 automatic success per dot of Hypermovement, allowing the character to still act normally. A character who utilizes this additional speed to its fullest may take no non-reflexive actions while doing so, save for tackling enemies. Sudden maneuvers at maximum speed also require a Dexterity + Hypermovement roll, with difficulty decided by the Storyteller.

Extras

Extra Mode: Power affects one additional mode of movement.

Inertial Skew: The character may run up/on walls and on ceilings while Hypermovement is active, as long as the character stays in motion.

Kinetic Damper: While moving at full speed, the character gains +4B/4L soak per dot of Hypermovement for the purposes of surviving crashes and ramming attempts.

Sonic Boom: When moving at full speed, the pow-er generates a free Shockwave attack once per round, substi-tuting Dexterity for Strength and Hypermovement for Mega-Strength.

Unstoppable Force: When moving at fullspeed, the character increases his effective Size by (Quantum + Pow-er Rating) for the purposes of ramming attacks.

Immobilize

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Immobilize Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: One scene or until destroyed Effect: Encases and immobilizes a target in a tough substance or field. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with this power is able to para-lyze or ensnare targets in some way, which ranges from creat-ing blocks of ice around them, to secreting a paralytic poison, to imprisoning them within a quantum field.

To use Immobilize, the character spends the required quantum points and rolls Dexterity + Immobilize to hit the target. Targets may dodge an Immobilize attempt at +(power rating) difficulty. If successful, the target is slowed, reducing their Dex-terity for the purposes of movement and dodging by 1 per net success. Characters with Mega-Dexterity have it reduced first, with every 2 net successes on the Immobilize roll reducing the nova’s effective Mega-Dexterity by 1 for movement and dodg-ing. Once dexterity is reduced to 0 or below, the target is fully encased and immobilized.

An encased victim must roll an Attribute + Ability combination (typically Strength + Might). The Storyteller may choose another Attribute if he feels that is more appropriate. Immobilize based on a paralytic poison may use Stamina + Resistance, while one based on mental attacks may use Wits +

Resistance. The Immobilize effect requires a number of suc-cesses equal to (Quantum + [Power Rating * 2]) to break free from, and a character may roll to accumulate successes once per turn. When the character rolls enough successes, she breaks free of the effect. In this case, Mega-Strength only pro-vides 1 automatic success instead of 5 even on Might-based rolls.

While imprisoned, the victim gains +(Quantum + Power Rating) extra bashing/lethal/aggravated soak which stacks fully with all other sources, but is also immobilized and easier to hit. A character may choose to reduce the power of her Immobilize effect to reduce this soak increase (down to Quantum 1/Power Rating 1) but doing so also decreases the Immobilize effect’s durability. A willing character may be in-stantly reduced to Dexterity 0 (and therefore fully encased) with one use of Immobilize: this allows the character to take ad-vantage of the added protection.

Extras

Intangible: Immobilize’s soak does not protect the victim.

Supertough: The lmmobilize effect requires double the number of successes to break free from.

Immolate

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: N/A Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Character surrounds his body with a damag-ing effect that harms anyone who touches him Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power allows the nova to encase his body in a field that injures or damages everything he touch-es. This field can take many forms-red-hot flames, electrical discharges, warped space, and so on, but the visual effects and method of damage must be

Immolate deals (Power Rating x 4) dice of Bashing or Lethal damage (chosen upon activation) with [Quantum x 2] automatic successes to everyone and everything in contact with the nova save the ground beneath his feet. This includes any enemies which hit the nova with a close combat attack, or with a weapon, although the attack still does full damage. Suc-cessfully hitting another character with a close combat attack deals Immolate damage as well as normal attack damage, but the Immolate damage in this case is always soaked separately from the attack.

lmmolate can be extremely effective in combat, but it can also cause problems, since anything the nova touches takes damage. If he bumps into an innocent bystander, smashes through a wall or gas pump or simply walks down the street, he damages those people and objects - with potentially disastrous results.

Invisibility

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Wits + Invisibility Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance

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Effect: Increases the difficulty of noticing the nova on the near-visible spectrum Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Invisibility adds (power rating + 1) to the difficulty of any rolls to detect or attack the nova unless the op-ponent possesses a total Awareness dice pool equal to (Wits + Invisibility + Quantum), with each dot of Mega-Perception or other automatic successes counting as +2 to the Awareness dice pool. Although invisibility covers the entire near-visual spectrum (including Electromagnetic Vision, High-End Elec-tromagnetic Scan, machines and security devices), it is strong-est over the optical range and having the ability to “see” with non-visual light spectra (such as infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves, or the like) reduces this difficulty penalty by 3. Addition-ally, Invisibility negates difficulty modifiers for stealth due to poor conditions in addition to its normal bonuses, reducing them by (power rating) to a minimum of 0.

Note that having certain sensory abilities, such as Blindfighting, echolocation, or the like allow a character to en-tirely ignore invisibility, and certain actions may leave obvious traces even while invisible.

Extras

Enhanced Effect: Invisibility is no longer weaker over non-visual radiation wavelengths. Being able to see non-visible light no longer reduces Invisibility’s difficulty penalty.

Sustained: Objects attuned to the nova stay invisi-ble for approximately one turn after leaving the nova's attune-ment range. This allows the nova to use just about anything in-visibly without fear of detection.

Psychic Invisibility

Psychic Invisibility is an alternative variant which re-lies on basically making people not pay attention to you. Psy-chic Invisibility works more easily without anomalous behavior-i.e. instead of rolling Stealth, a character using Psychic Invisi-bility rolls (Manipulation + Psychic Invisibility) versus a target's Willpower. Psychic Invisibility masks one's signature more thoroughly (because the sensor readings are there, they just don't pay any attention to them), but the difficulty of the Ma-nipulation + Psychic Invisibility roll increases with anomalous behavior.

Examples of Difficulty Increases

Improperly dressed (wearing heavy body armor at a formal ballroom dance, wearing swim trunks and nothing else in the middle of a warzone): +1

Personnel already on alert: +1

Dealing with paranoids: +1

Minor anomalous behavior (not following a directive, going a different direction to the crowd): +1

Calling attention to oneself (talking, taking unusual action, etc.): +2

Doing something threatening (pointing a gun at a person's head, unsheathing a knife, etc.): +2

Tripping alarms (not all surveillance is purely hu-man): +3

Hostile action taken: +5 All Difficulty increases for Psychic Invisibility are cu-

mulative.

Invulnerability

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Permanent Effect: Massively decreases the amount of damage the nova takes from a certain form of attack. Multiple Actions: N/A Description: The name “invulnerability” may be not be strictly correct as this defense can be overwhelmed, but a nova with even a single dot of this power is very nearly invul-nerable to a specific form of attack. Against an attack or phe-nomenon which the Invulnerability is applicable to, each dot of Invulnerability subtracts 6 levels of damage after soak (to a minimum of 1 health level of damage) or adds 6 automatic successes per dot to the resistance roll.

The character must choose a single type of attack or phenomenon to which his lnvulnerability applies. Typically this application is based on a given phenomenon (fire attacks) ra-ther than a specific power (Quantum Bolt). Some possible ex-amples include: any one attack form defined by an EIemental Anima or Elemental Mastery (fire, ice, earth, light, magnetism, etc.); one type of physical trauma (piercing attacks like bullets, cutting attacks like blades, or bludgeoning attacks like fists or hammers); or mental powers. Characters may not choose to be invulnerable to “quantum powers,’’ “physical attacks” or “ener-gy attacks.”

Extras

Additional Category: Nova can choose to be In-vulnerable to 1 additional phenomenon per purchase of this Extra. This Extra may be purchased any number of times.

Perfect Invulnerability: The automatic successes applied by Invulnerability apply even if the resistance roll rolls no successes or botches, and Invulnerability may reduce dam-age to 0 after soak.

Mirage

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Manipulation + Mirage Range: Rifle Area: N/A Duration: Concentration Effect: Creates illusions in target’s mind. Multiple Actions: No Description: Unlike Holo, which creates an image that many different characters can see at once, Mirage allows a nova to project an image directly into a single target’s mind. To use Mirage, the nova must spend the necessary quantum points and roll Manipulation + Mirage in a resisted action against the target’s Willpower. If the nova scores more successes, he succeeds in implanting the illusion. The more net successes he has, the more complex and believable the illusion is.

Successes Illusion Intensity One Simple Illusion: change

appearance or nature of existing objects or per-sons; create illusion that there are minor objects or people where none actual-ly exist.

Two Complex Illusion: Change appearance or nature of

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important existing objects or persons; create illusions that there are important objects or people where none actually exist; minor changes to overall envi-ronment.

Three or more Very Complex Illusion: Illu-sion can completely change the target’s envi-ronment or the people and objects around him.

Once the nova establishes the illusion, he must con-centrate on it to maintain it. He will know how the target is re-acting to it, and he can cause it to react accordingly. If the illu-sion does not react as the target expects (For example, some-one who is the target’s friend does not know who he is), the target may make a Perception roll, opposed by an Intelligence + Mirage roll, to break free from the illusion.

Unless the nova achieves three or more successes, a target cannot take damage from illusory attacks, though he might, for example, be tricked into running in front of a car as he reacts to an illusion. At three or more successes, the vic-tim’s mind will cause him to suffer injuries corresponding to those caused by illusory attacks – if shot with an illusory gun, he will take the same damage which he would take from a real gun - but regardless of the type or amount of damage the at-tack would normally do, the damage is Stun damage, and any illusory attacks may only inflict a maximum of (Quantum + power rating) health levels of Stun damage in a single turn.

Nature Mastery

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Perception + Nature Mastery Range: Support Area: Special Duration: Special Effect: Nova can communicate with and summon an-imals and plants. Multiple Actions: No Description: A nova with this power has the ability to communicate with animals and plants. This communication is telepathic, but if the creatures have the ability to make noises or communicate in other mundane fashions, she can under-stand those as well (though she may not be able to reply, and in any event such “languages” are likely to be crude indeed).

Furthermore, the character can emit a telepathic call to summon a particular creature (or any creatures within range) to her side. This call has a range equal to two kilometers per dot in Nature Mastery. Any creatures subject to the call will come to the character at their best speed; plants, of course, cannot move and will not be able to respond. Once in the char-acter’s presence, they will treat her in a friendly fashion and do their best to respond to her requests, though they are not obli-gated to take her orders.

Plants cannot physically uproot themselves; however, characters can attempt to animate foliage in the immediate vi-cinity. For example, trees might club at foes with their branches, while vines might wrap themselves around the character’s en-emies. The system for this power is treated as the Animation technique under the

Molecular Manipulation power, except that the character sub-stitutes her Nature Mastery rating for the Molecular Manipula-tion rating.

Animals and plants will regard a character with Na-ture Mastery as their friend and boon companion until the character does something to prove otherwise. They will not harm her, and they will seek to prevent others from harming her as well. This power does not enable them to overcome their basic natures; the Storyteller should feel free to assign specific personalities to creatures based upon their natures. For example, lions and tigers might seem regal; poison ivy sar-castic and snide; antelopes nervous and edgy. However, what-ever their natures, they will still try to help the character.

Extras

Micro-life: Character can exercise mastery over microscopic life forms down to the level of viruses.

Nova Proxy

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Quantum + Nova Proxy Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Fades at the rate of one dice pool point per (Quantum + power rating) hours. Effect: The nova bestows one of his powers upon a host. Multiple Actions: No Description: With Nova Proxy, a nova can “lend” his power to a nova or baseline. ‘The process takes five turns to complete for another nova or 10 turns for a baseline, after which each success translates as one dot of power transferred to its new host. The giver loses the same amount from his own power rating, regaining it slowly as the proxy loses one dot per (Quantum + power rating) hours.

The process is relatively straightforward when dealing with another nova, who uses the new power by drawing from her own quantum pool. Each time she botches while using her new gift, however, the proxy gains a point of temporary Taint - much like the adverse effects of power strain.

Things are more complex and unhealthy when using a baseline. The nova must spend twice the normal quantum to endow the proxy and needs to spend further points to grant her a Quantum Pool with which to power her new gift. Charging a baseline costs two quantum points for every point the baseline receives. Once the power fades, the baseline also suffers dan-gerous effects. For every dot of power and point of quantum she stored, she suffers 3d of Bashing damage, soakable by Stamina only. If this damage ever incapacitates the character, she gains a low-level aberration. If the baseline proxy ever botches, coruscating quantum energy surges through her system, inflicting two lev-els of Aggravated damage from internal burns.

Extras

Hyperstats: The proxy can be given Mega-Attributes, not just powers. A transferred Mega-Attribute also provides any Enhancements the gifting nova has.

Multiple: The character may share up to (Power Rating) separate powers with one roll and one use of the pow-er.

Sustained: The lent powers no longer fade as long as the character pays maintenance costs for Nova Proxy (ef-

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fectively changing the duration to Maintenance). They fade normally if Nova Proxy is no longer maintained.

Safeguard: The lent powers will not fade if the re-cipient is in a situation where their disappearance will be fatal (such as flying high above the ground for Flight, or being ex-posed to heavy radiation for Invulnerability: Radiation). Howev-er, when the powers fade away a character will be at +3 diffi-culty to all actions due to general lethargy for twice the amount of time as the power fading was delayed.

Phenoptosis

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Stamina + Phenoptosis Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Does massive damage to a living target. A variant, “Slay Machine”, has identical mechanics but only af-fects unliving targets instead. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Termed “Phenoptosis” for the biological phenomenon of programmed organism death, a nova with this power may cause massive damage to living organisms by causing massive cellular breakdown in an unfortunate victim. Novas who use this power may manifest it as killing words, necromantic spells, deadly diseases, envenomed spines, nanotech swarms, or other methods of inflicting horrific injury. When used, Phenoptosis rolls (Stamina + Phenopto-sis) against the opponent’s (Stamina + Endurance), with each net success over the opponent dealing 2 levels of lethal dam-age. Phenoptosis ignores Size and cannot be soaked – how-ever, Hardbody adds an additional (+Mega-Stamina) dice to the resistance roll. Only living targets can be damaged by this attack, it has no effect on objects such as vehicles or robots.

However, a sister power, “Slay Machine”, has identi-cal mechanics but only affects unliving objects such as vehi-cles, buildings, computers, and robots. Slay Machine is resist-ed by half the target’s “armor” pool by default. The ST may ad-just this upwards or downwards by +/- 1-5 dice to represent better or worse hardened targets at his or her discretion.

Extras

Broad Category: The nova can use both Phenop-tosis and Slay Machine,

Necrotic/Entropic: Targets affected by Phenopto-sis are also infected by gangrene. Targets affected by Slay Machine are at +1 difficulty for all actions until repaired.

Precognition

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Perception + Precognition Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Special Effect: Allows character to see into the future. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This sensory power allows the nova to see a very short time into the future. The nova may use it to detect incoming threats, take back actions, or predict how an opponent will act in combat. To take any of these actions, the

nova first rolls Perception + Precognition, adding a number of automatic successes equal to Quantum, with each success al-lowing the nova to see 1 combat round (3 seconds) into the fu-ture. When used to detect threats, the nova is then in-formed of what will happen. Threats which act during that time will be obvious, although it provides no protection against threats which are outside of the timeframe. When used to take back actions, the nova activates Precognition and goes on as if nothing had happened, at any time the precognitive vision covers, the nova may declare that she is ending her precognitive vision and act differently. If the nova does not do so, the ST should assume that she will act exactly as she did in the vision and not let her “rewind time”. If the nova changes her actions, actions which she did not alter will go identically and may not be rerolled unless circumstanc-es have significantly changed. Similarly, other characters will act identically unless circumstances significantly change. If used in combat, an ST may choose to limit it to only altering actions immediately after they are rolled, for the sake of bookkeeping. Finally, when used to predict combat actions, the no-va gains +(power rating) to Initiative and (power rating) addi-tional dice to be added to accuracy or DVs for the duration of the precognitive vision. Adding 1 to a DV costs 2 of these bo-nus dice. This pool may be rearranged turn by turn as the nova sees fit.

Extras

Others: The character’s Precognition may be used to see the immediate future of a character the nova is within (power rating) meters of.

Reactive: The power automatically activates to warn the nova of a danger that will harm the nova within (pow-er rating) combat rounds unless the nova specifically shuts it off.

Quantum Bolt

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Quantum Bolt Range: Rifle Area: N/A Duration: Action Effect: Unleashes a bolt of energy or power Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Quantum Bolt, in its myriad forms, is one of the most common offensive powers used by novas. It al-lows a nova to project a damaging blast of energy at a target. The damage may be either Lethal or Bashing, and the nova can switch between the two. Quantum bolt deals (Power Rating x 6) damage with [Power Rating + (Quantum x 2)] automatic successes and has an AP of (Power Rating) and a Rate of Fire of (Quantum + Power Rat-ing) x 5.

A nova’s Quantum Bolt must be defined as a specific effect when the power is purchased, such as fireballs, railgun shots, laser blasts, magical animated swords, gravity beams, lightning bolts, so on and so forth. A character may gain one of the Extras below for free to define the nature of her Quantum Bolt (or another Extra that could validly apply, such as Area for an explosive fireball or Cloud for a Quantum Bolt defined as an acid blast). This initial Extra does not count towards the pow-er’s Extra limit. Additional Extras may be purchased normally.

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Extras

Charged: The quantum bolt can be charged and focused for additional damage. Aiming the Quantum Bolt in-creases its damage as well as its accuracy. If aimed, the quan-tum bolt gains an equal amount of bonus damage dice as it gains bonus accuracy dice from aiming.

EMP: The quantum bolt can deal EMP damage, as well as bashing or lethal damage.

Hyperkinetic: A character hit by the quantum bolt is knocked back, the attacker rolling his Quantum Bolt dice pool to forcibly move the opponent. Being knocked into a wall or other object deals 2B damage per dot in Quantum Bolt, soaked separately.

Hypervelocity: The character’s quantum bolt is a fast-moving attack such as a laser or bullet. The quantum bolt’s range is increased by 1full range bracket and the attack deals an additional +3 damage. Characters treat the quantum bolt as a bullet for dodging and parrying, and primitive armor halves its soak against the quantum bolt. This quality may be repur-chased. If purchased again, the quantum bolt is parried and dodged as if it was a laser and deals an additional +2 damage (for a total of +5).

Incendiary: The quantum bolt ignores all non-sealed armor and sets targets on fire, effectively gaining the ‘I’ tag. This fire does 6L damage per turn until put out.

Penetrating: The quantum bolt passes through tar-gets without slowing down, providing exceptional penetrating power. If the quantum bolt is not fully soaked by an object (such as cover or a person), it passes through them and deals full damage until it is fully soaked or reaches maximum range. Add 5 to the Quantum Bolt’s AP rating.

Scattershot: The quantum bolt fires a spray of pro-jectiles, much like a shotgun, adding (power rating) to its dam-age with [power rating] additional automatic successes if the target is within 5 meters of the nova. The quantum bolt gains (power rating) to its accuracy.

Quantum Forgery

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Intelligence + Quantum Forgery Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: After a turn of studying a foe, a nova can alter his quantum signature to mirror that of his opponent’s, thereby gaining protection from her attacks. Multiple Actions: No Description: Novas are immune to their own offen-sive effects. Quantum Forgery allows a nova to alter part of his power makeup to mirror an opponent’s immunities. To use Quantum Forgery, a nova must study an active target for a turn (he must see at least one power in use). Then he must roll (In-telligence + Quantum Forgery). Each success reduces the damage of any power used by the nova whose signature is be-ing forged by 2 levels (minimum 0) or adds +2 difficulty to any unwanted power use. This soak applies to any active use of powers but not to collateral damage or indirect power effects. It would apply to Quantum Bolt or Immolate or Disintegrate, but wouldn’t have any effect against a gas main explosion touched off by a Quantum Bolt, or a Mega-Strength punch to the face.

Extras

Total Forgery: In one roll, the nova can gain im-munity to all applicable powers from a single nova opponent.

Quantum Leech

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: Intelligence + Quantum Leech Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Absorbs quantum points from the target Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Many novas fear this power, for it takes from them the one thing they treasure most – quantum power, in the form of quantum points. To use this power, a nova pays one quantum point and touches the victim. The player rolls lntelligence + Quantum Leech against the victim’s Willpower. If the nova wins the contest, he transfers a number of quantum points equal to his (Quantum + power rating) from the victim to his (the nova’s) own Quantum Pool. This transfer even allows the nova to exceed his natural Quantum Pool limit, up to twice his normal Quantum Pool; however, if the nova botches a roll to steal power exceeding his normal limits, he gains one or more points of temporary Taint. He retains those points until he uses them or becomes unconscious (including going to sleep). The nova from whom the points have been leached recovers them in the usual fashion at the normal rate.

Extras

Negative: The nova may reduce the victim to nega-tive quantum points, down to negative (Quantum + Power Rat-ing) quantum pool, but does not gain any points from leeching the opponent below 0. At that point all quantum points gained (from per-turn regeneration, taint, or aggravated damage) must be used to pay this debt off, until the nova has 0 or more quan-tum points remaining.

Quantum Regeneration

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Permanent Effect: Increases the amount of quantum points re-

covered per hour. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Most novas recover the spent quantum

points at a steady, predictable rate - two points per hour while at ease, or four points per hour if completely relaxed. A nova with Quantum Regeneration can recover them far more quickly than that. A nova with Quantum Regeneration recovers at least (power rating) points of Quantum per hour no matter the cir-cumstances. Even in constant high-stress combat, the nova is guaranteed to at least have some level of quantum recovery. Furthermore, a nova with this power multiplies quantum recov-ery rates while at ease or relaxed by (power rating x 2).

Extras

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Adrenal Surge: When placed in a stressful situa-tion, such as combat, the nova gains her permanent Quantum score in quantum points per turn for the first (power rating) turns, much as if she had taken 1 temporary taint to over-charge her free Quantum per turn. This Extra may be pur-chased multiple times, with each purchase adding (power rat-ing) turns of full Quantum recovery.

Overdrive: The nova recovers a number of quan-tum points equal to (power rating) when suddenly put into a new and stressful situation such as an ambush. This may only activate once per scene.

Shockwave

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Shockwave Range: N/A Area: (Quantum + power rating) Duration: lnstant Effect: The nova damages everything around himself. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: The nova unleashes raw power in a

burst radiating from his body. The power manifests depending on the substance, force, or concept the player chooses when she takes this power. For example, the shockwave might be a burst of flame, a blast of lightning, sheer entropy or pure quan-tum energy. It might even manifest simply as a killing intent, bringing enemies to their knees. However, a Shockwave can-not discern friend from foe without appropriate Extras.

Shockwave inflicts (power rating x 4) dice of bashing or lethal damage with [Quantum x 2] automatic successes. Shockwave cannot be blocked without a power or dodged without the ability to move outside of the radius of effect and is considered to have Area rating equal to (Quantum + power rat-ing).

As a variation, the character may alter the shape of the shockwave, changing it into an expanding conical shape that radiates in a specific direction. This variant is considered to have an Area of 1 (a 10m ‘radius’) and a range equivalent to a Handgun.

Extras

Knockback: Characters in the area of effect of the shockwave are thrown to the edge of the area of effect. If they are stopped before that (say, by a wall), they take damage as if they had fallen that distance.

Projected: The shockwave can be projected to any point within Rifle range instead of emitting from the nova, al-lowing it to hit distant targets.

Staggering: The nova’s shockwave is incredibly powerful, bringing enemies slamming to the ground. Charac-ters without Immovable Object, Perfect Balance, or a similar Enhancement with a Mega-Strength lower than the nova’s power rating affected by Shockwave are automatically knocked prone, and may not rise from prone as part of a multiple action.

Selective Targeting: The nova may choose to ex-clude targets from this effect. The tidal wave goes around a group of people, the fire fills the entire area, except one spot, and so forth.

Shroud

Level: 2

Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: (Quantum + [Power Rating * 2]) Duration: Concentration Effect: Creates a field that conceals an area Multiple Actions: Yes Description: The nova creates a field of opaque quantum energy, inky blackness, blinding mist, overwhelming light or other such effect. This field reduces the ability for char-acters to sense what is in the shroud.

When activated, Shroud adds +1 difficulty per dot to any Awareness rolls to see what’s inside the Shroud or any rolls to target characters or objects inside the Shroud. Charac-ters inside the shroud suffer no such penalties.

Extras

Semisolid: Shroud can be formed into a “wall” (with 3 health levels and 2 points of Bashing/Lethal/Aggravated soak per dot in the power) that can absorb attacks against targets inside the shroud. Characters hostile to the nova have halved movement rates inside the shroud.

Sensory Deprivation Field: Shroud affects one additional sense per dot in the power.

Sizemorph

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Character may alter his or her Size Multiple Actions: N/A Description: By channeling quantum forces into his molecular structure, the character may increase or decrease his overall size. The character chooses to be capable of either increasing or decreasing his Size when the power is purchased and may not change this choice. If used to increase size, the character gains these benefits per dot:

+3 Size

+2 Strength

+1 Stamina

+2d to movement rolls

doubled lifting capacities

If used to decrease size, the character gains these traits per dot:

-3 Size

+1 difficulty to movement rolls

halved lifting capacities

Attuned weapons have their Size increased or de-creased alongside the character. At the ST's discretion, a character may change the statistics of the weapons he wields if they are attuned and have their size changed.

Extras

Variable: The character can both increase and de-crease in size by activating this power. The character may choose to grow or shrink in size when the power is activated.

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Strobe

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Wits + Strobe Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: (Power Rating) turns Effect: Each success disables one of the targets senses for one turn. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power allows a nova to project an energy field that disables one of an opponent’s senses tempo-rarily. It is usually used to blind a character’s sight (typically through a flash of bright light or something similar), but it can also deafen a target (through extremely loud focused sound), deprive him of his sense of smell or numb his sense of touch.

The player must choose which sense his power af-fects when he buys it, which cannot be changed thereafter; ex-otic senses, such as ESP and Premonition, are also suscepti-ble to this power. To use the power, he spends the required quantum points and rolls Wits + Strobe. The target normally re-sists with (Stamina + Endurance), but more exotic forms of Strobe may use alternate resistance methods. Each success adds +1 difficulty to any Perception rolls based on the sense, with every 2 successes adding +1 difficulty to rolls which in-volve the sense (so most attacks or defenses for sight, etc.). Five or more successes prevents the target from using the sense at all for the duration of the effect.

Extras

Sensory Deprivation Wave: This power affects one additional sense per dot in the power.

Stun Attack

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 1 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Stun Attack Range: Rifle Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: An attack that can daze or knock out targets. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This attack power is similar to Quantum Bolt, but it does not cause lasting harm to a target. All it can do is daze the target or knock him unconscious. For this reason it has no effect on unliving targets, such as buildings, vehicles or devices. Stun Attack has an attack roll of (Dexterity + Stun At-tack) and does Stun damage equal to (Power Rating x 6) with [Quantum x 2 + Power Rating] automatic successes. Stun at-tack ignores all non-natural soak.

Telekinesis

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Telekinesis Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Characters may lift, move and even harm ob-jects and people without touching them

Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Telekinesis is the ability to lift and move objects without touching them by applying quantum energies to them. This ability may manifest as a mental power, focused winds, energy “tentacles” or “talons,” gravity manipulation, gi-gantic earthen fists rising from the ground, or many other pow-ers. The general form of Telekinesis is chosen when the player chooses this power.

Telekinetic lifting and movement of objects uses standard lifting/throwing rules, replacing (Strength + Might) with (Dexterity + Telekinesis), adding (Quantum) automatic suc-cesses. When comparing static values, each dot of Quantum is an effective +2 to the Dexterity + Telekinesis pool.

When used to enhance non-energy ranged weapons, Telekinesis adds +1 to attack and damage pools for every dot of Telekinesis.

Telekinesis can also be used to attack, using (Dexter-ity + Telekinesis) to aim.

Telekinetic Punches deal (power rating x 3) Bash-ing damage with [Quantum x 2] automatic successes.

Telekinetic Grappling deals (power rating x 2) Bashing damage with [Quantum] automatic successes per turn. This attack acts as a grapple (use the Telekinetic Might pool to contest opponent strength)

Telekinetic Blades deal (power rating x 2) Lethal damage with [Quantum] automatic successes.

Telekinesis is best used for rough manipulations, and fine manipulation with the power is difficult. When used for fine manipulation (aiming and firing a gun, writing your name, etc.), roll either Dexterity + Telekinesis or Dexterity + Ability, which-ever is lower, then halve all successes, rounded down.

Extras

Fine Manipulation: The character no longer halves successes on Dexterity + Telekinesis rolls for fine manipulation. This allows telekinesis to be used to replace various tools as well, reducing difficulty penalties for lacking tools by (Telekine-sis).

Lethal Telekinesis: Telekinesis can now deal Le-thal damage instead of Bashing with punches or grappling. This obsoletes Telekinetic Blades as an attack method.

Nanoscale Manipulation: The character may use Telekinesis to replace all tools. This Extra requires Fine Ma-nipulation.

Teleport

Level: 2 Quantum Minimum: 2 Dice Pool: Perception + Teleport Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Allows a character to move without passing through the intervening space Multiple Actions: No Description: Teleport is an advanced form of move-ment in which a nova does not cross through the intervening space. Instead she simply “disappears” at Point A and “reap-pears” at her desired destination of Point B, bypassing com-pletely any intervening barriers, such as walls or buildings.

In combat, teleportation supplements a character’s normal movement. To move via teleportation, a character rolls (Perception + Teleport), with [Quantum] additional automatic successes, instead of rolling (Dexterity + Athletics). Teleporta-

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tion ignores all environmental movement penalties, making it excellent for traversing difficult terrain. If outside of combat, she may teleport up to 10 kilometers, multiplying this distance by 10 per success after the first.

If a character is unable to see her destination, or is not familiar with it, she is “teleporting blind” and may miss her destination and end up somewhere else. The character must make a Perception + Teleport roll to “hit” her specified destina-tion. The difficulty of this roll is normally +2; it increases to +3 if she is teleporting more than two kilometers, +5 if she is tele-porting more than 20 kilometers and +7 if she is teleporting more than 100 kilometers.

If the nova fails this roll, she misses the target. Fail-ure may put her hours or even days away from her destination, while botching often ends with the nova teleporting inside a sol-id object, dealing 10A damage to the object and nova, and also forces the nova to extricate herself from the object. The nova may choose to willingly teleport into solid objects (or even peo-ple) as a desperate offensive method as well, although people or vehicles may dodge.

Teleporting one’s clothes, carried objects and the like requires attuning them.

Extras

Combat Teleport: Using teleport in combat is now a reflexive action. The character may, for example, teleport to a superior position, then make an attack normally. The character may also “power block” with teleport to teleport out of the way of incoming attacks.

Safe Blind Teleport: Difficulty for teleporting blind is reduced by power rating; if this takes the difficulty below +0, the nova does not need to roll for teleporting blind. Botching a blind teleport will no longer risk teleporting inside a solid object.

Warp: The nova can connect two points in space, creating a gate through which people and objects may pass (as their action for that turn). One side must be within (Quantum + Power Rating) meters of the nova, but the other side can be anywhere within the normal Teleport range. The gate is three meters square by default, but the nova can increase any di-mension by one meter per power rating dot, or make it as small as she likes. If the nova tries to force somebody through the warp (ex. creating a warp beneath the person’s feet), she rolls Perception + Teleport to attack. Maintaining a Warp is a Maintenance action, and the nova may maintain a number of Warps equal to his power rating.

Weaknesses

Contiguous: The nova must transmit herself through some contiguous medium, whether it be power cables, phone lines, shadows or even root systems. Broader catego-ries, which are essentially omnipresent, do not qualify - there-fore, earth, air and water would be excluded, though fire would not.

Level 3 Powers

Armageddon

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 6

Dice Pool: Charisma + Armageddon Range: Theater

Area: (Quantum + power rating) kilometers Duration: One hour The nova calls down a devastating maelstrom to eradicate whatever she wants destroyed. Unlike the Storm power, this power is not designed to create harsh environmen-tal conditions that penalize foes and deal minor damage. In-stead, Armageddon is intended to deal widespread devastation. The nova rolls (Charisma + Armageddon), adding a number of automatic successes equal to Quantum, with each success dealing one die of Bashing damage to humans or vehicles caught in the Armageddon’s area without shelter per minute for the duration of the storm. However, Armageddon is much more devastating to structures and other very large and relatively fragile objects, dealing (Quantum + Power Rating) unsoakable health levels of damage per success to structures in the area of effect. Reinforced structures, such as shelters or military bunkers, might reduce this, down to a minimum of 1 unsoaka-ble health level of damage per success. A powerful nova can often cripple a city with this power, which can easily have ef-fects equivalent to a nuclear strike if properly deployed, but should beware that although calling down the wrath of god is satisfying, this power is almost totally ineffective against mobile foes such as an organized military.

Biomanipulation

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5

Dice Pool: Variable Range: Variable Area: Special Duration: Variable Effect: Character can control and manipulate all basic biological processes. Multiple Actions: Yes

Description: This rare and potent power gives a no-va control over the very forces of life itself. Novas with this power can cure or kill with a touch and can even create new species or cause a seed to grow into a large tree in a matter of moments. The only limit on this power is that it can only be used to affect humans, plants, animals and fungi. Without tak-ing the Affect Microbes Extra, it cannot be used to affect virus-es, bacteria, or any other forms of microscopic life.

Development/Regression

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Biomanipulation Range: Touch Area: N/A or (Quantum + power rating) x 5 meter ra-dius Duration: Special

This ability controls the developmental cycle of living things, and can be used to accelerate or retard growth, or even cause living things to regress through their developmental cy-cle, turning adults into babies and flowers into seeds.

For each success the nova achieves on a Manipula-tion + Biomanipulation roll, the nova may add or subtract up to three years to the growth of any target. Human or animal tar-gets may resist the effect with a Stamina + Resistance roll. The transformation requires one minute per success. Targets with short lifespans like mice or flowers require only a single suc-cess to become fully mature or immature.

If the nova wishes, he may retard the target’s devel-opment or regression. The nova may cause the target to de-

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velop or regress as slowly as he desires. For example, if the nova wanted, he could cause a person to regress at just twice the rate that a normal person develops.

This power cannot make targets artificially old or de-crepit, nor does it necessarily remove infirmities; aging is a separate, if indirectly connected, process from development. However, the subject might experience complications from the transformation. This ability can be used to affect any fungi, plant or animal from a colony of mold to a human being or a tree. While this ability can only be used to affect a single large target like a horse, a human or a tree, it can also be used to affect a large number of small simple entities like a hive of bees, a field of corn or a large patch of mildew.

Body Manipulation

Dice Pool: Stamina + Biomanipulation Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Special This ability allows the nova to control the physiology of a single living target. This ability can mimic the effect of any drug, from alcohol to soma, as well as the effects of any dis-ease or poison. When used to imitate diseases or poisons, this ability is identical to the Poison power. When this power is used against novas, it is a resisted action against the target’s Willpower. This ability merely mimics the effects of various dis-eases and does not create actual diseases. Conversely, this power may be used to heal, as with the Healing power. This same ability can also alter a target’s fertility, causing a flower to release a large cloud of exceptionally fertile pollen or making a human sterile or exceptionally fertile. This can be used to increase nova fertility, too, but only causes a marginal increase: from somewhere around 1/10,000th as fertile as the average baseline human to somewhere closer to 1/1000th. Use of Body Manipulation automatically fails against Psions or Latents. The effects of this power normally last as long as a normal dose of a similar drug would last and can be resisted in the same way. However, the effects of poisons and disease are instant, and the effects of altering a target’s fertility general-ly last for several days. The degree of effect from this power depends on the number of successes rolled: Successes Effects Produced

One Sneezing Fits, Depressants, In-stant Sun Tan

Two Orgasms, Tear Gas, Ampheta-mines, Sterility or Radically In-creased Fertility, Tiredness, In-somnia

Three Mite, Mox, Adrenocelin, Hallucin-ogens, Seizures, Mania or De-pression

Four Red 7, Narcolepsy, Paranoia, Shizophrenia

Five Nerve Gas, Soma, Heart Attacks

Form Manipulation

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Biomanipulation Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Special

This ability allows the nova to alter the shape of other living targets. The number of successes on a Manipulation + Biomanipulation roll determines the level of changes which can be made on a target. Against an unwilling subject, use of the power is at a difficulty of (Willpower + 1). This ability cannot be used to affect novas, including the user; and it cannot be used to give a baseline target Mega-Attributes. The effects of this power are normally permanent. Each net success rolled on a use of Form Manipula-tion may either grant or remove 4 XP of body modifications from a character, or raise/lower one of the character’s physical attributes (or the character’s Appearance) by 1. The transfor-mation requires (# of successes) in minutes to complete. An unwilling character may resist via (Stamina + Resistance or Willpower), with each success reducing the nova’s roll by 1 success. Botching the roll usually has horrifying consequences. If the effect was meant to be beneficial, it’s crippling; if it was meant to be crippling, it usually backfires on the nova himself.

For examples of other possibilities, see the following chart: Successes Changes

One Superficial changes: change skin color, facial structure or similar features, change the target’s ap-parent race, fingerprints or retina prints. Make a target look like an exact copy of anyone else with a similar weight, height and build.

Two Minor changes: Alter the target’s height or build, change the target’s muscle to fat ratio. Change a tar-get’s apparent gender. Disguise anyone as anyone else of approx-imately the same mass.

Three Moderate changes: Change the target’s physical gender, alter the target’s mass by up to a factor of two. Give the target superficial features belonging to other spe-cies (give a human a tail or claws).

Four Major changes: Give the target functional organs and abilities from other species (give a human functional wings, gills or tentacles). Change a target’s mass by up to a factor of four.

Five Extreme changes: Completely change a target’s physical form, create new creatures by mixing traits from several other creatures. Change a target’s mass by up to a factor of 10 (turn a human into a dog, sculpt muscle, flesh and bone like clay).

Extras

Affect Microbes: The character may also use Bi-omanipulation to affect Viruses and Bacteria. This power can-not normally be used to harm novas since they are immune to most normal diseases. However it can be used to cause colo-nies of bacteria to grow at an incredible rate or to create new and exceptionally deadly diseases which can be designed to infect anything from humans to crop plants.

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Mastery

Each level of Mastery adds +1 to the number of times Cure can be used on a character.

Each level of Mastery reduces the time it takes to use Form Manipulation from (# of successes in minutes) to (1/2 # of successes in minutes) for Mastery 1 (round final times up), (# of successes in rounds) for Mastery 2, and (1 round) for Mas-tery 3. At Mastery 1, the nova may affect other novas with Form Manipulation. However, the effect wears off after a num-ber of days equal to the manipulator’s Quantum rating. At Mas-tery 2, the effect is permanent unless the recipient spends 1 willpower to negate the changes. However, novas gain (Quan-tum) automatic successes on any resistance roll and must re-sist even if willingly undergoing biomanipulation.

Bodymorph

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Stamina + Bodymorph Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Allows character to take on aspects of one specific type of matter or energy. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Bodymorph is a powerful ability pos-sessed by only a few novas. It allows the nova to transform her body into a specific type of matter or energy. For example, she could transform her body to rock, to fire, to wind or to computer chips and circuitry. The player must choose what form that the character can assume when he buys the power.

The player assigns a number of points equal to ([Bodymorph x 2] + Quantum) between Enhancements, Body Modifications, and dots in Level 1 and 2 quantum powers. En-hancements and Body Modifications cost a single point, while powers cost a number of points equal to their power level. When transforming, all Bodymorph powers activate simultane-ously. The powers derived from Bodymorph cost no quantum points to use while transformed. Extras may be bought for Bodymorph at normal cost; any applicable extras may be ap-plied to a use of a power granted by Bodymorph.

The character may transform herself automatically. However, the character’s dots in Bodymorph define how effec-tive the change is. It is up to the player to define where his character’s Bodymorph dots are allocated, subject to Storytell-er approval, but once they are defined, they cannot be changed. For example, when creating a character with a rock body, a player whose character has Quantum 4 might buy Bodymorph 4 and assign eight points to Armor 4 and his re-maining four points to Density Control (Increase) 2. He cannot change that allocation later. Of course, if he buys another dot of Bodymorph with experience points he can decide what ben-efits that brings.

Here are some guidelines for the general properties of some forms:

Stone/metal/hard solid: Bodymorph dots often translate into levels of Density Control (Increase), Armor or Claws.

Liquid/amorphous: Bodymorph dots can translate into equivalent dots of Density Control (Decrease), Poison or Immolate (for characters who turn into acid). At least one

Bodymorph dot must be assigned to Density Control (De-crease).

Gas: Among other things, Bodymorph dots can translate into equivalent dots of Density Control (Decrease), Poison, Flight or Storm (allows the character to become a whirling tornado, thus inflicting the equivalent of the Storm technique in her immediate vicinity). At least one Bodymorph dot must be assigned to Density Control (Decrease).

Energy. Bodymorph dots might be assigned to Im-molate, Invulnerability (to the appropriate energy type), Quan-tum Bolt, the Electromagnetic Vision enhancement, Barrier, or Density Control (Decrease) dots.

Shadow: Characters composed of “shadow” exist in an eerie two-dimensional world where most solid substances melt like hot caramel. The nova can slip under doors, evade at-tacks and conceal himself more easily. Shadowforms must have at least one dot of Density Control (Decrease). Body-morph dots can be assigned to Invisibility, Stretching, Shroud, and similar powers.

These are general guidelines only; players can allow Bodymorph dots to represent a number of powers (or even in-vent their own) subject to the Storyteller’s approval. Many of the techniques listed under Elemental Anima and Elemental Mastery are suitable as Bodymorph powers. However, all Bodymorph powers are available only while the character is transformed. Ultimately, the Storyteller must arbitrate the use of this power.

Mastery

The normal bonuses to Mastery do not apply to indi-vidual powers emulated by Bodymorph. Instead, Mastery dou-bles/triples/quadruples the number of points that can be as-signed to powers.

Clone

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5 Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: One scene Effect: Creates up to (Power Rating) duplicates of

the nova. Multiple Actions: No Description: This power allows a nova to create

“clones” of himself from quantum energies and nearby mole-cules. To use it, he spends three quantum points per duplicate he wishes to create (up to the maximum listed above).

Clones are exact duplicates of the character - they have the same Attributes, Abilities, powers, clothes and equipment (except that clones do not have the Clone power). They are separate persons in a game sense; if one is knocked unconscious or killed, the others are not affected. Clones do not have any sort of telepathic link; they communicate by talk-ing. Clones are not linked in any way other than described be-low.

Clones share their creator’s quantum pool and Quantum rating-all powers they use will pull from the creator’s quantum pool and count towards the creator’s Quantum per turn limit. They will not provide additional free quantum per turn.

It takes one turn for a nova to create clones, but the character can do nothing else during that turn (not even walk-ing). Once created, clones remain for a scene or until they “re-

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combine” with the original character. To recombine, the creator must only touch the clone he wants to merge into himself; again, they can perform no other action during that turn..

If a nova melds with his clones, he may absorb their memories. If they dissipate or are killed, then he may not ac-cess their memories. Maintenance powers must be separately maintained, and equipment is not duplicated without attuning them. Clones fade at the end of the scene or upon losing their last Incapacitated health level to any form of damage. Clones are also vulnerable to Disrupt and take damage from it as any other quantum construct. Even permanent clones have these two vulnerabilities.

If a character has more Clones active than he can support (due to whatever reason, such as Eclipsidol, Mox, or Disrupt) all excess clones take 5 Aggravated health levels eve-ry turn (or every 3 seconds) until dead.

Extras

Backup: If the nova is killed with a Clone still active, one of the Clones becomes the nova in every way, shape, and form, losing their vulnerability to Disrupt and does not dissolve when Incapacitated. They retain any current damage, though, so if all a nova's clones are badly wounded, they may still be killed.

Extra Clones: The character may now support up to [Quantum x power rating] clones.

Mental Link: All clones are in telepathic contact with each other.

Colossus

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 6 Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Character can surround herself with a mas-

sive exoskeleton made of quantum forces. Multiple Actions: Yes

This enables the nova to weave a nigh-invulnerable exoskeleton around herself, constructed from a substance of the nova’s choosing. The process takes 1 round of total con-centration. The result is a mecha made of the substance, standing (Colossus x 4) meters tall, with the nova at the center. This exoskeleton provides the nova with additional strength, speed and power, granting the benefits and costs below.

Improved Strength: The nova gains (Quantum + power rating x 2]) dots of Strength and (Quantum x 2) automat-ic successes on Strength-based rolls for damage and feats of strength only. This additional strength does not increase close combat accuracy. Colossi deal Lethal damage with close com-bat attacks due to their size and raw power.

Increased Speed, Jumping and Carrying Capaci-ty: Multiply the nova’s movement speeds and lifting/throwing capacity by (power rating x 2). This applies to all of the nova’s methods of movement, including ones granted by powers. The Colossus multiplies jump distances and heights by the same amount.

Quantum Attunement: The nova is attuned to the giant he rides in, allowing the nova to channel his other powers through the colossus, with a few exceptions. Neither Density Decrease nor Bodymorph affects the colossus. However, the nova can increase his titan’s toughness via Barrier, and he can channel Mega-Attributes through the exoskeleton. For stacking

purposes, the colossus’ soak is considered to be entirely ar-mored soak.

Quantum Cost: Taking actions other than moving the Colossus costs one point of quantum per turn, two points of quantum if the character takes more than one action. This charge is not reduced by Reduced Quantum Cost, nor is it re-duced by making Colossus Permanent.

Size: The Colossus is a very large object, and has a Size equal to (power rating + 5).

Toughness: In general, the Colossus must be de-stroyed before the nova can take damage. Colossi have soak equal to ([Quantum x 2] + [5 x power rating]). It also has health levels equal to ([5 x Quantum] + [10 x power rating]). Damage that overcomes the Colossus’ health levels destroys it, and a destroyed Colossus may not be resummoned until the end of the scene.

Extras

Amplifier: The Colossus enhances offensive pow-ers when active. Add (power rating/2), rounded up, to the effec-tive Power Rating and Quantum of a character using any of-fensive powers such as Quantum Bolt for the purposes of range and damage. However, the attack costs double its nor-mal quantum point cost and is now considered to have a Size equal to the Colossus’s. This does not affect any other qualities a power has.

Weaponized: The Colossus has up to (power rat-ing) weapons systems or vehicle upgrades. Choose weapons and vehicle upgrades from the Equipment list. This Extra may be taken multiple times, with each purchase adding (power rat-ing) weapons or upgrades.

Cyberkinesis (Suite)

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Variable Range: Thrown/Special Area: Special Duration: Special Effect: Controls computers and machines Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Cyberkinesis is the ability to manipulate machines, particularly electronic machines and computers, en-compassing a variety of related abilities. The character does not have to possess any relevant Abilities (like Engineering) in order to use these abilities, but it is not uncommon for cyberki-netics to know such skills. Most computers are easy for a cyberkinetic to intrude upon, but tougher ones may add difficul-ty, as noted below. Note that as Cyberkinesis is a quantum power rather than an ability, the difficulty of a Cyberkinesis roll should rarely, if ever, be higher or even equal to the difficulty of a hacking roll to do the equivalent. Such cases are exclusive to computers that are specifically hardened against quantum powers. Cyberkinesis works best against unshielded conven-tional computer systems. Computers using exotic computa-tional methods (such as quantum computers or mechanical computers) or objects with no controlling electronics are ma-nipulated by Cyberkinesis at +2 difficulty. Computers shielded against EMP and external threats, such as the ones found in military vehicles or secure NORAD servers, may add another +2 difficulty to the roll.

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Computer Type Difficulty Personal (PC, smartphone, iPod) +0 Official (corporate workstation) +1 Secure (corporate server) +2 Very Secure (tank or fighter computers) +3 Hardened (computers with sensitive info) +4 Critical (Pentagon servers) +6 Data Fortress (NSA supercomputers) +8 or more

Although normally Cyberkinesis has a range of a few dozen meters, a cyberkinetic can also send his consciousness through a computer network, allowing him to affect a distant computer, if he can locate the machine at all (typically a Hack-ing feat). Doing so costs one Willpower, requires total concen-tration (no other actions) and raises the difficulty of the skill roll as follows: Distance Interval Difficulty Same city Three turns +1 Same country One minute +2 Same continent 10 minutes +3 Transcontinental One hour +4

Extras

Branding: After affecting a computer or device with Cyberkinesis, the nova locks it against other characters’ cyberkinetic intrusions for (power rating) days. Other cyberki-netics must get the nova’s permission to use cyberkinesis on a branded system, otherwise they add +(power rating) difficulty to all cyberkinesis rolls to affect the device and alert the nova who added the Brand on a failed roll. The nova may Brand up to (Quantum + power rating) computers at once.

Network Effect: The character affects (Quantum x power rating) linked computers simultaneously.

Long-Distance: The nova no longer suffers difficul-ty or interval penalties for hacking distant computers.

Technopathic: The character takes no penalty for affecting machinery without electronics or exotic computers.

Alter Data

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: Concentration Upon a successful lntelligence + Cyberkinesis roll,

the cyberkinetic can interface with a computer or similar piece of equipment to alter, read or remove existing data or insert or create new information. This allows the character to make (Power Rating) changes to the information on an electronic storage device in a combat round, where one change is adding, editing, deleting, or reading a single program or file. This can be used to reprogram a computer or install new software, not just alter documents and settings. Each success on the roll past that doubles the number of changes or reads that can be done. Any changes to or deletions of information are perma-nent; the data must be reentered into the computer by hand.

Control

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: Concentration The cyberkinetic can take control of any machine.

The cyberkinetic rolls Manipulation + Cyberkinesis (remember-ing to factor in the difficulty of affecting the target machine). A success allows the character to input any commands into the machine, bending it to his will.

The cyberkinetic may provide input, but may not pro-vide power—thus, more primitive machines which have no way of processing inputs and rely exclusively on muscle or wind power are utterly useless even if controlled. For example, as most older firearms require the trigger to be pulled to move the firing pin and require human hands to move their fire selector, using Control on them will allow literally nothing. Therefore, cyberkinetics tend to use Control only on electronically-managed devices such as modern cars, tanks, robots, and air-craft.

Fool

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: Duration The cyberkinetic can insert false images in sensors,

security systems or communications devices. The false images that can be produced are identical to those created by Mirage, save for the fact that it only works on electronics, may be used on an entire system at once rather than just one mind at a time, and uses a different dice pool.

Opening

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: Special The character leaves behind a residual quantum

“daemon” that detects and attempts to subvert efforts at secur-ing the target computer. When someone attempts to install or activate security features, they must get at least as many suc-cesses on a computer roll as the nova has levels of Cyberkine-sis. If a given roll would normally succeed but is blocked by Opening, the programmer or administrator can tell something’s wrong; on a failure or botch, everything looks fine. A roll that gets twice as many successes as the nova has levels of Cyberkinesis disrupts the Opening effect and prevents further interference for the rest of the scene.

A single success creates a quantum daemon strong enough to interfere with security efforts for one scene. Extra successes provide more daemons. These quantum daemons can linger in a computer for a maximum of (Quantum + power rating) days and dissipate at the rate of one per day.

Overload

Dice Pool: Wits + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: Instant The cyberkinetic overloads an electronic device in

some way - sends a pulse of electricity or electromagnetic en-ergy through it, stresses it so that it jams or seizes up. Each net success on the nova’s Wits + Cyberkinesis roll adds +1 dif-ficulty to any rolls made to use the machine. If the difficulty is increased above +4, all electronics in the target fail. Hardened systems with redundant backups such as most military com-puters and corporate servers will compensate for the damage, reducing the difficulty increase by 1 per turn.

Mastery

At Mastery 1, the nova gains Animation, Possession and Synchronization.

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Animation

Dice Pool: Wits + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance The nova makes one or more machines, up to (power

rating) machines per success, “come to life.” They move in any way that they are built to; a computer-controlled car affected by Animation, therefore, would be able to drive around at the no-va’s behest, but a desktop computer would still just sit there.

Unlike Control, the character may also provide power. This means they can, for example, make purely mechanical devices like early 20th century cars act independently.

Possession

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance The nova shifts his consciousness into the network;

his body falls into a coma-like state (unless he’s using Com-partmentalized Mind). He can move at lightspeed through the network and occupies an effective space about (power rating) x 100 meters across. Damage must affect more than half of the networked computers in that space to affect him. He has full access to all the sensory attachments available to computers in the target space (and whatever machines beyond that they can issue commands to) and can use mental powers of his own. He can issue commands to computers in his space. If it’s phys-ically possible for the hardware to do something, he can con-struct a string of instructions to make it possible. He can also modify software and data to his heart’s content. It requires a Hacking roll to pierce encrypted data and data in languages the nova doesn’t speak.

Synchronization

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Cyberkinesis Area: N/A Duration: N/A The nova can make a number of machines all take on

the hardware and software configuration of the machine he designates. This power allows him to reset all software, and to modify hardware insofar as there’s provision for software in-structions to change it. Each success lets him synchronize (power rating) computers networked together or a single com-puter that isn’t networked to the source machine but is within (Quantum + power rating) x 10 meters. Synchronization can’t install new software or change hardware specifications - ma-chines with differing capabilities get as close as they can, but don’t magically change into something they’re not.

Disintegration

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Disintegrate Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Instant Effect: Inflicts Aggravated damage Multiple Actions: No Description: This terrifying power is the most com-

mon method for a nova to deal aggravated damage to a target. To use it, the player simply aims the power via Dexterity + Dis-

integrate and hopes to hit the target. This inflicts (Power Rating x 5) dice of aggravated damage with [Quantum x 2] automatic successes.

Extras

Rending: A target damaged by Disintegrate loses (power rating x 2) from all soak values until the damage is healed, natural soak first, then armored, then power-granted. This soak re-duction does not stack with multiple uses of Disintegrate on the same target.

Entropy Control (Suite)

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Intelligence + Entropy Control Range: Variable Area: Variable Duration: Special Effect: Character can control and manipulate entropy. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A character with this suite of abilities is

a master of the forces of entropy that are always at work in the universe. His quantum consciousness is able to tap into, sum-mon and manipulate entropy the same way other novas play with fire or ice.

Bioentropic Vortex

Dice Pool: Stamina + Entropy Control Range: N/A Area: (Power Rating) Duration: Instant The nova turns herself into a sort of entropic black

hole, absorbing the effects of entropy on other people and ob-jects in the area. Each success lets the nova transfer one level of damage from another person to herself, or take on one die’s worth of penalty due to mental confusion and the like. The no-va may choose how to apply each success, gaining a subcon-scious knowledge of entropic problems within the area. The nova may use one success to start a stopped machine, repair one specific break in a mechanical or electronic device and so on; each of these improvements inflicts a level of Bashing damage on the nova. Canceling other novas’ uses of entropy- and chaos-manipulating requires one success at Bioentropic Vortex to negate one success on the cancelled power’s roll and inflicts on the nova one level of Bashing damage per success used this way.

The nova takes damage that is in some way evoca-tive of the transferred entropic harm: scars that resemble re-paired fractures, for instance.

Bioentropy Storm

Dice Pool: Stamina + Entropy Control Range: Handgun Area: (Power Rating) Duration: Instant The player using Bioentropy Storm rolls (Stamina +

Entropy Control) once, adding [Quantum] automatic successes to the roll. Each opponent resists separately, rolling (Stamina + Resistance) against the nova's accumulated successes. The nova inflicts 1 level of unsoakable Lethal damage per each net success. All affected posthumans (Psions and Novas, and any other Inspired) add 1 automatic success to their (Stamina +

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Resistance) roll, and the Hardbody Enhancement adds an ad-ditional (Mega-Stamina) dice to resist Bioentropy Storm. Alt-hough the storm does pass through walls and obstacles, such an action weakens it and grants an automatic success to the resistance roll for every 4 soak the wall provides (most thin walls provide no protection, while concrete walls will generally add 1-2 successes). Fully sealed body armor provides an addi-tional success to the resistance roll.

Breakdown

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Entropy Control Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Special The nova targets a machine, causing cascade fail-

ures in its hardware, software, and structure. This causes damage and disables the target, but may only be used against complex mechanical systems such as cars, trucks, guns, and ships. The ST is the final arbiter as to whether something is a valid target for Breakdown.

When used, Breakdown rolls (Intelligence + Entropy Control) against a dice pool equal to half the target vehicle or building’s armor rating. The ST may adjust this by +/- 1-5 dice to represent objects which are more or less hardened against systems failure. Each net success the nova rolls deals 2 levels of unsoakable lethal damage which ignores Size.

Entropic Front

Dice Pool: Perception + Entropy Control Range: Rifle Area: (Quantum + Power Rating) Duration: Maintenance The nova alters the strength of entropic forces in the

target area. In one half of the area, designated by the nova, en-tropy increases, while on the other side, entropy decreases by the same amount. Each success adds +1 difficulty to all rolls to resist mechanical or electronic failure, worsening of medical complications and the like on the high-entropy side and adds one die to all rolls to resist such things on the low-entropy side.

Point of Failure

Dice Pool: N/A Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Special The nova can designate one particular part of the tar-

get inanimate object as the point where the next mechanical, electrical or electronic failure will take place. If the point the no-va wants to select isn’t visible or is otherwise unobvious, at the Storyteller’s discretion, the nova must also make a successful roll against the relevant Ability to properly identify the point of failure. The nova may spend extra quantum while using Point of Failure; each point spent adds +1 to the roll that will be re-quired to fix the failure once it happens. Point of Failure doesn’t make the failure happen any sooner or any more catastrophi-cally. It just indicates where failure will come.

Probability Corruption

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Entropy Control Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance

The player rolls Intelligence + Entropy Control versus the target’s Wits + Luck (+2 if the defender also has the Lucky merit, -2 if the defender the Bad Luck flaw). Each net success removes 1 success from the result of any roll the opponent makes, up to (Entropy Control) successes removed. Further-more, a character affected by this power botches any non-opposed failed rolls and any opposed roll where he or she scores 0 or fewer successes.

Serial Order

Dice Pool: Wits + Entropy Control Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Special The nova can affect exactly when in a series of simi-

lar events a particular outcome takes place. A single success on the Serial Order roll lets the nova specify the first half or last half of the sequence, and each additional success doubles the resolution. At two successes, the nova can specify which quar-ter of the sequence will have the result he wants, at three suc-cesses, which eighth, and so on. Thus, a nova can say “in this run of coin flips, heads will come up here,” “in this assembly run, there’ll be a defective unit there” or “the person in this dis-trict who votes for candidate X will show up at this time.” Serial Order can’t make an event more or less probable - if it takes an average of one thousand units made on the assembly line to produce a unit with the defect that nova’s interested in, he has to apply Serial Order to the whole 1,000-unit run.

A nova can only use Serial Order to one series of events at a time.

Extras

Entropic Selectivity: The nova can specify what targets the power affects-“only against wounded”, “only against enemies”, and so on. The nova may also specify that a tech-nique automatically inflicts no more than a particular level of damage or takes effect only when a certain condition is met.

Mastery

For every level of Mastery, the nova may keep track of an extra series, using Serial Order. At Mastery 1, the nova gains Failure and Stability. At Mastery 2, the nova gains Point of Attraction and Stabilization.

Failure

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Entropy Control Range: Heavy Area: (Quantum + [Power Rating * 2]) Duration: N/A The nova specifies a particular kind of mechanical,

electrical or electronic failure - a short circuit, a lubrication fail-ure, a gear slippage or the like. Every machine within the area targeted experiences that failure if possible. Machines with special shielding may get a chance to resist, pitting their de-fenses against the nova’s Quantum + power rating; others simply break right then and there.

Stability/Instability

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Entropy Control Range: N/A Area: 1 region (roughly 1 km radius) Duration: (Power Rating) days

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The nova reinforces physical and social changes in the affected area so that things just don’t change very much. The successes on the Stability roll add dice to rolls to resist mechanical or electronic failure, to resist disease (and subtract from rolls to treat conditions in effect when the nova creates Stability), to fend off persuasion or the inculcation of new ideas and so on. Physical aging, weathering and the like do take place. The effect wears off when people and objects leave the area and only affects later arrivals whose Willpower is less than or equal to the successes on the Stability roll. Outsiders may make a Perception roll to notice the sameness of it all, af-ter one scene in the target area.

The nova may also invoke intense Instability: Things break more easily, people get sick and well more easily, it’s easy to sell new ideas to people and hard to keep them think-ing the same way, and so on.

Point of Attraction

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Entropy Control Range: N/A Area: 1 region (roughly 1 km radius) Duration: (power rating) days The nova creates a physical or mental “strange at-

tractor,” a center of subconscious attention. If the point is physical, people in the area must make

a Willpower roll and get more successes than the nova did on the Point of Attraction roll to resist the urge to gather at that point. Loose objects, self-propelled toys and the like tend to end up somewhere near the point of attraction. They don’t ac-tually roll uphill, but drift by random motion or strange coinci-dence across level surfaces.

If the point is mental, everyone in the area must make a Willpower roll, again needing more successes than the nova got on the Point of Attraction roll, to avoid adopting a particular one-sentence concept the nova specifies. Those who succumb add one die per Point of Attraction success to their attempts to resist efforts to change their minds. People who get no suc-cesses at all on their Willpower rolls become obsessed by the idea, developing some suitable derangement for the duration of the power. Even after the power wears off, those who were af-fected tend to find the idea attractive.

Example: The Ebon Claw decides that he’d like to settle down somewhere. Rather than go through and purge everyone in the area who might interfere with his schemes, he uses Point of Attraction to implant the notion that his enterpris-es are vital to the well-being of the neighborhood. Anyone try-ing to stop him jeopardizes the health and prosperity of every-one in town.

He gets five successes. Anyone in the area attempt-ing to get in his way must get at least five successes on a Will-power roll - many people have no chance of this at all, and even strong-willed people face a steep challenge, thereby giv-ing the Ebon Claw time to work out longer-term defenses.

Synchronization

Dice Pool: lntelligence + Entropy Control Range: N/A Area: 1 region (roughly 1 km radius) Duration: (power rating) days The nova creates quantum “buffers” that gently steer

people and objects away from potential collisions. People natu-rally walk and drive in ways that lead to near-misses rather than accidents. Lines of people in public places and the flow of traffic on freeways remains orderly. Stones in an avalanche (or

an asteroid belt) follow complex trajectories that won’t end in impact until after the Synchronization ends. Debris thrown by sports fans at a losing team won’t collide with the other thrown pieces or with the players on the field.

Everyone in the area adds one die per success on the Synchronization roll to efforts to avoid collisions and the like. The effect wears off once people leave the target area and doesn’t apply to people who enter the area after the nova uses Synchronization unless their Willpower is equal to or less than the number of successes rolled.

A nova inclined toward chaos can also use Synchro-nization to establish subtle patterns of disharmony; in this case, the successes on the Synchronization roll subtract from efforts to avoid collisions.

Information Manipulation

(Suite)

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5 Dice Pool: lntelligence + lnformation Manipulation Range: Thrown Area: One person or one object no larger than a per-

son Duration: Variable Effect: Character can manipulate information in vari-

ous forms Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A character with this power can work di-

rectly on the information contained in physical objects, the en-vironment and other people’s minds. It overlaps somewhat with powers that command various parts of the world around the nova, but unlike them, it doesn’t affect matter or energy as such. It deals with the information itself - the content and meaning of physical artifacts, energetic processes and symbols.

At the Storyteller’s discretion, Taint in the target may add a difficulty penalty. Information Manipulation relies on deep structures in the human mind and physical universe, and Taint can change both. Mind-warping Taint may raise the difficulty by as much as +1 per level of Taint, while not-directly-related Taint raises difficulty +1 for every two or three levels of Taint.

Coherence

Duration: See below The nova can extract the intended message from

garbled or distorted impressions. With this technique, the nova can filter out static, gain an impression of the contents of a shredded letter, fill in the gaps while listening to someone talk who gets periodically drowned out and the like. Each success gives the nova one turn (in combat) or one minute (outside combat) of clear comprehension.

Coherence doesn’t automatically provide translation or other context, just the signal itself. The nova uses her usual reading speed when appraising written information.

Disinformation

Duration: Maintenance The nova can alter the meaning of the target’s com-

munication, whether the target is a particular person or an arti-fact no larger than a person. The nova doesn’t get to specify in detail what the outcome is, but can indicate a general effect, such as making a love song sound like an angry, cynical de-

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nunciation, or turning a challenge to combat into a surrender. People attempting to understand the target’s real intent must make a Perception + Awareness rolls to pick up the cues be-neath the nova’s alterations, and must get more successes than the nova got on the Disinformation roll.

Example: The Hollyhock Goddess has gotten tired of the particularly virulent anti-nova rantings of a wingnut preach-er in Oregon. Since her various research projects are all in or-der for the moment, she sets out to make his life miserable. She uses simple disguises to mingle with the crowd and then applies Disinformation from a safe distance (several dozen me-ters, given her power level). She turns his anti-nova rants into tirades against some randomly chosen target: the price of toilet paper, the color of the sky, whatever seems likely to bewilder the audience of bigots. With lntelligence 5, Mega-lntelligence 3 and Information Manipulation 5, she routinely gets six or more successes on her Disinformation rolls, and few of her audience beat that on their Perception + Awareness rolls to discern the preacher’s true intent.

Information Void

Duration: Maintenance The nova can destroy the meaning in the target’s

communication. This power affects one person or an artifact no larger than a person. With a single success, the nova renders the target’s message into utter gibberish. With three or more successes, the target seems to make sense, it’s just that oth-ers in the area realize later they retain no concept of the tar-get’s intent. Information Void doesn’t just affect language, but extends to body language, telepathy and other non-verbal ex-pression as well.

Steganography

Duration: Special The nova can conceal one message inside another.

The concealed message must be no longer than the overt one: no more words if it’s written or spoken, no longer in duration if recorded and so on. The concealed message manifests itself once triggered. The nova can specify the trigger conditions as widely or as narrowly as he liked: when the message is ac-cessed by a particular person, whenever someone with red hair reads it, when the temperature rises above freezing, one year later or whatever strikes his fancy. The message then re-mains visible (or audible or however it manifests) for (Quantum + power rating) turns. At the end of this time, it disappears and leaves no residue.

Anyone searching for the concealed message must achieve more successes on the relevant inquiry roll than the nova got on the Steganography roll.

Translation

Duration: Maintenance The nova selects an individual person or a particular

object no larger than a person (a book, an inscribed pillar, etc.). If successful, the nova experiences the intent of the person’s communication or the meaning in the object. Translation over-lays the nova’s native language on the target’s speech or prose: the original remains visible or audible, just faint. With three successes, the effects of the Translation become percep-tible to everyone in the area, rather than just the nova (if the nova so chooses). Each success thereafter lets the nova add another language or communication form, so that others who

don’t know the nova’s first Translation choice can also share in the experience.

Transposition

Duration: Maintenance The nova selects two targets, either individual people

or objects no larger than a person. If the Transposition roll succeeds, the information content of the two targets swaps. If both targets speak, listeners hear one deliver the other’s message, if the targets are books or inscription, readers Find the meaning of one in the other, and so on. With three successes, the nova can add in a third target, plus one more per successes thereafter. This power does extend to the targets’ minds - a telepath reading one target’s mind would en-counter the other target’s thoughts.

Extras

Extended Duration: the nova can spend extra suc-cesses to increase the duration by 10 times

Magnetic Manipulation

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Wits + Magnetic Manipulation Range: Handgun Area: (Power Rating) Duration: Concentration Effect: Character is able to manipulate magnetism

and magnetic fields. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with this power is a master of

magnetism. She is able to lift and move metallic objects, pro-ject magnetic blasts and pulses and otherwise control and ma-nipulate the forces of magnetism. If this power is active, a nova may Parry any incoming metal attack, using Dexterity+ Mag-netic Mastery as the dice pool. The character may automatical-ly make a Perception + Magnetic Mastery roll to accomplish minor feats like sensing magnetic north, gauging the strength of local magnetic fields, and the like. The nova also gains the ability to alter magnetic fields, as follows:

The nova can also create an intense magnetic field in a given area. This field interferes with electronic equipment. Each success achieved on a Wits + Magnetic Mastery roll im-poses a difficulty penalty of one for any tasks attempted by or with electronic equipment. At the Storyteller’s option, some shielded equipment may be able to resist this effect with a “Stamina” roll.

Matter Chameleon

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Stamina + Matter Chameleon Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Allows character to duplicate properties of

specific types of matter. Multiple Actions: No Description: Matter Chameleon is similar to

Bodymorph, but instead of allowing a character to assume only one form, it gives her the power to have her body take on the properties of any type of matter or energy she touches. If she

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touches rock, her body becomes as durable and strong as stone. If she touches tear gas, she becomes intangible and can blind people with her touch. If she touches water, she can flow through pipes and ignore many forms of attack. If she touches fire, she becomes a living flame.

To use Matter Chameleon, the nova must pay the power cost and touch the form of matter or energy whose properties she wishes to assume, and rolls Stamina + Matter Chameleon. Even one success is sufficient to allow her to as-sume the properties of that form; as long as she keeps paying quantum points, she will retain those properties. While so ‘camouflaged’, the nova is entirely immune to any damaging or detrimental effects the substance may cause, and will affect others in the same way on touch (a nova using Matter Chame-leon to become nerve gas touching you will affect you just like nerve gas).

Specific Traits granted by Matter Chameleon depend on the material copied—copying steel or concrete would give additional density, strength, and soak, while copying fire would likely duplicate Immolate and Density Decrease. Each success gained on the Stamina + Matter Chameleon roll allows the no-va to emulate 1 dot of a Level 1 or 2 power, emulate a single body modification, Extra, or Enhancement, gain an extra tem-porary -0 health level, or add +2 to a physical attribute. Howev-er, the nova may not gain more than (power rating) dots in a single power from Matter Chameleon, nor may the nova add more than (power rating x 2) to any single physical attribute.

Matter Chameleon also allows the character to selec-tively choose how the matter she is “disguised” as interacts with her. A nova using matter chameleon on a solid may “phase” through that matter at walking speed, while a nova us-ing matter chameleon to emulate a liquid may walk on the liq-uid as if it was solid.

Extras

Chimeric Chameleon: The nova may adopt traits from multiple materials or energy forms simultaneously.

Matter Memory: If the nova has used Matter Cha-meleon to emulate the properties of a substance she may al-ways do so, even without access to the substance.

Matter Creation

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5 Dice Pool: Wits + Matter Creation Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: (Quantum + Power Rating) days/Special Effect: Creates matter of various sorts Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with Matter Creation can literally

create matter out of nothingness. He can create matter in its raw form - such as ordinary iron or wood - or he can create ac-tual objects and devices – such as a sword, computer or chair.

When creating raw materials, the nova simply rolls Wits + Matter Creation. On a success, the character creates up to 1kg of the chosen raw materials, multiplying this number by 10 for each additional success (so 10 kg with 2 successes, 1000 kg for 4 successes, 100,000 kg for 6 successes). The no-va may create less material than possible if he so wishes. Ra-dioactive raw materials are created at +2 difficulty. and sub-stances the nova is unfamiliar with or have exotic properties (such as graphene or eufiber) are created at +3 difficulty. Sub-stances which have extremely exotic properties or properties

that violate convntional physics, (such as cavorite, dark matter, magnetic monopoles, matter with negative energy, neutronium, and so forth) add an additional +5 difficulty to the roll.

If a nova seeks to create working objects and devices, consult the chart below for additional difficulties. Note that the nova must be able to create the required quantity of raw mate-rials first.

Additional Difficulty Object’s Complexity +0 Simple Objects: No moving

parts (books, furniture, knives, cups)

+1 Complex Objects: Moving parts (pre-21st century guns, steam engines, me-chanical clocks)

+2 Simple Devices: May use electrical power but not in-tegrated circuits (early 20th century vehicles, lights, mechanical computers)

+3 Complex Devices: May use integrated circuitry (modern vehicles, railguns, fighter aircraft, computers)

+4 Nanotechnology: Uses mo-lecular-scale manufactur-ing (Nanokill, modern nan-otech medicines, assem-bler nanomachines)

At the Storyteller’s option, creating complicated de-

vices may require the character to have the skills necessary to build such a device from scratch. This generally means an abil-ity rating equal to the added difficulty.

Once created, the substance or object remains in ex-istence for (Quantum + power rating) days. However, anything the substance or object does during that time exists perma-nently. Mega-Intelligent novas with this power and time to spare often use this loophole to “bootstrap” themselves, using Matter Control to create an extremely advanced toolkit or nanofactory, which then produces the object they actually want. A substance or object made via Matter Creation can be made permanent; to do so, a nova must sacrifice a number of permanent quantum pool points equal to the power's cost (normally this is 3, but may increase or decrease dependent on various factors).

Extras

Complex: The nova is particularly good at making complex objects and suffers no penalties when doing so.

Mastery

With Mastery 1, the nova "heals" the permanent quantum loss at the rate of 1 point/month. With Mastery 2, the nova no longer must pay permanent quantum to render their created items permanent.

Mentalism (Suite)

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Varies Range: Varies Area: N/A Duration: Varies

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Effect: Allows character to affect human minds. Multiple Actions: Varies Description: This versatile and efficient power grants a nova several related abilities which typically manifest as “psychic powers.” A mentalist nova is able to use his quantum consciousness to read the thoughts of others, dominate their minds, and even injure them telepathically. These are just some possible techniques: other possible techniques include Hypnosis, Empathic Manipulation, Domination, and Mirage.

Alter Memories

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Mentalism Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Concentration

Multiple Actions: No The nova may use his powers of the mind to alter ex-

isting memories or implant false memories. The victim resists via a Willpower roll. The number of successes needed to alter or implant a memory depends on the importance of the memory, and successes may only be used to alter one memory. If you roll 8 successes over the opponent’s willpower, you may add or alter a single very important memory, or eight trivial memories, or four minor memories. It takes 1 combat round to alter a single memory.

Successes Memory One Trivial memories: What

you did yesterday, your fa-vorite food

Two Minor memories: Your birthday or anniversary, crucial job facts

Four Important memories: Vital personal facts, blackmail information, insider infor-mation

Eight Very important memories: Security codes, national security data

Mental Blast

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Mentalism Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Instant Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power allows a nova to project his “quantum consciousness” directly into another being’s mind, causing psychic pain and injury. To use Mental Blast, the char-acter pays the required quantum points and rolls lntelligence + Mental Blast in a resisted roll against the target’s Willpower. Each net success achieved causes two health levels of un-soakable Bashing damage. This damage can spill over to lethal.

Mindscan

Dice Pool: Perception + Mentalism Range: Rifle Area: N/A Duration: Instant

Multiple Actions: No The mentalist may find a specific mind within a varia-

ble distance. The nova rolls Perception + Mentalism, resisted via a Willpower roll from the other party. One net success tells him the person’s general location and direction, but nothing more. The more successes, the more precisely the location can be determined and the greater the area that may be searched. A telepath must have a specific mind to search for. If he can only describe the mind generically (“I’m looking for the mind of the nearest UN official”), the difficulty of the roll in-creases by at least +4 and will take longer.

The Perception + Mentalism roll also determines how far away the Telepath can find his mark.

Telepathic Scanning

Successes Distance One 100 meters Two 1 kilometers

Three 10 kilometers Four 100 kilometers Five 1,000 kilometers Each success beyond five multiples the scanning dis-tance by a factor of 10.

Telepathy

Dice Pool: Perception + Mentalism Range: Varies Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This power allows a nova to communi-cate mentally with others. The nova may communicate with any mind within range, as long as she has a method of detect-ing the mind (typically limiting range to line of sight). The char-acter rolls at the moment a telepathic link is established; this determines the distance at which the characters can communi-cate. After establishing this link, the character may use any other Mentalism powers through this link. An unwilling character may roll Willpower to resist this telepathic intrusion.

Telepathic Communication

Successes Distance One 2 kilometers Two 20 kilometers

Three 200 kilometers Four 2,000 kilometers Five 20,000 kilometers Each success beyond five multiples the maximum dis-tance by a factor of 10.

Read Mind

Dice Pool: Perception + Mentalism Range: Thrown

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Area: N/A Duration: Concentration

Multiple Actions: No The mentalist may read a character’s memories and

surface thoughts. Unwilling characters may resist with Will-power, with each success on the Willpower roll eliminating 1 success on the intruder’s Mentalism roll.roll It takes only 1 suc-cess to read surface thoughts and emotional states, as well as to find minor memories. More important memories are harder to retrieve. Intimate or very personal thoughts require three successes each, while criminal activities or information with which the character could be blackmailed require four suc-cesses each. The deepest, most hidden thoughts or facts re-quire five successes each. The Storyteller should note that human minds are not computers: reading memories without context is particularly hard and how people associate words and memories with each other varies from person to person.

Extras

Disruptive: After being successfully attacked by Mental Blast (i.e. at least 1 level of damage inflicted), the victim suffers an additional (power rating/2) difficulty penalty to all ac-tions, rounded up. This penalty does not stack and lasts for one turn.

Lethal: Mental Blast deals Lethal, rather than Bash-ing, damage, causing severe neurological trauma.

Surreptitious: The victim will not be aware his mind is being read if nova does not wish him to be. Note that the vic-tim may still resist subconsciously.

Molecular Manipulation

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5 Dice Pool: Variable Range: Variable Area: Variable Duration: Special Dice Pool: Manipulation + Molecular Manipulation Effect: The character can affect the properties of

matter. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This diverse power lets the nova alter

the properties of matter by playing around with molecular bonds. This power is represented by several systems. Howev-er, the power may only be used on inert objects unless other-wise stated—animate or living objects, such as trees, running vehicles or computers, animals, and robots, are immune to this power. Nevertheless, this still does have some uses in combat.

The nova gains an intuitive understanding of the world around him on the molecular level. He can make a Per-ception + Molecular Manipulation roll at any time to analyze the chemical composition and properties of anything within his line of sight. This costs only one quantum point to use.

Alter Molecular Properties

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Molecular Manipulation Range: Rifle Area: (Power Rating) Duration: Special

Each success on a Molecular Manipulation roll lets the nova alter one property of matter within the target area. Changes last for (power rating) hours.

Common effects include:

Conductivity. The material becomes superconduc-tive, offering no resistance to electricity at all (unharmed by any amount of current and passing it on without any loss of power over distance to whatever’s on the far side of the target area), or superinsulative, completely blocking all electrical flow, or any state in between.

Molecular Bonds. The nova can strengthen or weaken the ties that bind a molecule or compound together. This specific ability may be used on living or animate targets as an attack. This deals 1 automatic, unsoakable level of aggra-vated damage per success, ignoring Size, and reduces the tar-get’s bashing, lethal and aggravated soak by 1 per success. At 0 health levels the target collapses into a monatomic fog of loose atoms. Living targets can resist this attack with a Will-power roll; each success reduces the damage and soak penal-ties taken by 1, to a minimum of 0.

Opacity. The material becomes completely trans-parent, completely opaque or any degree of opacity in between, as the nova chooses. A single success affects the material in visible Iight. One extra success applies to infrared and ultravio-let as well, and a second extra success lets the nova adjust the material’s opacity throughout the electromagnetic spectrum.

Radioactivity. It takes one success to raise or low-er the level of soft radiation by one level, two successes to raise or lower the hard radiation rating by one level.

Reaction Rate. Each success doubles or halves the rate of a chemical reaction. It normally takes just a few seconds to burn a pile of magnesium ash; the nova can stretch it out to minutes or hours with enough successes. Conversely, the nova could speed the rate of oxidation to make a brand new car rust in seconds.

Solubility. Normally insoluble matter, such as oil on water, becomes capable of smooth merging, while normally soluble material like trace elements in water may be made to suddenly precipitate out.

At the Storyteller’s discretion, a botch may either rein-force the material’s existing properties (with the nova’s power rating applying as a difficulty penalty to the next effort to affect the material) or create an uncontrolled and undesired change to a material property.

Excitation

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Molecular Manipulation Range: Rifle Area: (Power Rating) Duration: Maintenance The nova increases or slows the rate of molecular ac-

tivity in the area. This may be used to light a substance on fire or freeze it. Each success may reduce or increase a sub-stance’s temperature by (Power Rating) x 50 Celsius/Kelvin. If used as an attack (by superheating or supercooling the clothes on someone’s skin, for example), flash burns or frostbite deals (quantum +[ power rating x 2]) Bashing damage with an addi-tional [Quantum] levels, ignoring armor (as you’re superheating or cooling the target’s armor or clothing). Each additional suc-cess adds +2B [1] to the damage dealt and if the character achieves more than 5 successes, the damage is lethal instead.

If the nova gets as many successes as the material strength (the soak) of a substance, that substance melts, sub-limates, shatters in brittle collapse or otherwise breaks. For

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particularly large objects this only destroys a sphere of the substance equal to (Quantum + power rating) meters in radius.

Practically speaking, this can also be used to alter temperatures, like the first part of the Weather Manipulation power, although on a significantly smaller scale.

Phase Change

Dice Pool: Wits + Molecular Manipulation Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Concentration The nova can change an substance from one state -

solid, liquid or gas - into another. The nova may choose up to (Molecular Manipulation) different substances to control. He can also transform the molecules into substances derived from Substance Manipulation, or similar powers if their manifestation created substances (such as Immolate that creates whipping winds [Air/Oxygen] or a Quantum Bolt that unleashes a torrent of earth).

The nova can affect 100 kg of solid or liquid per suc-cess, or two cubic meters of gas or intangible substance per success. The substance retains its normal properties. If it couldn’t normally exist in its new state given the current condi-tions, it begins immediately shifting back to its earlier state. Ice, for instance, melts at room temperature, while liquid oxygen boils quickly into gas. Concentration lets the nova hold these losses to 5-10 percent of the original mass (or volume) per turn.

Normally intangible elements like light or shadow be-come solids of a somewhat crystalline nature or highly viscous liquids. They have no soak and health levels equal to the no-va’s (Quantum + power rating).

Plasma Conversion

Dice Pool: Wits + Molecular Manipulation Range: Touch Area: (Power Rating) Duration: Maintenance The nova converts the matter in an area into plasma.

Plasma is unlike any of the three states of matter common on Earth, though it’s the most common state in the universe at large. Plasma forms when matter becomes hot enough to sep-arate electrons from nuclei, creating a cloud of charged parti-cles. Flame is plasma, as are the contents of a fusion reaction. Nova-created plasma inflicts [Quantum] + (power rating x 3)L damage per turn to anything in contact for the duration of the effect. The nova may control the plasma, rolling the power’s dice pool to create shapes, move it around, or attack with the plasma. As long as the power is maintained doing so does not cost any further Quantum points.

The plasma inflicts very little harm on the converted element. The target volume loses one percent of its mass eve-ry turn and returns to its usual state with (depending on the el-ement in question) slight scorching and other superficial traces of fire damage.

Transmutation

Dice Pool: Wits + Molecular Manipulation Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Permanent The character can convert the molecules of a solid or

liquid into molecules of another solid or liquid, thus, for exam-

ple, transforming a wooden chair into a steel chair. The nature of the changes a character can enact with Molecular Alteration depends upon the number of successes he achieves on a Wits + Molecular Manipulation roll. Each success on the Transmuta-tion roll lets the nova convert up to 100 kg of a solid or liquid or two cubic meters of a gas or intangible element. The transmut-ed element retains its state (solid, liquid, etc.) and shape.

Although this is not an actual “attack” power, a nova with a good understanding of chemistry and/or biology could very well use it as such. It’s not a direct attack to turn your clothes into white phosphorous—but it hurts all the same. “At-tacks” of this sort should be adjudicated by the Storyteller, us-ing whatever environmental hazard damage and resistance dif-ficulties the Storyteller deems appropriate.

Common “attacks” using Transmutation are turning objects in skin contact into poisons or incendiaries, converting the ground under someone into glue, pudding, or some other difficult-to-negotiate substance, or turning air into chemical weapons, poisons, or just carbon dioxide.

Extras

Combined Manipulation: The nova may use multi-ple techniques at once as one action. A fairly useful combat technique is combining Transmutation and Excitation to in-stantly coat someone in a flammable substance and set them on fire, while Phase Change and Transmutation allow a char-acter to turn a chair into a puddle. When using Combined Ma-nipulation, the character pays the cost of the power once for each technique he wishes to use, then rolls the lowest dicepool if the pools differ. Successes on the combined roll apply fully to each technique. If a nova wishes to use Transmutation and Excitation simultaneously, then rolls 5 successes, he has 5 successes of Transmutation and 5 of Excitation, not 5 total successes that he must split between both techniques.

Mastery

At Mastery 1, changes made with Alter Molecular Properties last for days. At Mastery 2, these changes last for months. At Mastery 3, all changes are permanent.

Momentum Control

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Wits + Momentum Control Range: Thrown Area: Variable Duration: Variable Effect: Character can manipulate inertia in the area. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with this power affects how ob-

jects interact with the universe around them, controlling their speed, acceleration and direction. Momentum Control doesn’t change the target’s mass, the local gravity or even the minds of any people it affects. The nova simply rewrites the balance of physical forces and then lets the laws of physics take their course.

Momentum Rotation

Dice Pool: Wits + Momentum Control Area: N/A Duration: Instant

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The nova can change the motion of a target object (animate or inanimate). The target retains its speed and orien-tation in space, but it now moves in the direction the nova specifies. The nova can change the target’s direction by up to 30 degrees per success, so that it takes six successes to make the target suddenly start moving in reverse. The inertial rotation itself inflicts no damage; the secondary complications can be pretty nasty. The target may not have a Size larger than the nova’s (Quantum + power rating).

This power does not deal direct damage, but may be used to cause collisions and other secondary affects which do. Characters seeking to avoid suddenly colliding due to the ef-fects of this power must roll more successes on either a (Wits + Athletics) roll while on foot or (Wits + Pilot/Drive) roll while in a vehicle than the Momentum Manipulator gained on his (Wits + Momentum Control) roll.

Momentum Swap

Dice Pool: Wits + Momentum Control Area: N/A Duration: lnstant The nova concentrates on two nearby objects and

exchanges their momentum. Each now moves at the speed and in the direction the other was moving, multiplied by the dif-ference in their masses. The larger target may not be more than (power rating + 1) larger in Size than the smaller target, and the smaller target may not be larger than (Quantum + power rating) Size.

It takes just one net success to perform the Momen-tum Swap, although an unwilling target may resist via Willpow-er. The nova can use extra successes to reduce the speed of one target or the other. Each success spent halves one target's speed; the excess kinetic energy manifests as a slight warming throughout the nova's range.

The swap itself inflicts no harm on the targets. Their new movements may create secondary problems for oth-ers in the area, however. If used to cause damage by acceler-ating loose objects (or accelerating unwilling targets into walls), Momentum Swap deals damage via the vehicle ramming rules.

Momentum Transformation

Dice Pool: Wits + Momentum Control Area: N/A Duration: Instant The nova can change the target’s speed and accel-

eration. As with other modifications of momentum, the change itself inflicts no damage, but the target’s new situation can be very dangerous. While Momentum Rotation shifts the direction of movement, Momentum Transformation can’t move the target in a different direction. The target keeps the same heading.

Each success on the Momentum Transformation roll lets the nova change the target’s speed by 20 percent. It takes five successes to bring a target to a complete stop or to double its speed. A target not currently moving is unaffected.

Example: Dr. Newton wishes to brake a runaway car, barreling at an out-of-control 150 kph. Her player gets four successes on the roll. All four go to reducing the car’s speed, for a reduction of 80 percent. The car’s speed instantly and safely falls to 30 kph.

Extras

Combined Manipulation: The nova may use multi-ple techniques at once as one action and with one roll. Com-bining Momentum Rotation and Momentum Transformation, for example, to both alter an object’s speed and vector. When us-ing Combined Manipulation, the character pays the cost of the power once for each technique he wishes to use. Successes on the combined roll apply fully to each technique; they are not split between the techniques.

Node Spark

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5 Dice Pool: Quantum + Node Spark Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: One scene Effect: The nova can force a power to grow or evolve. Multiple Actions: No Description: Node Spark sends a surge of quantum through the M-R node to ignite a temporary second Eruption. This mini-Chrysalis affects Mega-Attributes and powers alike, taking them to the next logical level. As always, the Storyteller has final say on how a power evolves.

To use this ability, the nova spends one turn concen-trating, three quantum points and rolls Quantum + Node Spark. Each success can become an enhancement for an existing Mega-Attribute, an Extra for an existing quantum power or a dot in a new Mega-Attribute (no enhancements) or quantum power (no Extras). New Mega-Attributes or powers must be outgrowths of existing quantum abilities (Immolate would be appropriate for a character with Bioluminescence, for example). The power fades after one scene.

Unfortunately, forcing evolution always has conse-quences. Node Spark automatically induces some temporary Taint - a character gains a number of temporary points of Taint equal to (1 + number of 1s rolled). If the nova botches the roll completely, then the nova gains temporary Taint equal to his entire dice pool that cannot be converted into Chrysalis.

Mastery

The nova adds +1/2/3 to his Quantum score (this can take the Quantum score above 10) when under the effects of Node Spark, and gains +1/2/3 additional points of temporary Taint per use.

Possession

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Manipulation + Possession Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Allows character to take over another charac-

ter’s body Multiple Actions: No Description: Possession is a horrific but intriguing

power, allowing a nova with it to literally walk a mile in some-one else’s shoes. A nova with this power can assimilate herself into another person, then take over that person’s mind and body. The nova must be touching the character she wishes to possess, then rolls Manipulation + Possession, resisted by the victim’s Stamina + Willpower if the victim wishes. The nova must achieve a sufficient number of successes equal to the vic-

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tim’s (Willpower x 5) to successfully possess the character, and may only roll once per action.

After possessing a character, the nova gains the con-trolled character’s physical traits and body modifications, as well as any quantum powers the controlled character has. The nova still uses her own mental and social Traits (along with any mental or social Mega-Attributes), as well as her own Willpow-er, but may not normally use her own quantum powers.

An unwilling character may attempt to force the nova out, rolling Willpower at +2 difficulty once every day. If the vic-tim succeeds in (Quantum + Power Rating) rolls, the nova is forced out. Similarly, the victim may attempt to reassert control by paying 1 point of willpower and rolling Willpower against the nova’s own Willpower. If successful, the victim may act for 1 round (3 seconds). The nova may leave the victim at any time, although the process takes 10 seconds (3 combat rounds).

If the victim is injured in any way while the nova is possessing her, the nova takes half the health levels, rounded up, as feedback damage even if she normally would have shrugged off the attack. Ingenious and self-sacrificing victims can use this to grievously wound their possessors. If the victim dies while the nova is possessing her, the possessing nova is stunned and may take no action for (20 – Stamina) rounds. If the possessing nova leaves the host, the host is stunned and may take no action for (power rating) rounds.

Anyone who knows the victim before possession may be able to figure out the possession if given enough time with an Investigation roll; the possessing nova should roll Subter-fuge to counteract.

Extras

Host Attunement: The nova may use her own Mega-Attributes, Enhancements, and quantum powers through the victim. The nova is still limited by the victim’s normal attrib-utes: a nova with Mega-Strength 5 possessing a Strength 1 weakling may only use Mega-Strength 1.

Memory Access: The nova may access the host’s memories (use the Read Mind rules, substituting the nova’s rating in Possession for Read Mind) and make use of the host’s abilities as well.

Physical Shift: The nova may use her own physi-cal attributes and body modifications through the possessed character, reshaping the possessed character’s body to her will. The nova may still make use of the possessed character’s at-tributes if she wishes to (normally, if those attributes are high-er). Should the nova leave, a possessed nova will heal these traits at the rate of 1 dot or body modification per day, while a possessed baseline keeps the traits permanently.

Soft Immersion: Choose one: the nova does not get stunned if the victim dies, or the nova does not take feed-back damage. Two purchases of this Extra mean the nova gains both benefits.

Pretercognition

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Perception + Pretercognition Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: lnstant Effect: Allows character to foresee future (or view

past) events; number of successes determines timeframe.

Multiple Actions: No Description: Pretercognition allows a nova to fore-

see future events or grants glimpses of the past. The timeframe within which the character can “view”

events is based on the number of successes achieved on a Perception + Pretercognition roll.

Successes Timeframe One Up to one hour per dot Two Up to one day per dot Three Up to one week per dot Four Up to one month per dot Five Up to one year per dot Six Up to 10 years per dot

For dramatic purposes, the Storyteller may, at his discretion, increase the timeframe. For example, if a nova with Pretercognition found an ancient Egyptian artifact, the Story-teller might let her “read” images associated with its creation, even though it is thousands of years old, because those visions contain a clue she needs to solve a mystery.

Storytellers should be very careful about allowing this power in their series. It can have an enormous impact on the characters’ actions and on society, and it can make it virtually impossible to run scenarios that revolve around mysteries or puzzles. However, there’s no guarantee that the visions re-ceived are absolutely accurate.

Extras

Moving Vision: The nova can move her viewpoint through an extended period of time. For each success spent on movement rather than timeframe, the nova can look around in that period - with four successes, for instance, the nova could look up to a week away and look throughout an hour-long peri-od or through all the entirety of one day past or future.

Shared: The nova can show others the pretercogni-tive visions in her head.

Viewpoint: The nova can see through the viewpoint of someone else at any distance away, as long as the nova is in line of sight with that person when using Pretercognition.

Quantum Construct

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Manipulation + Quantum Construct Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: This power enables the character to create

“creatures” or objects out of quantum force; the number of suc-cesses achieved indicates what beings can be summoned and how many.

Multiple Actions: No Description: A nova with Quantum Construct is ca-

pable of generating raw quantum forces, then shaping them in-to creatures or animate objects that act at the nova’s whim. Many novas with this power use it to summon “demons” and other such creatures of legend. A character with control over electromagnetic energies might summon constructs of living lightning, radiant energy or the like. Quantum Construct, how-ever, is not unlimited. It cannot create permanent objects, and the objects it does create are easily recognized as unnatural. Even if they look entirely identical to normal objects of their

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type, there is something eerie about them that immediately marks them as not of this world.

To use Quantum Construct, a nova must spend the required quantum points and roll Manipulation + Quantum Construct. Even one success allows the nova to summon a single construct that may assist the nova. Alternatively the no-va may summon tools such as firearms, drills, rope, and the like. These tools are capable of acting on their own, can float in the air or move around, and will act on the nova’s own initiative action, while animals have their own initiative and will act then. However, constructs do not have self-will and will only act in the fashion the creator desires. These constructs are otherwise entirely identical to the real thing, save they can be affected by disrupt like any other quantum construct, do not degrade from damage, and have no mental traits. The nova who summoned the constructs may (at any time and any range) “banish” them, dispersing them into the surrounding medium. No roll is re-quired to do so.

A creation success can be converted into 2 nova points, which are used to provide additional attributes, body modifications, Mega-Attributes or quantum powers to the summoned creatures. Quantum constructs are assumed to have a base Quantum of 1 and use the nova’s own Quantum Pool for their powers (much like clones). A nova may only give constructs powers or mega-attributes she personally knows or are relatively common (such as Mega-Strength, Flight, Quan-tum Bolt, and the like).

Characters may create more than one being in some circumstances. If the character achieves more successes than needed to create the being he wants, he may use the extra successes to create additional beings. For example, suppose a nova wants to summon a human-sized demon which requires 4 successes, and the player gains 9 successes. The nova could summon two such demons and use the last success to summon something else.

Ultimately, the Storyteller is responsible for corning up with the game statistics and rules for created constructs, though he may let the player do the work and simply review and approve what the player creates. The Storyteller should be careful not to let this power unbalance or ruin the game; just because a nova has the ability to summon an army of demonic soldiers doesn’t mean he should be al-lowed to.

This power is extremely wrenching to the surround-ings, and it is best used only once a scene. If a nova attempts to use it more than once per scene, each attempt (including the first) adds a cumulative +1 difficulty to all subsequent attempts.

Successes Being(s) Summoned) One Human or similar size ani-

mal, small tool (pistol, rope, knife, drill)

Two Larger animal (small bear, horse) or two-handed tool (sledgehammer, rifle)

Three An animal no larger than a grizzly bear, or a large tool/weapon such as a rocket launcher or Segway scooter.

Four A very large animal (rhi-noceros, hippopotamus), or a small vehicle/very large tool (autocannon, motorcycle)

Five Extremely large animal (T-

Rex, elephant, giant squid), or a very large tool (automobile, tank cannon, tactical laser).

Six Armored Car, APC Seven Fighter aircraft, attack heli-

copter, main battle tank

Extras

Longevity: The construct lasts (Quantum + power level) days and does not require maintenance.

Self-Awareness: Each success allocated to this purpose lets the nova give the construct three dots divided among Mental and Social Attributes.

Quantum Imprint

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Dexterity + Quantum Imprint Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Copies the powers and abilities of other no-

vas. Multiple Actions: No Description: Quantum lmprint allows a nova to copy

the quantum signature of another nova. By touching another nova, he can duplicate some or all of that nova’s powers in himself. The nova touched does not lose any of his powers or suffer any injury.

To use Quantum Imprint, the nova must make a Dexterity + Quantum lmprint roll to touch the victim. If the touch succeeds, the nova may copy one of the victim’s Attributes, skills, abilities or powers for each dot he has in Quantum lmprint - but he may only copy them up to his number of dots in Quantum Imprint. For example, if a nova has Quantum lmprint 2 and wants to copy two of another nova’s powers, he may do so, but he only gets two dots in each power, even if the other nova has five dots in them. He may also never gain more dots or use the power at a greater level of effect than the target no-va - for example, if a nova with Quantum 5 and Quantum lmprint 5 steals a Quantum Bolt from a nova with Quantum 2 and Quantum Bolt 2, the Quantum Bolt can inflict no greater damage than permitted with Quantum 2 and Quan-tum Bolt 2. The nova must also pay one more quantum point to use a stolen power than he would have to pay if he had that power “naturally.” Thus, the nova in the previous example would have to pay three quantum points to throw his copied Quantum Bolt. The powers stolen by Quantum Imprint manifest iden-tically to those of the original nova. However, the nova whose powers were copied is not immune to the copied powers, de-spite them being nearly identical.

Extras

Enhanced lmprint: The nova may increase a pow-er’s effect up to his own Quantum limits, even when greater than the target’s.

Longevity: The imprint lasts (Quantum + power level) days and does not require maintenance.

Multiple Targets: The nova can copy the powers of more than one target, through separate uses of the power.

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Range: The nova can use the power for the benefit of another nova, up to [Quantum + power rating] x 5 meters away)

Quantum Vampire

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Stamina + Quantum Vampire Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Special Effect: Drains traits from target Multiple Actions: No Description: Quantum Vampire lets the nova steal certain Traits from the victim. The player must define what Quantum Vampire can steal when he buys this power (see the list below for the options). The player rolls Stamina + Quantum Vampire, adding [Quantum] automatic successes, while the victim resists by rolling (Stamina + Resistance) or (Willpower), whichever is higher. The net successes are used to absorb dots in the Traits from the victim for a scene, during which time the victim cannot access the stolen Traits.

Attributes: Quantum Vampire steals an entire cat-egory of Attributes: physical, mental, or social. It requires 3 net successes on the Quantum Vampire roll to steal a single dot of an Attribute, or 6 net successes to steal a single dot of a Mega-Attribute from a non-dormant nova. Either way, this grants a single dot of the corresponding regular Attribute for every At-tribute or Mega-Attribute dot stolen. Quantum Vampire cannot grant Mega-Attributes. The victim chooses in what order he loses his Attribute dots. No Attribute may be reduced below 0.

Abilities: Quantum Vampire steals all Abilities un-der a single Attribute. Every 2 net successes on the Quantum Vampire roll allows the nova to steal a single Ability dot. The Quantum Vampire chooses what Abilities are stolen first. No Ability may be reduced below 0.

Health: Each success on the Quantum Vampire roll deals 2 levels of unsoakable Bashing damage to the target. The nova heals 1 level of Bashing damage or converts 1 level of Lethal damage to Bashing damage per success. If the nova has no damage to heal, she gains one temporary -0 health lev-el for every success instead. Damage inflicted to those levels cannot be healed by any means, but disappears once the power ends. All damage is inflicted on these levels first. If the nova still retains damage (i.e. Aggravated damage, which can-not be healed by Quantum Vampire), the damage does not move “up” to the temporary health levels.

Extras

Extended Duration: In this case, the nova keeps stolen traits for 1 day.

Multiple Traits: The nova may steal from two cate-gories at once (such as Attributes and Health). Successes rolled must be divided between the two categories in whatever proportion the nova’s player wishes. This extra can be pur-chased twice to allow the nova to steal from all three catego-ries at once.

Shapeshift

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4

Dice Pool: Stamina + Shapeshift Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Effect: Allows character to alter her shape; the de-

gree of alteration depends upon the successes achieved Multiple Actions: Yes Description: Shapeshift is one of the most versatile

nova powers, as it allows the nova to reshape her body at will. With the proper degree of power and skill, she can turn herself into various animals, pieces of furniture or just about anything else she can think of.

A nova can use Shapeshift to disguise herself as an-other person, object, or creature. Shapeshift disguises are generally perfect to human senses but someone with super-human perception or biometrics may be able to see through them. Against that level of scrutiny, roll Stamina + Shapeshift versus the opponent’s dice pool. Quantum Attunement, as it shows active powers, automatically pierces a Shapeshift dis-guise, but does not show the nova’s actual appearance.

A character may gain up to (Stamina + power rating x 2) individual Augmentations from a use of Shapeshift, regard-less of Augmentation cost. That said, buying an Augmentation which replaces another one requires the purchase of both (so Huge requires the purchase of both Large and Huge, or two body modifications). Alternatively, a character may trade in a body modification to move 2 dots of Physical Attributes around (trading Dexterity for Stamina, for example) or add 1 dot to a Physical Attribute. A character may not add more than (Shapeshift + 2) dots to any one physical attribute via shapeshifting, and if the character wishes to buy physical at-tributes above 5, needs the proper Augmentation or natural ability to exceed human limits. For the purposes of Shapeshift, Appearance also counts as a Physical Attribute.

Shapeshift can affect only physical changes and does not affect the nova’s mind – therefore, significant neurological modifications, such as most mental or social Augmentations, are significantly beyond the ability of Shapeshift to emulate. Augmentations which do not require significant changes to the nova’s psyche, such as extensions of the nova’s normal sens-es or bodily processes (i.e. some sensory modifications, pher-omones, etc.) are possible, but otherwise Shapeshift can cre-ate only physical Augmentations.

Extras

Natural: The nova’s shapeshifting may no longer be detected by Quantum Attunement. Only the initial use of the power is detectable.

Storm

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Wits + Storm Range: Rifle Area: (Quantum + [power rating * 3]) Duration: Concentration Effect: Creates a storm. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: The character can generate a stormlike

area related to some energy or substance. Examples include blizzards, firestorms, sandstorms, earthquakes, tornadoes, sonic fields, magnetic whirlwinds and ice patches. The exact

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effect of the Storm depends on the nature of what’s causing it. Some example effects, any or all of which may be present:

Damage: The Storm deals (Wits + power rating) dice of damage, with [Mega-Wits] automatic successes. This damage is usually Bashing or Lethal, but could be EMP in the case of a Magnetic Storm. This effect can be caused by just about any kind of storm.

Inhibit Movement/Senses: The Storm adds +(power rating) difficulty to all movement and Awareness rolls.

Affect Dice Pools: Reduces opponent’s dice pools by (power rating), if they fail an opposed roll (often Stamina + Resistance or Dexterity + Athletics, although other pools can . This represents high winds, shaky ground, heat exhaustion, or other detrimental effects

Other effects are up to the Storyteller and should be based on common-sense views of the effects of the element. For example, anyone moving through a blizzard or earthquake might have to make an Athletics or Pilot roll to keep from slip-ping and falling; anyone in a firestorm would risk being set on fire.

Substance Manipulation

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Variable Range: Special Area: Special Duration: Variable Effect: Character can control a particular substance Multiple Actions: Yes Description: A nova with (Substance) Manipulation

can move, shape or even give artificial life to, that substance. However, such manipulation is deliberate and gross, and there-fore usually ill-suited to combat purposes.

The chosen substance can be as broad or as narrow as the player desires, but the choice is static once the power is purchased.

Example Substances: chlorine, earth, oxygen, plasma (including fire), plutonium, toxic waste, water, light, shadow, sound

Normally, the character must have access to a sub-stantial quantity of the substance in order to use any of these powers. If not enough is present, the nova may create the sub-stance from nothing; doing so raises the difficulty of the tech-nique by 1 and doubles the quantum point cost of this power.

Given the complexity of this power, it is represented by several systems.

Animate

Dice Pool: Strength + Substance Manipulation Range: (Quantum + power rating) kilometers Area: N/A Duration: Concentration The nova can move the element around, alter its

shape, and so on. Each success on the Animation roll lets the nova animate about 100 kg of a solid or liquid or about two cu-bic meters of a gas or otherwise intangible element. Animating “elements” with no real volume (like electricity or light) allows the nova to animate a reasonable amount of the element per success-one success might allow a nova to move around enough electricity to power a house or enough light to do the

same, while five successes or more might let the nova move enough electricity to power a high-speed train.

The nova may simply order the material to move around. Normally immobile objects (water, solids) move at the nova's running speed, while objects with the ability to move (light, electricity, etc.) move at their normal speed. Animated materials will attempt to avoid obstacles, but if forced to push through them, have an effective “Strength” of 1 per success on the activation roll, and 1 dot of “Mega-Strength” per 5 success-es on the activation roll.

The nova may reshape the element freely, although it cannot form tools for fine manipulation, only rudimentary ap-pendages. If the nova seeks to make sculpture, a (Wits + Art [Sculpture]) roll may be necessary.

Animation may also be used to attack enemies. The power’s dice pool in this case is the nova’s attack roll, and the attack is equivalent to a light or heavy ‘unarmed’ attack, using the substance’s “Strength”. This damage is normally Bashing but may be Lethal for substances like fire, electricity, or acid. If a hazardous object is animated, the victim also is affected by the hazard.

Create Golem

Dice Pool: lntelligence + Substance Manipulation Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance The nova may make mindless "golems" out of the

material, generating 1 golem per success. These golems look however the nova wants and the nova creates one per success on the activation roll. Elemental golems of this form use the base stat block below, calculating their attributes off of the no-va's. (Wits), for example, means that attribute uses the nova's Wits. In this case, each dot of a Mega-Attribute counts as +2 to the score rather than giving the golem a Mega-Attribute. These golems have the following stats:

Strength (Intelligence)/Dexterity (Wits)/Stamina (Intel-ligence)

Charisma 0, Manipulation 0, Appearance (0-5, nova's choice)

Perception 1, Intelligence 0, Wits 1 Health Levels -0 x (Quantum + [Elemental Control x

2])/Destroyed Abilities: Brawl 1, Might 3, Athletics 1, Awareness 1 Automaton: As a non-self-willed golem with no intel-

ligence or initiative, elemental golems have an Initiative score of (Dexterity + Wits + 1) rather than (Dexterity + Wits + 1d10).

Mindless: Elemental golems will only act in response to mental commands issued by the nova, they are otherwise completely mindless. If given no orders, they will attempt to ac-complish their last order, then stand there inert until new ones are given.

Unliving: Elemental golems have a Lethal soak equal to their Stamina instead of half of their Stamina, are im-mune to Stun, and take no wound penalties.

Clumsy: Elemental golems are extremely limited in their agility and reaction time no matter how fast they move and may not take multiple actions. They also do not dodge at-tacks very effectively, halving their DVs (round down).

Golems attack in unarmed combat, and their natural weapons have the same stats as unarmed (light) and unarmed (heavy) attacks.

The element a golem is built out of also alters its stats: Use the guidelines below for examples. The ST may ap-prove specific golem stat blocks.

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Stone/Metal/Hard Solid: The golem gains +3 ar-mor, an additional 5 health levels, +2 to strength and stamina, and deals Lethal damage with its unarmed attacks, but halves its dexterity (round up).

Energy: +1 difficulty to hit the golem with attacks. The golem deals Lethal damage with its unarmed attacks and may make ranged attacks, with the stat block below. Golem ranged attacks use Dexterity + Athletics to aim.

Accuracy +0, Damage (Strength + 0L), Range 40, RoF 1, Magazine (inf)

Liquid/Gas: The golem halves all damage inflicted against it by physical attacks and may fly at normal running speed, flow through cracks, or use the asphyxiation maneuver. Unfortunately the golem's own physical attack damage is halved.

Enhance/Diminish

Dice Pool: lntelligence + Substance Manipulation Range: (Quantum + power rating) x 10 meters Area: (Quantum + power rating) x 10 meter radius Duration: Maintenance The character can increase or decrease the effect of

the element in an area - for example, brighten or dim light, or increase or decrease the damage caused by fire. The effect can be enhanced or diminished by 25% per success rolled. If the element is a damaging effect, each success increases or reduces the damage of the element (or any element-based power) by 2 damage dice or 1 automatic success (the player may choose). Enhance/Diminish normally is used with immate-rial elements like light, fire, or electricity, rather than actual sol-ids.

Note: If the element controlled is air, and the nova re-duces the effect to 0%, she creates a vacuum in the area. Characters without Adaptation who are caught in a vacuum may suffocate; see “Suffocation and Drowning.”

Purification

Dice Pool: Wits + Substance Manipulation Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Permanent The nova can extract the substance from molecules,

compounds, alloys and other composite forms. Each success on the Purification roll lets her extract 10 kg of a solid or liquid element or one cubic meter of a gas or intangible element; un-natural substances, like sound and darkness, are treated as in-tangibles. The purified element appears in a continuous vol-ume at any point within range designated by the nova.

The potential side effects vary a great deal. Extract-ing elemental hydrogen from water, for instance, releases free oxygen to boot. Purifying iron leaves it in the white, ductile state it occupies when not oxidized, while leaving oxidization and other impurities heaped around it. Purified light is one fre-quency - as coherent as a laser, but radiating in all directions - while purified sound is a single tone without harmonics. Using Purification over earth or water lets the nova purge toxic wastes into a single mound at the edge of the nova’s range (while using Purification on toxic waste would let the nova gather the wastes anywhere in range). Using Purification on air would allow the nova to purge smoke and airborne contami-nants, including dust and pollen. The player and Storyteller should work out what “pure” means for more exotic elements.

Purification can be used to deal damage to an object by extracting something vital to its function, such as oxygen.

The nova rolls (Wits + Substance Manipulation), adding an ad-ditional [Quantum] successes, against a target's (Stamina + Resistance) (inanimate objects may roll Armor instead). The victim takes 1 level of unsoakable Lethal damage for every net success the nova achieves. This damage is not affected by Size.

Extras

Extra Substance: The character may manipulate another substance.

Personality lmprint: Any other character using (Substance) Manipulation on the same substance within (Quantum + power rating] days suffers a +1 difficulty penalty per level of the character’s Substance Manipulation.

Self-Willed: The character creates Golems with an Intelligence score equal to the nova's power rating, and all the Abilities the nova possesses. These golems lose the "Mind-less" trait. Although intelligent, these golems may not intentionally act against the nova's wishes.

Mastery

All ranges and areas default to kilometers. Animated Substances now move at twice the nova’s

sprinting speed, if that is faster than their normal movement speed.

For every dot of Mastery, the golems created by Sub-stance Manipulation gain two of the following advantages. These advantages may also be taken as Extras.

Additional Abilities: The golems gain (Substance Manipulation x 2) additional Ability dots every time this is taken. Golems may increase their Abilities to 5. Golems may gain only physical Abilities.

Agility: The golems are much more agile, gain +1 Dexterity and +2 Wits, and can take multiple actions. Each re-purchase of this adds +2 to their Wits rating.

Fast: The golems are faster, gaining +1 Dexterity and doubling their movement speed.

Large: The golems are twice as tall and eight times as massive, gaining +3 Strength and +3 Size, as well as dou-bling movement speed and lifting ability.

Ranged Attack: The golems gain a ranged attack they can use at will with the stats (Accuracy +1, Damage [Strength + 0L], Range 40, RoF 1). If the golem already has a ranged attack, repurchasing this doubles its range and RoF, adds +2 to damage, and +1 to accuracy.

Tough: The golems are tougher, gaining 2 -0 HLs and +2 Stamina per purchase.

Temporal Manipulation

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 5 Dice Pool: Variable Range: Variable Area: N/A Duration: Variable Effect: Character can manipulate time. Multiple Actions: Yes Description: This exceedingly rare power gives a

nova control over that most basic, yet mysterious, of phenom-ena - time itself. He can alter or reverse time to achieve a number of effects, but he cannot actually travel through time.

Techniques include:

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Internal Clock

Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Permanent This technique is known automatically by all time-

manipulators and does not use up a dot in the power. A char-acter with Temporal Manipulation possesses a highly accurate internal clock. He always knows exactly how much time has passed between two events, and he can mentally time events as if using an extremely precise stopwatch. This ability requires no roll and costs no quantum points; it functions automatically

Accelerate Time

Dice Pool: Wits + Temporal Manipulation Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance This ability allows a nova to put himself or another

person inside a bubble of “fast time.” Doing so makes the character move and act much more quickly than a person in a normal time frame. Each success on a Temporal Manipulation roll allows the character to take one additional action per turn. These actions are not multiple actions; they are extra actions (which cannot be split). These extra actions can be used only to take additional physical actions (punching, running, or dodg-ing, for example, but not using more Temporal Manipulation powers). The nova’s power rating dictates the maximum num-ber of extra actions that may be gained.

Delay Damage

Dice Pool: Stamina + Temporal Manipulation Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Instant A nova can offset the effects of damage on himself.

The character activates this technique and rolls Stamina + Temporal Manipulation, with each success reducing the dam-age the nova takes from the next attack by (power rating ) lev-els. This reduction is after soak and may reduce an attack’s damage to 0. The damage is not gone, however, merely offset. When the nova stops paying Maintenance on the power, or when the scene ends, the damage and its effects manifest fully. This includes incapacitation and death blows. This power must be activated once per attack the nova wishes to temporarily mitigate.

Dilate Time

Dice Pool: Wits + Temporal Manipulation Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance Dilate Time is the reverse of Accelerate Time; it al-

lows a nova to slow down another character by slowing the flow of time around him. Dilate Time reduces the target’s Initia-tive by (power rating) per net success, but can be resisted by an opposed (Willpower + Quantum) roll. If Initiative falls below 1, the victim is treated as having an lnitiative rating of 1, but he may act only once every other turn.

Stop Time

Dice Pool: lntelligence + Temporal Manipulation Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance The nova may literally to stop time around a specific

person or object. That person cannot move or use any powers or Abilities, he does not age and he cannot be affected by (and is unaware of any outside force, phenomenon or attack while in suspension).

Stop Time is very difficult to set up – the nova’s play-er must achieve a success on an lntelligence + Temporal Ma-nipulation roll at a difficulty penalty of two, and using it on an unwilling living character adds the character’s Willpower to the difficulty. Once established, the effect lasts as long as the character pays quantum points to maintain it.

Weather Alteration

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 4 Dice Pool: Intelligence + Weather Manipulation Range: (Quantum + power rating) x 2 kilometers Area: (Quantum + power rating) x 5 kilometers Duration: Maintenance Effect: Character may alter the weather. Multiple Actions: Yes The character can increase or decrease the tempera-

ture of the air in an area around himself. The character can al-ter temperature by 10 degrees Celsius for each dot in the pow-er. No roll is required, but quantum points must be paid.

The nova can also alter weather patterns over a large area. For each success achieved on an Intelligence + Weather Manipulation roll, he may adjust the current weather conditions up or down one step on the following table.

Weather Phenomena Table Sweltering Heat Clear/Sunny Cloudy/Hazy Drizzle Rainstorm (or snow, if temperature makes it possible) Strong Rain/Thunderstorm Gale Hurricane/Tornado/Typhoon/Blizzard

Thus, if the current weather is a rainstorm (and the player of a nova achieves two successes on his lntelligence + Weather Manipulation roll), a nova may increase it up to a gale or decrease it to cloudy/ hazy. If the nova changes the weather conditions to gale or higher, the effect is treated as the Storm technique of Elemental Mastery.

Weave (Suite)

Level: 3 Quantum Minimum: 3 Dice Pool: Variable Range: Special Area: Special Duration: Varies Effect: Character can manipulate Eufiber with in-creased aptitude. Multiple Actions: No

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Description: This power allows a nova to manipulate eufiber to an increased degree, allowing for further enhance-ment, finer control, and even several offensive options.

Fortitude

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Permanent

The Nova's eufiber is more resistant to external con-trol attempts. Add +1 difficulty per dot of Weave to any at-tempts to take control of, alter, or disable the Nova's eufiber. Against chemicals such as Eu-freeze, roll Weave. Success on the roll prevents any effect. Fortitude is an automatic technique learned when a character takes the Weave power at any rating.

Efficiency

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Permanent

The nova's attuned eufiber draws quantum out of ambient sources and does not need as much Quantum. Re-duce the quantum/day requirement of Eufiber by 1/day per dot in Weave, to a minimum of 0 Quantum/day. Efficiency is an automatic technique mastered at no cost when a character takes the Weave power at any rating.

Cripple

Dice Pool: Strength + Weave Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Instant

The nova may also weaken an opponent's eufiber colony, turning it from staunch friend to useless parasite. The nova rolls (Strength + Weave) against the subject's Eufiber rat-ing. Each success subtracts 1 from the eufiber's effective rating. The actual Eufiber rating still improves the nova's powers, such as Iron Maiden, but the eufiber's benefits are lost. This lasts for as long as the power is maintained. Eufiber temporarily re-duced to a rating of 0 provides no benefit whatsoever. Crippled eufiber 'heals' at the rate of 1 dot a day.

Drain

Dice Pool: Stamina + Weave Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Instant The nova can drain an opponent's Eufiber quantum storage, rolling (Stamina + Weave + Target's Eufiber Rating) against the subject's (Stamina + Resistance). Each success drains a point of quantum from the opponent, which is immedi-ately stored by the attacking nova or discarded into the envi-ronment as an effect that thematically represents the victim’s powerset (so a fire-based Nova's excess quantum would scorch the surroundings, an ice-based Nova might freeze nearby objects solid, etc.)

Electronic Interface

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A

Area: N/A Duration: Permanent

The nova may warp his eufiber to a more extreme degree, creating microfine tendrils that can work on very small scales, computer interfaces, and other tools capable of working with electronics. The nova's eufiber is now not only capable of replacing simple tools, it can replace most electronic ones, adding +1d to any attempts to bypass electronic security or hack computers per dot in the background.

Enhancement

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance

The nova can channel additional quantum into her eufiber, supercharging its characteristics and improving its abil-ity to enhance and protect the wearer. The nova pays the pow-er cost and gains a pool of (Stamina + Weave) points to en-hance his physical characteristics. Each point may buy an ad-ditional +1B/1L/0A to the eufiber's soak, +1 to Strength or Stamina, or +1 to an ability eufiber enhances. Increasing Dex-terity by 1 or increasing soak by +1B/1L/1A costs 2 points.

Forced Attunement

Dice Pool: Weave Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Instant The nova may attune another colony of eufiber, as-similating it. The nova rolls (Weave) against a difficulty equal to the eufiber's rating. Success means the nova takes control of the eufiber, which adds a bonus success to all attempts to ma-nipulate it, allows the nova to use powers that target his own eufiber colony (such as Enhancement and Transfiguration) on it, and renders it immune to the nova's powers as well. This change of ownership is permanent.

Forced Symbiosis

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Weave Range: Touch Area: N/A Duration: Instant

The nova may forcibly attune another nova or base-line to eufiber against their will. The Nova rolls (Manipulation + Weave) against the opponent's (Stamina + Resistance). Suc-cess means the parasitic eufiber bonds to the unwilling host, failure means the nova must try again. Forcing this symbiosis means the eufiber is bonded to the host and the host gains all its benefits (and penalties). Baselines bonded to eufiber gain its benefits until it runs out of power, after which the material is essentially inert.

Hardening

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Permanent

The nova can channel additional quantum into her eufiber, hardening it even further on a temporary basis. The nova may spend quantum points to harden her eufiber's struc-ture and cancel out incoming energy of any sort, adding

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+3B/3L/3A soak to the nova's eufiber per quantum point spent for 1 turn as it tightens around the nova in an impenetrable carapace. The nova may spend up to (Weave) quantum points this way per turn.

Imprinting

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Weave Range: Handgun Area: N/A Duration: Varies

The Nova may slowly rewrite the mind of a victim wearing eufiber, influencing their thoughts. Imprinting works identically to Hypnosis on short time periods, but over long time periods (months, years, centuries) may be used to slowly brainwash the subject, rolling (Intelligence + Weave + Target's Eufiber Rating) against the subject's (Stamina + Resistance) every month. The total number of successes required range from 1 (making them like or dislike a minor thing that they pre-viously were ambivalent about) to 5 (minor changes) to 20 (ed-iting memories) or even 100+ (total personality rewrite).

Interdermalize

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Weave Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance

The nova can absorb eufiber into his body, allowing him to gain its full bonuses in effectively any situation. The successes rolled on the (Manipulation + Weave) activation roll is the difficulty to detect the eufiber by close examination, as casual examination is insufficient to detect it.

Iron Maiden

Dice Pool: Wits + Weave Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Concentration The nova can turn the opponent's eufiber from pro-tective aegis to cancerous threat, growing needle-fine probes into the body that erupt into organ-shredding monofilament webs. The nova rolls (Wits + Weave + Target's Eufiber Rating) against the subject's (Stamina + Resistance) at the beginning of her action as long as she is maintaining the power. Each net success the nova rolls becomes one level of unsoakable Lethal damage. Outside of combat, this can be used as a torture method.

Processing

Dice Pool: N/A Range: N/A Area: N/A Duration: Permanent

The nova learns to rearrange the structures in eufiber into processing elements, turning it into a full-fledged computer system. The eufiber becomes a powerful computer system that has an effective Intelligence equal to the nova's Weave score and all Intelligence-based abilities equal to the nova, allowing it to function as a lab assistant, hacking aid, or other system. As it is a computer, not a human mind, it possesses eidetic memory and gains an automatic success on all mathematics related rolls.

Subversion

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Weave Range: Thrown Area: N/A Duration: Concentration

The nova may take over the body of an opponent wearing eufiber. Subversion works similarly to Domination, ex-cept it adds a number of dice equal to the target's Eufiber rat-ing to the roll (and uses Weave instead of Domination), is re-sisted by (Stamina + Resistance) instead of (Willpower), and is not affected by Psychic Shield. As Subversion only affects the physical body it may not be used to get the victim to tell you in-formation or take any mental actions.

Surveillance

Dice Pool: N/A Range: Special Area: N/A Duration: Permanent

The nova may see through the eyes of any eufiber he has attuned as if he was there, and talk through it to the wearer.

Transfiguration

Dice Pool: N/A Range: Self Area: N/A Duration: Maintenance

The nova gains additional control over the shapeshift-ing of his eufiber and has integrated it deeper into his body, al-lowing it to create more complex systems such as surrogate organs, skeletal reinforcements, filtration systems, and other biomechanics. The Nova may manifest up to (Weave) physical body modifications via the use of her eufiber. Any health levels gained from the use of this power are temporary and injuries that fill those health levels will be retained on the nova when the power is deactivated, resulting in potentially life-threatening situations. Eufiber may not emulate mental or social body mod-ifications and may not change the wearer's size.

Extras

Extras are special advantages that can be added to existing powers. They make the power better in some way - more effective, able to work at greater ranges or effective against more targets. The choice of whether to take an Extra, either the ones listed with specific powers or the ones de-scribed here (which can apply to any appropriate power) is up to the player and requires the Storyteller’s permission. Extras are never required.

Each level of Extra adds +1Q to the power's final cost unless otherwise stated, if used. If a power uses three Extras simultaneously, for example, it costs +3Q over and above nor-mal cost. A power may use as many or as few Extras as de-sired when activated.

A power may have up to (Power Rating) extras at normal cost. Extras purchased beyond this amount cost twice as much, which can be refunded if the power rating is in-creased enough to support an additional Extra. A character may “upgrade” her power by purchasing an Extra later in the game.

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If a character has a Suite power, they may buy Extras for the power either for individual techniques or for the entire Suite, as stated in the section on Suites, above. If an Extra would take any single technique over the limit on normal-cost Extras, that Extra costs double.

Aggravated

An offensive power with the Aggravated Extra deals Aggravated damage. Claws given the Aggravated Extra deal (Quantum + Claws) dice of Aggravated damage instead, soaked separately from the rest of the attack damage, which is Lethal. Note that the Aggravated Extra counts as 2 Extras.

Alternate Attribute

This Extra allows a character to apply (with ST per-mission) a different attribute to the power than what is normally used. Examples would be a Strength-based Barrier, using (Wits + Quantum Bolt) to aim a quantum bolt, or using Intelli-gence instead of Manipulation with Domination.

Area

If a power does not already have an Area, the Area Extra gives the power an Area rating equal to (Quantum + Power Rating). For example, a nova with Quantum 3 and Quantum Bolt 4 with the Area extra gains the Area:7 tag.

Cloud

This Extra allows a nova to generate an attack in the form of a cloud of gas or energy. The attack gains an Area rat-ing equal to (power rating). In addition, the attack lingers in the area for one extra turn, during which it inflicts half (pre-soak) damage on anyone who enters or remains in the cloud. A sec-ond purchase of this Extra allows the cloud to linger for (power rating) turns.

Delayed

This Extra enables a nova to delay the effects of cer-tain powers. Once the nova unleashes a power in tandem with Delayed, the power effect becomes dormant for up to 1 hour per dot in the power. The nova may choose lower delays, down to 1 combat round (3 seconds). Roll to affect the target normal-ly. Powers which require an attack roll must hit their target for the Delayed effect to have any use. When the timer counts down to 0, the power’s effects manifest.

With one purchase of this Extra, the time delay must be set when the power is used. With two purchases of this Ex-tra, the delayed effect can be activated reflexively as a single action. Furthermore, with two purchases, the power effect can remain dormant indefinitely, but the nova may only maintain up to (power rating) indefinitely Delayed effects at once.

Homing

Homing powers subtract (power rating) from Dodge DVs (not the DV pool, the DV itself) and reduce penalties from distance and/or cover by (power rating). A nova may buy Hom-ing twice to render the power "fire and forget", allowing it to at-tack targets the nova cannot perceive due to cover, lack of line

of sight, or other similar factors (as long as the nova could in theory see the target, i.e. the target isn't there and invisible). A fire-and-forget power must be aimed with a general target crite-rion (valid criteria would be "any human male", "anyone wear-ing this uniform, "any armored vehicle"). If there is any doubt about whether the power can acquire a target, roll the power's effective Intelligence of (power rating). Success means it suc-cessfully acquires a target if one exists, failure means it dissi-pates harmlessly, and a botch means it rockets off and blows up an orphanage or something similarly bad.

Impervious

An Impervious defensive power allows the power to add its Le-thal soak to Aggravated soak, and reduces the effectiveness of armor piercing munitions and powers, subtracting (Power Rat-ing * 2) from the armor-piercing effects of attacks or powers (reducing AP to a minimum of 0). Impervious may be bought up to twice, stacking the effectiveness reduction to armor pierc-ing effects but not the additional Aggravated soak.

Increased Duration

The Increased Duration Extra increases durations as listed below. Note that Increased Duration does increase the power cost by 1 quantum per Extra.

Instant -> Action

Action -> Concentration

Concentration -> Maintenance

Maintenance -> Scene (cost is paid once/scene)

Scene -> Daily (cost is paid once/day)

Daily -> Permanent

Increased Range

If a power has a range of Self, it now has a range of Touch. If a power has a range of Touch, it now has a range of (power rating) x 5m. If the power already has a range, this Ex-tra doubles the range increment, and changes long range to (infinite). Note that a nova must be capable of perceiving the target to attack the target.

Linked

This Extra links a power to another power, allowing it to be activated alongside the other power with no multiple ac-tion penalties. One purchase of the Extra requires both powers to be activated at the same time, another purchase makes it optional.

Merged

A nova with this Extra can combine the effect of his power with the effort of another nova who has the same power, even if the other nova doesn’t have the Merged Extra. Each nova uses his power separately, adding +2 difficulty to the power roll (+1 one if both have Merged). If both succeed, pool the successes to produce one jointly impressive result. Both novas must be able to affect the same target.

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Multiple Target

A Multiple Target ranged power is able to split itself up among separate targets. The character declares which tar-gets he wishes to affect and makes one roll to affect them us-ing the worst modifiers for any single target; die bonuses apply only if all targets would provide that bonus. If he succeeds, all targets are affected, though each target may dodge or resist normally. This Extra allows the character to target (Power Rat-ing + 1) individuals at full effect. Repurchasing this increases the number of targets that can be affected at full damage by (Power Rating). The character may choose to affect double the number of targets he could normally, but the power is at half ef-fect, halving damage (for powers with accuracy and damage) or dice pool (for other powers).

Persistent

If a power with the Persistent Extra is used on a tar-get and does not fail to affect the target (this can happen if the power roll fails or the target successfully resists the power), it provides an additional bonus effect for the next (power rating) turns, equivalent to 1 success of the power or 1 health level of damage/healing effect. For example, a Persistent Quantum Bolt 3 would do its initial damage and then 1 HL of the same type of damage (Bashing or Lethal) for 3 turns, while Persistent Healing 5 would heal a target and then heal 1 HL of Bashing or Lethal damage for the next 5 turns, while Persistent Luck 5 would provide an additional 1d to rolls or +1 DV for the next 5 turns. The Persistent effect cannot be soaked, dodged, or re-sisted.

Precision

A power with Precision allows the user to choose ex-actly how many post-soak levels of damage it does if the power deals damage. If the power creates an effect, the character may choose exactly how many successes to apply.

Reduced Quantum Cost

Reduced Quantum Cost reduces the final cost of the power after applying Extras by 1 Quantum point per purchase. Reduced Quantum Cost does not add a +1QP surcharge to the power's cost, unlike all other Extras.

Reflexive

The nova can designate a power that activates auto-matically, without requiring her conscious effort. The player must designate a condition that triggers the reflex-ive. The most common trigger is the arrival of an attack capa-ble of penetrating the nova’s other defenses, with reflexive launching of Barrier, Armor or healing powers. The reflexive activation does not tie up one of the nova’s actions for that turn and takes immediate effect, so that a defensive power can re-duce the damage of the attack that triggers it. One level of Re-flexive constrains the nova’s deliberate use of the power, add-ing +1 difficulty to any non-reflexive applications. Two levels of Reflexive allow the nova to use the power freely.

Spray/Jet

A power with the Spray/Jet extra fires a continuous stream, which adds (+power rating) to accuracy with no penal-ties and subtracts 1 dodge success from any attempts to evade it. Furthermore, it may engage multiple targets as if firing in a burst. More importantly, if it successfully hits a single target, it can "track" that target, adding a cumulative +1 accuracy and damage to strike that target for every turn the Nova engages the same target, up to (power rating).

Subtle

By default, most powers are relatively obvious. Barri-er creates obvious protective fields, Stun Attack requires sonic blasts or electrical discharges, Shapeshift requires actual phys-ical transformations, and so on. This Extra allows a power to have full effect without any telltale signs. A character with Sub-tle Shapeshift may manifest the strength of a bear and speed of a cheetah… without any physical changes. A character with Subtle Quantum Bolt might cause coincidental effects such as ‘gas main explosions’. If anyone wishes to detect a subtle power in action, they must roll their Perception + Awareness at a difficulty of +(nova’s power rating).

Supercharge

The Supercharge Extra allows a nova to supercharge a power beyond what he or she is normally capable of. The nova pays as much Quantum as she wishes in addition to the normal activation cost. For every doubling of the power's cost, add a temporary +1 to Quantum and +1 to the power rating for one roll. This may not more than double the nova’s effective Quantum or power rating.

Example: A nova with Quantum 3 and Quantum Bolt 4 supercharges it, paying an additional 14 Quantum for a total of 16 (so +4 to Quantum and Quantum Bolt). The Nova then resolves his Quantum Bolt as if he had Quantum 6 and Quan-tum Bolt 8. If the nova had Quantum 4, he would resolve it as if he had Quantum 8 and Quantum Bolt 8.

Trigger

Like Delayed, a nova can use Trigger to activate and forestall an effect, but in this case, the power is waiting for somebody to activate it. This is the Extra equivalent of creating mines. Trigger must be tied into an object which houses the quantum from the power effect. When somebody disturbs the object, the power effect manifests along the same lines as De-layed.

Variable

The character gains access to another variation of the same power, and may switch between them reflexively, costing 1 QP for each switch. For example, switching between unleashing fire and ice with Quantum Bolt, or a Deflection-based Entropy Barrier and a Ablation-based Rock Barrier. If purchased twice, the Variable extra allows the character to completely exchange the power with another power of the same Level, for example, a character with a forcefield that can either bend light (Invisibility) or protect from harm (Barrier).

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Strengths

Some novas can use their powers better than normal, in some specific way. Strengths increase the effectiveness of a power in a straight numbers sense, rather than adding addi-tional features. You can buy strengths with points (see Charac-ter Creation). A power may have Strengths equal to its rating.

Strengths are only applicable to powers which al-ready have the traits in question - so a power that does not have an attack roll cannot gain strength levels in accuracy, and a power that does not have separate techniques (a power like [Element] Control is an example of such a power) cannot take any levels in the "Extra Technique" strength. Strengths for suite powers such as Elemental Control/etc apply to all powers which they should be capable of affecting. No power can have more total strengths than twice its rating, and no specific strength can be stacked more than (power rating) times.

Area: Add 1 to the power's rating when calculating area, or add an area of effect with a radius of (Power Rating) meters if the power lacks an area of effect normally.

Armor Penetration: Add +2 to the power's AP rat-ing.

Damage: Add +1 to a power's damage.

Damage Adds: Add +[1] to a power's damage.

Effect: Add 1d to the power's dice pool.

Extra Technique: A suite power with this Strength has an additional technique. This counts as two levels of strength.

Extra HLs: Any constructs this power makes (like say, Barriers) have an additional health level per level of this strength.

Multiple Actions: 2 levels of this strength allows a power which normally cannot be used more than once a turn to be used more than once a turn.

Range: Add 1 to the power's rating when calculat-ing range.

Rate of Fire: Add 1 to the power's rating when cal-culating Rate of Fire.

Soak: Add 1B/1L/(1A) soak if a power grants soak. This grants Aggravated soak only if the power would normally soak Aggravated damage.

Speed: Add +1 to the power's rating for movement speed. Use for movement powers only.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses help the player better define her charac-ter’s quantum powers by giving them disadvantages. In ex-change for being handicapped, the power becomes either more accessible or better in other ways.

For every Weakness purchased for a power, the player can lower the quantum minimum of the power by 1, to a minimum of 1 (or 6, for quantum powers of Fourth Level or higher). In this way, a Quantum 1 character could buy Tem-poral Manipulation; it would just be rather difficult to use, or lim-ited, compared to a Quantum 5 character buying the same power. Lowering the quantum minimum does not lower the cost of buying or using the power. Alternatively, the player can give the power one Extra for each Weakness purchased.

These two options can be combined. For example, taking two Weaknesses in order to both lower the quantum minimum of Mental Blast by 1 and give it the Lethal extra.

Weaknesses, unlike Extras, are always applied. The character naturally grows out of his Weakness as his Quantum rises. Every time the nova’s Quantum trait rises, he loses one Weakness from all quantum powers that have weaknesses. For example, if a Quantum 1 character bought Telekinesis (normally Quantum Minimum 2) with the Dangerous Weakness, he would lose that Weakness once he hit Quantum 2.

Alternatively, the player can choose to acquire a free Extra for the power, instead of losing the Weakness. For ex-ample, when the nova hits Quantum 2, he could reduce the Quantum Cost of Telekinesis by 1, but the power would still be Dangerous.

List of Weaknesses

Weaknesses can be taken only once, unless the Weakness says otherwise.

Damaging: Every time the nova uses the power, she suffers one level of unsoakable Aggravated damage per Level of the power.

Dangerous: At the end of every scene in which the nova uses the power, she gains one point of temporary Taint per Level of the power

Difficult: All power rolls are at +2 difficulty. If the player doesn’t beat the difficulty penalty, the nova cannot use this power again for the rest of the story. This weakness may be taken a second time, increasing the difficulty to +4, and if the power fails, it cannot be used again until after the end of the next story.

Expensive: Double the quantum point cost.

Maddening: Whenever the character uses the power, he gains (2 x level of the power) XP worth of mental Aberrations. These Aberrations disappear at the end of the next session.

Reduce Duration: Reduces the duration by two categories. Duration categories (in descending order) are Per-manent -> Daily -> Scene -> Maintenance -> Concentration -> Action -> Instant

Reduce Range: Reduce the Range from Ranged to Touch

Slow: Multiply the amount of time necessary to ac-tivate the power by (1 + level of the power). As a side-effect, the power’s usage is plainly obvious. For example, balls of en-ergy gradually swelling around the character’s fists as she pre-pares to fire a Quantum Bolt; talking to machines to “convince” them to let her use Cyberkinesis; or giving somebody the most pained and Businessarre stare as she reaches into the target’s mind.

Strenuous: If the power could be used reflexively, now it cannot be. Also, the power cannot be used as part of a multiple action.

Weak: The power’s damage type is always Stun. If the power originally did Bashing damage, reduce the damage by half (rounding up).

Certain powers might have their own individual weaknesses, just as certain powers have their own Extras.

Power Maxing

Quantum powers are impressive enough. However, when a nova really puts her heart into channeling quantum en-ergies, the effects can be truly awe-inspiring. A nova can “max” a quantum power, enhancing its effects to far beyond normal levels.

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To max a power, the nova’s player spends double the cost of the power. Then the character rolls his Quantum score as a dice pool; this is a reflexive action. If he fails the roll, the nova acquires 1 temporary taint. If he botches, he acquires 2. If the player succeeds on the roll, he can spend those successes to buy new features for the power.

Before the player rolls, he can increase his power max effect by either spending a number of quantum points up to his character’s Quantum score, or voluntarily acquiring points of temporary taint. The character gains +1 automatic success on the roll per point of quantum spent or point of taint gained.

Successes can be spent as follows: • Add +1d to the power’s dice pool or damage, up to

the character’s Quantum. (one success) • Convert one die in the power’s pool into an automat-

ic success. For powers which have both an attack and damage roll, one die from each part is converted. (Two successes)

• Buy any desired Extra for the power. (Two success-es)

• Increase the power’s level by 1 for all purposes, in-cluding accuracy, damage, and range. (Three successes)

• Alter the power for (Quantum) actions, turning it into a related, but possibly significantly different, power. For exam-ple, a nova could turn Bioluminescence into Quantum Bolt (la-ser). The Storyteller is the final arbiter of what is sufficiently re-lated. The nova must meet the Quantum Minimum to use the new power. (Five successes)

The nova can mix and match the following effects, and buy any effect more than once. For example, a nova who gets six successes to spend could buy two extras and convert one of a power’s dice into an automatic success.

A power must be maxed immediately before being used. In other words, a character could not max his Quantum Bolt, then fire a Mental Blast before using the Quantum Bolt. He also could not wait three turns before firing the Quantum Bolt.

The effects of power maxing are plainly obvious to any observer, and the nova herself is often overwhelmed too. The nova feels more powerful, and observers have often used the term “godlike” or “Lovecraftian” to describe novas in the midst of such a power surge. Lights fizzle, people suffer head-aches and nosebleeds, and other weird phenomena often ac-company these effects. Of course, sometimes the point of a power max is subtlety, and so the effect may manifest itself in suitably subtle ways: novas who power max invisibility some-times find their own complete silence disturbing, or else feel like they are literally not there. And the effects of a failed power max are equally impressive: often resulting in a sudden rash of minor, usually temporary, mutations and bursts of uncontrolled power.

Special Effects

Players often come up with ideas that don’t actually require the creation of new powers, they just require a willing-ness to adjust the way an existing power takes effect. Don’t be afraid to invent a new power when a concept really requires it, but keep in mind that if the effect you want only differs in a few specific ways, you can think about simply modifying the exist-ing power to suit. Below, we list a few examples of special ef-fects that would not count as Extras or Strengths for a power, but still allow you to customize your character to a greater de-gree.

Special effects cover the lesser changes you might want to make to a power - not making it significantly more or less effective, just distinctive. Use the categories presented here as a starting point for your own variations. Remember that Aberrant power descriptions cover the average and that, in some ways, this is misleading, since no nova is average. No-vas don’t pause to consult the rulebook during eruption. You should consult it during character creation, with the awareness that you can take liberties. As long as your Storyteller permits them, feel free to make the changes that fit your character and your group.

Acceleration and Retar-

dation

Your nova’s powers may take effect more quickly or more slowly than usual. The Attraction technique for Elemental Mastery usually draws up the attracted element with just enough force to overcome resistance. Your nova may be able to summon a flood of water that cascades uphill with tremen-dous force - you won’t get any damage bonuses without paying for them, but the flood can shove open blocked doors and move other obstacles out of the way. Entropy Control tech-niques usually apply at once, but your nova may use Break-down to introduce a dramatic display of cascading failures in a complex system over a period of minutes or longer.

Halo

Powers that affect the environment, such as Weather Manipulation, generally create whatever physical fac-tors they need to work. Your nova may have powers that work, at least in part, by arranging and concentrating existing fea-tures of her surroundings. For instance, if she heats up the area within range of her pow-ers, a larger area beyond that may become slightly chilled - not enough to produce any benefits (or hindrances) in terms of game mechanics, but something that sensitive people and in-struments might notice.

Mild Damage

The Storyteller system uses fairly big steps in track-ing health levels - even one level of Bashing damage matters. It’s often appropriate to include power effects that don’t do that much quantifiable damage but which matter narratively in the course of play. Almost any power might generate a distinctive tone that sets people’s teeth on edge or create a flash of light that distracts bystanders or release a noxious (or very pleas-ant!) odor. Powers that affect inanimate objects, like Cyberki-nesis, may require your nova to press her palms against a computer hard enough to leave bruises on her hands. Such hard-to-quantify effects are the elements from which drama is woven.

Persistent Effects

The actual mechanical effects of a power end when the description says they do. You can still have some narrative consequences linger, however, and some sorts of persistence are well-established in stories that make good Aberrant fodder. A nova with Hypermovement might leave a series of after-

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images in mid-air, while a nova with precognitive powers might see “before-images” of varying opacity, marking where people will probably be in the future. In some cases, your character may always manifest her powers at a very low level: A nova with Hypermovement may constantly jitter and move abruptly, while a nova with Telepathy or Pretercognition may have the disconcerting habit of answering questions before others finish asking them.

Reflexive Use

In some cases, your nova may not even know that she’s using her powers; in extreme cases, she may not know that she has a particular power at all. A nova with mind-control powers, or simply a great deal of Social Mega-Attributes and enhancements, may automatically interfere with anyone at-tempting to tell her something she doesn’t want to hear. She may believe that she’s a super-soldier created in a secret lab and unconsciously use her powers to stamp out anything that would challenge her self-image. Powers like Luck and Healing lend themselves to reflexive use, as do Disrupt and Disorient. A nova with Matter Creation may not realize that she’s creating things rather than finding them in her pockets. With a little im-

agination, most powers can be made to work in ways besides the nova deciding consciously to use her power at a particular moment.

Signature

Novas often use their powers in distinctive ways. Sometimes a nova can control the extent to which her powers proclaim “Regina Mundi is here!” and sometimes not. Your no-va might, for instance, find all his Mirage and Hologram crea-tions subtly tinged a distinct shade of blue. Every complex de-vice he makes with Matter Creation might have a certain Victo-rian style, with teak and brass fixtures.

Subtle Result

The power whose effects aren’t immediately obvious is a staple of comics. Your nova might have Disintegration, for instance, with the special effect that the target remains appar-ently intact. The target only crumbles to dust once someone brushes against it.

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WEAPONS AND ARMOR

Weapons

Many novas possess fantastic innate powers they can use to wreak havoc. However, some prefer to do it the old-fashioned way, with weapons. That said, superstrong or re-sourceful novas have access to weapons that baselines may never have imagined. The weapons found herein include both those mundane items baselines use to war against each other and the kinds of offensive power that only a nova could bring to bear.

Weapon Statistics

Accuracy: Accuracy is the dice bonus that a weapon gives to attack rolls using the weapon. Weapons without an accuracy value are assumed to have an accuracy of +0.

Cost: The cost of a weapon, in the number of resource dots needed to purchase the weapon without rolling.

Defense: This statistics is the dice bonus the weapon gives to parry attempts using it. Weapons without a defense value may not be used to parry.

Damage: The damage the weapon deals on a success-ful attack. Weapon damage may be S, for Stun, E for EMP, B, for Bashing, L, for Lethal, or A for aggravated.

Range: The range bracket the weapon is most effective in. If the range is given a + (for example, “Rifle+”), it can fire in-to the next range bracket at an additional +2 difficulty to attack rolls.

Tags: Any special abilities a weapon has are listed here.

Strength Minimum/Maximum: The minimum and max-imum strength that may be used with a weapon. Characters with a strength below the minimum suffer a +1 difficulty penalty to all attacks for every dot of strength they fall short by. Char-acters with strength above the maximum may either pull their blows to the maximum level, or attack for full damage at the cost of breaking the weapon.

Magazine: How many shots the weapon may fire before reloading. A weapon without a value for this (or has the value ‘inf.’) has infinite ammunition.

Mass: How much the weapon masses in kilograms.

Rate of Fire/RoF: How many times the weapon may shoot in an action. A fractional RoF means a weapon may not fire every turn: A weapon with a RoF of ½ may fire once every 2 turns, one with a RoF of ¼ may fire once every 4 turns, and so on.

Weapon Tags

2H: Two-handed. Two-handed weapons attack and de-fend at +1 difficulty if wielded one-handed by a character un-less the character has double the minimum strength.

AP(X): Armor Piercing. Reduce target’s non-natural soak by (X).

AoE (X): Area of effect ordinance with rating X. Extra successes on the attack roll do not affect to the damage roll.

B (X): Burst. The weapon fires (X) shots with one attack, even without autofire. This allows a single attack to be split against multiple targets using the autofire rules.

FA: Fully Automatic. The weapon may fire bursts.

FT: Fast tracking. Fast Tracking weapons ignore difficut-ly increases due to enemy movement speed.

G: Guided. Dodge DVs against guided weapons are re-duced by 2.

H: Heavy. Requires two hands to use, but has a one-hand penalty of +4 difficulty instead of +1. Like 2-handed weapons, they may be wielded one-handed if the character has double the minimum strength.

I: Incendiary. The weapon ignores unsealed armor, and a successful attack sets the target on fire, doing 6L/turn until put out.

LAO: Limited Ammo Options. The weapon can use only the listed ammunition type(s).

OW (X)[Y]: Overwhelming. Deals additional damage per extra threshold success. The weapon deals (X) extra dice of damage on a hit, with [Y] extra damage adds.

S [X]: Size. The weapon is considered a Size of (X) for the purposes of dealing damage and hitting targets. Weapons without this tag are Size 0.

Weapon Models

The statistics given for weapons are for a relatively representative “generic” weapons type. STs who wish to add greater verisimilitude at the cost of increasing complexity may choose to alter weapons statistics for differing weapons. These varied weapons may have alterations of up to +/-2 to accuracy, defense, or damage, and up to a 50% increase or decrease in magazine capacity, mass, strength requirements, and rate of fire.

Weapon Size/Structure

Weapon Size determines how easy it is to conceal a weapon, how easy it is to hit, and how easy it is to destroy. This column has two numbers, separated by a slash. The first is the weapon’s Size, which determines how easy it is to con-ceal and how easy it is to hit. The second is the weapon’s Structure. A weapon’s Armor and Health Levels are both identical to its Structure rat-ing. Weapons with a Size above 0 also have additional Health Levels equal to their Size. Note that Weapon Size does not determine the effec-tive Size the weapon has for damaging enemies, just the weapon’s physical size.

Concealment

Concealment depends on the size of an equipment item relative to the user. A weapon or tool 7 Size or smaller than the user can be hidden in a pocket. A weapon or tool 5 Size or smaller than the user can be hidden in a jacket. A

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weapon or tool 3 Size or smaller than the user can be hidden in an overcoat. Weapons larger than that may not be hidden.

Melee Weapons

Melee weapons have an accuracy, defense, damage, and strength minimum/maximum. Accuracy and Defense add or penalize the offensive or defensive ability of a weapon, re-spectively, while damage is the weapon's damage. For each point of strength below the minimum, a character adds +1 diffi-culty to attacking or blocking with a weapon. A character may not exert more than the maximum level of strength without damaging or destroying the weapon in question.

Each point of Mega-Strength is counted as 10 points of regular strength for minimum and maximum.

Melee weapons have fixed Rates dependent on the type of melee weapon. Light one handed melee weapons (less than 1 kg) have a Rate of (Dexterity), heavy one handed melee weapons have a Rate of (Dexterity – 1), and 2-handed melee weapons have a rate of (Dexterity/2), rounded down (minimum rate ½). This is per melee weapon, so dual-wielding helps.

A sufficiently strong character may throw any melee weapons for their listed damage.

Baseline Blunt Melee Weapons

Brass Knuckles: Brass knuckles (or the equivalent for kicking, steel-toed boots) provide additional striking power for unarmed attacks. Brass knuckles add +1 damage to unarmed attacks that do not involve grappling.

Spiked Knuckles: Spiked knuckles are the more lethal version of brass knuckles. They add +1 damage to non-grappling unarmed attacks and turn the attack damage lethal.

Pistol: Pistol-whipping someone can do a fair amount of damage, as pistols are made of very solid metal. Pistol whip-ping uses Melee, has accuracy and defense as described in the table below, and the weapon uses the mass and conceal-ment of the original pistol.

Rifle Butt: Like pistols, rifles are not designed as melee weapons but make serviceable tools to beat someone to death with. Attacking with a rifle butt uses Melee, but the weapon still retains

Club (Improvised): Clubs are little more than heavy blunt objects weighted from hitting people on the head with. Improvised clubs are poorly balanced for combat but still are very good at beating people to death very quickly.

Club (Riot Baton): Riot Batons are well-balanced clubs intended for bringing a quick and less-than-lethal end to disa-greements about the proper function of government. High-strength and relatively light, they are an excellent tool for en-couraging polite debate.

War Hammer: War hammers are one-handed heavy hammers intended to injure armored knights.

Sledgehammer: Sledgehammers are large, heavy two-handed blunt tools which are excellent for demolitions or inflict-ing pain on opponents.

Staff: Long staves are moderately useful offensive weapons that can be used as grappling aids with proper form, but are primarily useful for parrying the attacks of weapon-wielding opponents. The statistics given are for a fixed staff, lit-tle more than a straight and balanced piece of wood or metal. A collapsible staff has reduced damage (Str + 4B) and masses 1 kg less but may be folded down to Size -4.

Baseline Blunt Melee Weapons Chart

Weapon Type Accuracy Defense Damage Tags Str Min

Str Max

Mass Size/Structure Cost

Brass Knuckles n/a n/a See text n/a n/a 8 1 -9/3 1

Spiked Knuckles n/a n/a See text n/a n/a 8 1 -8/3 1

Pistol +1 +0 Str + 3B n/a 1 8 Var. Var. (As weapon)

Var. (As weapon)

Rifle Butt +0 +0 Str + 5B 2H 2 10 Var. Var. (As weapon)

Var. (As weapon

Club (Impro-vised)

-1 -1 Str + 4B n/a 1 5 2 -6/2-5 Var. (As item)

Club (Riot Ba-ton)

+2 +1 Str + 4B n/a 1 12 2 -6/8 2

War Hammer +1 -1 Str + 6B AP 2, 2H

2 15 3 -3/10 2 (replica) 4-6 (antique)

Sledgehammer -2 -2 Str + 7B S1, 2H

2 15 4 -3/10 1

Staff +1 +3 Str + 5B 2H 1 8 3 -2/8

2

Superhuman Blunt Melee

Weapons

Note that most of these have minimum mega- attributes listed - they cannot be wielded by human-size entities without the physics-violating properties of mega-attributes as effective melee weapons. The Structure and Size of these weapons are

equivalent to the structure and size of the item in question when not being wielded as a weapon.

Human Body: Beating someone to death with another person has never gotten old. Although soft and squishy they do tend to mass enough to make effective bludgeons for the su-perhumanly strong. The numbers before the slash are for a still-conscious human, who is probably squirming a lot and otherwise making it difficult to beat someone to death with. A

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few good whacks, though, and the second set of statistics comes into play, for a dead body.

Motorcycle: Although more commonly found as a meth-od of transportation, a motorcycle makes an excellent shield or bludgeon if you don't mind the fact that it won't work afterwards. The number before the slash for Max Strength is how hard you can hit someone and still keep it functional.

Lamppost: A method of illumination or for super-strength beatdowns, lampposts are multipurpose and found everywhere.

Car: Beating someone to death with a car is only really possible for the Mega-Strong or large machines such as mecha, but is satisfying nevertheless. Anyone else attempting to commit bicep-assisted vehicular manslaughter needs to wor-ry about things like ‘leverage’.

Semi-Truck: You can use it like a seven-section staff. One with only two sections, sure, and it's about ten times your size, but when has that stopped novas?

Tank: For the exceedingly Mega-Strong, there is always the unsubtle option of beating someone to death with sixty tons of depleted uranium and steel.

Superhuman Blunt Melee Weapons

Weapon Type

Accuracy Defense Damage Tags Str Min Str Max Mass Cost

Human Body

-2/-1 -4/+1 Str + 5B S 2, H 6 10 ~40-120 n/a

Motorcycle +0 +0 Str + 8B OW 2, S 2, H

8 12/18 ~150 3

Lamppost +1 +2 Str + 8B OW 2, S 3, H

Mega 1 25 ~250 3

Car -3 +3 Str + 10B OW 3, S 4, H

Mega 2 20/33 ~1000 3

Semi-Truck -4 +4 Str + 12B OW 3, S 6, H

Mega 3 20/45 ~5000 4

Tank -5 +6 Str + 14B OW 4, S 9, H

Mega 4 60 ~60,000 5

Baseline Lethal Melee Weap-

ons

Kitchen Knife: Although unbalanced for combat, kitchen knives are still sharp, pointy objects that can stab someone to death.

Combat Knife: Combat knives are designed for actual combat. Modern ones are often nonmetallic, but even older steel ones can are no less effective.

Long Sword: About a meter long and 1.5-2 kg in mass, long swords come in various types, from European straight swords to Middle Eastern scimitars to Japanese katanas. All have approximately identical stats.

Two-Handed Sword: Large, two-handed blades are the pinnacle of normal human swordiness.

Polearm: They're sticks with pointy ends on them. Fairly simple. Their long reach and haft make them excellent defen-sive weapons, provided that the opposition doesn't get past them.

Chainsaw: The chainsaw is a classic melee weapon for use against zombies or by slasher flick antagonists. Although

brutal, it is impractical, with poor balance and absolutely no semblance of stealth. A chainsaw requires 2 combat rounds (6 seconds) to start up, and when started adds +4 difficulty to any stealth rolls due to its noise.

Whipsword: A monomolecular blade, the hypertensile fibers used in a whipsword provide incredible sharpness. Their thin, extremely sharp nature allows for precise cuts to deal massive amounts of trauma, even though their light weight means glancing blows deal little more damage than a combat knife.

Blast Projector: Blast Projectors are high-tech harness-es equipped with high-power electromagnetic launchers that may be worn over armor. When activated, an onboard comput-er launches a swarm of high-velocity ball bearings at all nearby targets, like a reusable fragmentation grenade. Blast Projectors have an automatic accuracy of 10d, regardless of the user’s Melee dice pools, and carry up to 3 charges of supersonic ball bearings. They may not be parried without the use of a shield or other device that protects the entire body. The user takes 12B damage, which is soaked normally. Blast Projectors are worn, not wielded, and thus may be concealed under clothing despite their large size.

Baseline Lethal Melee Weapons Chart

Weapon Type

Accuracy Defense Damage Tags Str Min

Str Max

Mass Size/Structure Cost

Kitchen Knife

+1 -1 Str + 1L n/a 1 4 0.5 -7/3 1

Combat Knife

+2 +1 Str + 2L 1 15 0.5 -7/6 2

Long Sword

+2 +2 Str + 5L 1 20 1.5 -5/8 2 (replica) 4-6 (antique)

Two-Handed Sword

+1 +0 Str + 7L S1, 2H 3 25 3 -3/10 2 (replica) 4-6 (antique)

Polearm +1 +3 Str + 6L AP 1, 2H 2 20 3.5 -2/10 2 (replica)

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4-6 (antique) Chainsaw -3 -3 12L [2] OW 2, H 2 n/a 6 -2/12 3 Whips-word

+2 +2 Str + 2L AP 8, OW 2

1 50 1.5 -6/12 4

Blast Pro-jector

10 N/A 12L [4] Area:2, 3 Shots

N/A N/A 8 -3/10 5

Superhuman Lethal Melee

Weapons

These melee weapons take advantage of the physics-violating properties of Mega-Strength and may not be wielded effectively by characters without it. Like with superhuman blunt melee weapons, they are not given concealment ratings for obvious reasons.

Klaive: A two handed sword on steroids, a klaive is ba-sically a sharpened helicopter rotor mated to a superhumanly strong nova. The results tend to be gruesome, as with its ab-surd momentum it can tear through just about anything without slowing down.

Daiklaive: Nobody knows who named this or which in-sane mind decided it was a good idea, but a "daiklaive" is roughly 2.5 meters and several hundred kilograms of sharp-ened composite with a depleted uranium core. In proper hands, it is quite capable of crushing through tank armor.

Superhuman Lethal Melee Weapons Table

Type Accuracy Defense Damage Tags Str Min Str Max Mass Size/ Structure

Cost

Klaive +0 +0 Str + 8L [2] OW 2, H Mega 1 35 50 -1/18 4 Daiklaive -2 +1 Str + 12L [3] OW 3, S 4, H Mega 2 50 500 3/25 5

Ranged Weapons

Range Modifiers

Ranged weapons may have range modifiers from . A +1 to range adds a “+” if a weapon doesn’t have a + yet, or re-moves the + and increases the range bracket by 1 if the weap-on has a “+”. A +1 to the range bracket (normally only found from Mega-Strength enhancements) simply increases the range bracket by 1. Negative modifiers work the same way, but in reverse. So for example, a weapon with Rifle range using ammunition with a +1 range modifier will go up to Rifle+. If it used ammunition with a +2 range modifier instead, it would go up to Support.

Firearms

These ranged weapons require the Firearms Ability to use properly.

Firearms Modifications

Modifications are applied to a firearm or heavy weap-on to alter their operation for different roles. These include al-terations to caliber, changes to a weapon’s feed system, changing barrel length, or other such alterations. Percentage modifiers are applied sequentially- two -50% magazine capaci-ty modifications mean you halve the magazine capacity and halve it again, not that you end up with no way to fire the weapon. Modifications are also used to represent the differing statistics for various weapons without having to have four or five different variants of every weapon, as well. For example, a Desert Eagle or other huge pistol can easily be represented by giving the High-Caliber modification to a standard pistol.

High-Caliber: +2 Damage, -50% magazine capacity, +2 to Strength minimum, +1 Size.

Low-Caliber: -2 Damage, Range reduced by 1 level (e.g. a weapon with Handgun range now has Throwing+ range), +50% magazine capacity. -1 to Strength minimum, -1 Size.

Long Barrel: +1 Damage, +1 Accuracy, +1 Size

Short Barrel: -1 Damage, -1 Accuracy, -1 Size

Internal Magazine: Reloads one shot per action, -50% magazine capacity, -1 Size

Archaic: Archaic firearms date from the early half of the 20th century. They have halved fire rate (round up), -1 Accuracy, and -1 Damage. They also may not use advanced ammunition types (+P+, Explosive, APDS, or Multiplex) and may only use Sights or Suppressors as weapons modifications.

Pistols and SMGs

This covers all kinds of small sidearms. Pistols are most commonly used for civilian self-defense (and committing crimes), while SMGs and PDWs are more often used by para-military police and military units.

Pistol/Revolver: A pistol chambered in calibers such as 9mm Parabellum or 10mm Auto. Low-caliber pistols are cham-bered in things such as .22 LR or 7.62 Tokarev, while high-caliber pistols are often chambered in .44 Magnum or similar. Revolvers ignore the magazine size reduction from being High-Caliber.

Machine Pistol: Machine pistols are small-caliber pistols with selective-fire capability. The smallest concealable auto-matic weapons, they are rather impractical due to high recoil, poor accuracy, and small magazine size.

SMG: A fully-automatic, two handed weapon that fires pistol-caliber ammunition, the submachine gun is often found in the hands of special forces teams, SWAT officers, and gun en-thusiasts with a full auto license. Combining small size, light weight, and automatic room-clearing capability, SMGs fill their niche well.

Flare Gun: Flare guns are generally used for firing a flare to signal other people rather than for any offensive roles.

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However, they can be improvised into an offensive weapon, setting anyone they shoot alight.

Hand Cannon: The pinnacle of pistol design for the per-son who subscribes to the idea that ‘bigger is better’, hand cannons are overkill for self-defense against humans, with ex-cessive recoil and tiny magazines. Hand cannons are, however, effective against larger and hardier creatures such as bears and lions. Furthermore, when firing high-power ammunition they can even provide some level of threat against more fragile novas.

PDW: Personal Defense Weapons use small, armor-piercing bullets to penetrate modern body armor while still be-ing easy to carry and conceal. Larger PDWs may use actual ri-fle ammunition, but many use proprietary lightweight rounds.

Grapple Gun: A grapple gun shoots a large metal spike connected to a high-tensile cable and a powerful winch. Alt-hough certainly dangerous to anyone you spike, their primary use is to scale surfaces, not kill people.

Pistols and SMGs

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Mass Size/ Structure

Min. Str Cost

Pistol +0 5L Handgun n/a 10 20 0.75 -7/3 1 1 Revolver +0 5L Handgun n/a 6 6 0.75 -7/3 1 1 Machine Pistol

-1 5L Handgun FA 50 20 1 -7/3 2 2

SMG +0 7L Handgun+ 2H, FA 40 40 2.5 -6/5 1 2 Flare Gun -2 6L Throwing+ I 1 1 1 -7/3 1 1 Hand Can-non

-1 10L Handgun+ 2H 1 5 2 -5/5 3 3

PDW +1 6L Handgun+ AP 3, 2H, FA 60 60 2.5 -6/5 1 3 Grapple Gun

-2 10L Throwing N

1/5 1 1.5 -6/5 2 2

Grapple guns are intended as grappling tools, in which case they can anchor into anything with less than 10 Lethal soak and carry up to 100kg.

Shotguns

Shotguns are another common civilian weapon, largely because they are often more easily available due to the wide variety of legitimate uses. Even in nations where firearms are heavily restricted, hunting shotguns are often easy to ac-quire for an average civilian due to their usefulness in hunting, sporting, and other occupations.

Mini-Shotgun: These extremely small weapons are barely larger than pistols, designed for concealability and close-range stopping power. Generally used by gang enforcers and counter-terrorist commandos where maneuverability and small size are paramount, they are uncommon weapons.

Double-Barrel Sawed-Off Shotgun: The stereotypical shotgun, double-barrel sawed-off shotguns have only two shots before they require reloading but are high-power and conceal-able.

Hunting Shotgun: Generally used to shoot down birds (with birdshot) or kill large game (with slugs), hunting shotguns are accurate and powerful weapons that sacrifice magazine

size for longer range and accuracy. Hunting shotguns are also generally easy to acquire even in nations which ban other fire-arms.

Tactical Shotgun: The classic weapon of the stereotyp-ical zombie hunter and commonly used by police and soldiers, pump-action or semi-automatic tactical shotguns can use a wide variety of specialist ammunition, making them versatile weapons. As a bonus, they sound intimidating.

Automatic Shotgun: Fully automatic shotguns provide a huge amount of punch in close quarters without sacrificing the versatility of a standard shotgun. Semi-automatic versions exist for countries with automatic weapons restrictions, with identical statistics save for the fact that they cannot fire bursts.

Assault Shotgun: A very large, belt-fed automatic shot-gun using massive shells, assault shotguns are a relatively new invention and a very niche weapon. They are generally one-off custom designs, with few companies actually producing these monstrosities. Their bulk is such that they require super-humanly strong firers.

Shotguns

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Mass Size/ Structure

Min. Strength

Cost

Mini-Shotgun

+0 10L Handgun 2H 2 5 1.5 -6/5 2 2

Double-Barrel

+0 12L Handgun 2H 2 2 1.5 -6/4 1 1

Hunting Shotgun

+1 12L Handgun+ 2H 2 4 3 -4/6 1 2

Tactical Shotgun

+1 12L Handgun+ 2H 4 8 2.5 -4/6 2 2

Auto. Shotgun

+0 12L Handgun+ 2H, FA

12 12 3 -3/8 3 3

Assault +1 15L Handgun+ H, 18 54 20 -2/10 6 4

ABERRANT

154

Shotgun FA

Shotgun-Only Ammunition

Type Acc. Mods Damage Mods Range Mods Tags Slug n/a n/a n/a n/a Saboted Slug +1 -2 +1 n/a Baton n/a Bashing -1 n/a Taser n/a Stun n/a n/a Birdshot +5 Bashing, -6, +[1] -1 S -3 Buckshot/Flechettes +3 -6, +[3] -1 n/a Flamethrower n/a Half damage -2 I, N Frag n/a n/a n/a A 1

Precision Weapons

These ranged weapons require the Firearms Ability to use properly. Some of these weapons may be set up on a recoil-reducing bipod, reducing their strength requirements (some-times significantly). Setting up or breaking down a sniper rifle to take advantage of this feature requires 3 combat rounds (~10 seconds) to do.

Varmint Rifle: A low-caliber rifle, generally chambered in .22 or a similar weak caliber. Generally used to shoot go-phers and squirrels, they are relatively ineffective against hu-mans. On the other hand, ineffective doesn’t mean nonlethal, and they are small and quiet.

Bow: Bows are an ancient and well-known ranged weapon. Although extremely primitive, they are surprisingly ef-fective as weapons. There are three stats for bows in the table: A small shortbow, with relatively low power, a longbow, with more power but higher strength requirements, and a pair of bows specifically designed for novas, using carbon nanotube bowstrings and high-tech composites to fire extremely large ar-rows at extremely high speeds. Modern ballistic body armor is capable of stopping arrows effectively, but more primitive bal-listic armor is not-against people who have such outdated equipment, halve the soak of the armor against arrows.

Crossbow: Crossbows use mechanical cocking devices and a method to keep the bowstring drawn to reduce the strain on a character’s muscles. Crossbows do not suffer from diffi-culty increases from low strength. Instead, for each dot of strength the user falls short by, the character requires 1 addi-tional turn to reload and ready the crossbow, with a minimum of 2 turns (so a character with Strength 1 requires 7 turns to re-

load and ready a crossbow). Otherwise, crossbows are largely identical to bows.

Hunting Rifle: Hunting rifles are used by hunters to shoot deer, buffalo, boars, and other types of game. Although not specifically intended to kill people, they are quite servicea-ble in that role, and are relatively easily available.

Sniper Rifle: The sniper rifle is, properly speaking, an-other type of hunting rifle, except it’s intended to hunt the most dangerous game. More accurate and with a higher emphasis given to rate of fire than a normal hunting rifle, sniper rifles are expensive, high-end hardware. In addition, some sniper rifles are designed to break down and fit into a specialized suitcase. These rifles are used by hitmen, black ops assassins, and cov-ert bodyguard details.

Big Game Rifle: Big Game Rifles are built to stop ele-phants and rhinoceroses. To do so, they use very high-caliber bullets that do a lot of damage against flesh.

Anti-Materiel Rifle: What happens when you take a big game rifle and militarize it? An anti-materiel rifle is designed to hunt things such as light military vehicles, people under heavy cover, and (nowadays) weaker novas. Precise, long-range, and powerful they are the pinnacle of man-portable sniper weapons.

Electromagnetic Sniper Rifle: More of a miniaturized tank cannon than a sniper rifle, the Electromagnetic Sniper Ri-fle is an anti-materiel rifle on steroids, a development of the portable railgun that sacrifices its rate of fire to provide enough punch to kill armored vehicles. Massive and unwieldy due to the soft-recoil systems needed to prevent user injury, there ex-ists a version with a mass of ‘only’ 10kg that may not be set up, and therefore may only be used by characters with a Strength of 10 or greater.

Precision Weapons

Type Acc. Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Mass Size/ Structure

Min. Str

Cost

Varmint Rifle +2 5L Handgun+ 2H 2 10 2.5 -6/5 0 1 Bow (short) +0 6L Handgun H* 1 n/a 1 -4/6 2 1 Bow (long) +0 8L Handgun+ H* ½ n/a 1.5 -3/6 4 2 Bow (nova) +1 20L [6] Rifle+ AP 5, OW 2,

H* ½ n/a 10 -2/15 25 4

Bow (strong no-va)

+1 24L [12] Support AP 10, OW 2 [1], H*

½ n/a 30 0/20 50 5

Crossbow +0 10L Handgun 2H ½ n/a 2.5 -3/6 6 2 Hunting Rifle +2 10L Rifle+ 2H, LR 1 5 4 -3/7 1/2** 2 Sniper Rifle +3 10L Rifle+ AP 2, 2H, LR 2 10 5 -3/8 1/3** 4 Big Game Rifle +1 16L [4] Rifle H 1 2 8 -3/8 3 3

ABERRANT

155

Anti-materiel Ri-fle

+2 15L [3] Rifle+ AP 3, H, LR 1 10 10 -2/8 1/4** 3

EM Sniper Rifle +2 20L [6] Support AP 5, H, LR ½ 4 18/10 -2/5 1/10** 4 *bows may not be used one-handed without a power such as Telekinesis to draw the bowstring. **strength requirement before the slash is when set up, after is without setup.

Military Weapons

These military small arms are so classified because they are largely only used by military forces. Civilian possession of these weapons is nearly nonexistent even in areas with loose firearms laws, with exceptions generally only being in nations with universal conscription.

Flechette Rifle: Flechette Rifles use next-generation propellants and electromagnetic assist to fire dart-shaped de-pleted uranium chunks at high velocities. With exceptional ac-curacy, range, and armor-piercing ability, they are the pinnacle of conventional rifles and are an increasingly common sight on 21st century battlefields. Flechette rifles gain their penetration and stopping power by using extremely specialized ammunition and may not use any ammunition special options.

Assault Rifle: Assault rifles use more powerful bullets than submachine guns and pistols, but weaker ones than full-sized rifles (such as the sniper rifle). Accurate and common, they are still common as dirt. Civilian ‘assault rifles’ cannot fire bursts and use less-penetrating ammunition (losing the AP) but are otherwise identical.

Machine Gun: Machine guns are primarily used to sup-press multiple enemies in combat. With incredible ammunition capacities, high rates of fire, and reasonable accuracy, they are incredibly powerful killers.

Portable Railgun: An infantry-size magnetic accelerator. Fires a 40-gram slug at 2.5 kilometers per second up to twice a second. Very lethal against infantry, light vehicles, novas, and almost anything else that isn’t a tank.

Military Weapons

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Mass Size/ Structure

Min. Str Cost

Flechette Rifle

+2 10L Rifle AP 5, LAO, 2H, FA

20 20 4 -3/6 2 4

Assault Rifle

+1 8L Rifle AP 1, 2H. FA 30 30 3 -4/6 2 2

Machine Gun

+3 10L Rifle+ AP 1, B3, 2H, FA

60/20 200 10 -2/7 3 3

Portable Railgun

+2 16L [4] Support AP 4, H 6 18 15 -2/6 4 4

Heavy Weapons

These ranged weapons use the Gunnery ability to fire. Un-less specially modified for use in confined spaces, RPGs and other rocket launchers such as SAMs and Anti-tank missiles also have a backblast arc that extends behind the firer for 5m. Anyone caught in the backblast takes 10L damage and is set on fire as if hit by an incendiary weapon. If fired inside a room, this damage affects everyone inside the room, including the fir-er. Rocket launchers modified for use in confined spaces have identical statistics but lack this backblast effect.

Flamethrower: Flamethrowers are a bunker-clearing tool that has immense psychological effect, as anything that sets people on fire tends to do. Modern flamethrowers use bi-nary gel fuels and reinforced tanks to prevent the user from go-ing up in a fireball. Flamethrowers cannot be used for called shots but also ignore cover. Called shots on the flamethrower target the fuel tank by default. Destroying the weapon causes the tank to explode, dealing 10L damage to the user and set-ting him on fire. Flamethrowers may attack multiple enemies at once via Strafing and are automatically considered to be firing ‘long bursts’ (the Accuracy bonus and ammo consumption is already factored into the weapon statistics), but only 1 flamethrower ‘attack’ may be made per round.

Grenade Launchers: The standard grenade launcher is a carbine-sized weapon firing a single 30-50mm grenade. The

multiple grenade launcher is a larger weapon the size of a large rifle, firing six grenades from a revolver-style or box mag-azine. Both are versatile weapons with a variety of lethal and non-Lethal ammunition options.

RPG: A common weapon for insurgents, the rocket-propelled grenade is a versatile anti-vehicle weapon that also happens to be fairly good against infantry. The “Old RPG” stats represent a 1960s-era rocket propelled grenade such as the Soviet RPG-7, while the “Modern RPG” stats represent a more advanced rocket with higher accuracy intended for anti-nova use. RPGs may also use any alternate grenade munition.

SAM: An infantry-portable anti-aircraft missile. Uses a large blast-fragmentation warhead to prevent enemy evasion. Although primarily useful against aircraft, its large warhead and area effect mean that skilled operators can use it against man-sized targets as well. Note that when firing against human tar-gets all shots are difficulty +2 due to ground clutter. However, shots against tanks and other vehicles are at normal difficulty. SAMs are either disposable (cannot be reloaded) or take (11-Dexterity, minimum 2) rounds to reload.

Anti-Tank Missile: Anti-tank missiles give infantry a weapon capable of dealing substantial harm to tanks. Using large armor-piercing warheads they concentrate the majority of their warhead’s explosive potential into a small area to maxim-ize armor penetration. Anti-tank missiles are either disposable (cannot be reloaded) or take (11-Dexterity, minimum 2) rounds to reload.

ABERRANT

156

Standard Heavy Weapons

Type Acc. Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Mass Size/ Structure

Min. Str Cost

Flamethrower +7 8L Throwing I, H, N Special 10 20 -1/8 3 3 Grenade Launcher

+1 G Handgun+ A 1, H 1 1 3 -5/5 1 2

Multiple Grenade Launcher

+1 G Handgun+ A 1, H 6 6 6 -4/6 3 2

Old RPG -3 16L [8] Handgun A 2, AP 8, S 6, H

1 1 4 -2/4 2 1

Modern RPG -2 20L [10] Handgun+ A 2, AP 10, S 6, H

1 1 5 -2/4 2 3

SAM +2 20L [10] Support+ FT, G, S 6, A 2, H

1 1 10 -2/5 2 4

Anti-Tank Missile

-1 24L [12] Support AP 12, G, OW 2[1], S 6, H

1 1 10 -2/5 2 4

Energy Weapons

These cutting-edge ranged weapons require the Firearms Ability to use properly. Energy weapons are generally more ac-curate than firearms and longer-ranged with no firepower sacri-fices, but are extremely fragile and expensive.

Electrolaser Pistol: The electrolaser pistol uses a laser to ionize a channel of air to deploy a powerful electric shock through. With 2 settings, Stun or Lethal, the weapon provides a variable response that allows the shooter to select the minimal necessary amount of force. Primarily used by police in ad-vanced countries, they are expensive but powerful and versa-tile.

Maser Gun: Masers are microwave lasers. Powerful di-rect energy weapons, they use 1 charge for every 3 seconds of continuous fire. This can involve sweeping the beam across up to six targets (using the spray rules), or focusing the beam on fewer targets. The beam does an additional +1L [1] to one tar-get or gains +1 accuracy for each target it could have been used to attack but was not, representing focusing it on an en-

emy for additional time or sweeping it to catch someone, up to a whopping +7 accuracy or 20L[5] damage to a single target.

Portable Laser: Portable Lasers are heavy anti-vehicular laser weapons that have found themselves pressed into service against nova threats as well. Firing concentrated beams of light, attempts to dodge portable lasers are at +2 dif-ficulty due to their instant-hit nature.

Taser: The most common energy weapon in existence, the taser uses prongs to put out a Stunning shock that can stop the most determined attackers in their tracks. However, this comes with several weaknesses. Tasers are ineffective against any armor or protective clothing unless applied to an un-armored part of the body. Tasers are common enough that the user does not have an increased botch chance or reload time without an Energy Weapons specialty, and may be used as melee weapons with Melee as well. A Taser used in melee has the same Accuracy and Damage, but Defense -2.

HERF Rifle: HERF rifles use high-energy radio frequen-cies to disrupt electronics. More or less harmless against living creatures, they are devastating against electronic systems.

Energy Weapons

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Mass Size/ Structure

Cost

Electrolaser Pistol

+3 15S (Stun) 10L (Lethal)

Handgun+ LR 10 (stun) 5 (lethal)

50 (stun) 10 (lethal)

1 -7/3 3

Maser Gun +2 15L Rifle 2H, LR Continuous 10 8 -2/6 4 Portable La-ser

+3 18L [6] Support AP 4, LR, S 2, H

1 5 30 -1/8 5

Taser +2 10S Melee+ N 1 1 0.5 -8/3 1 HERF Rifle +2 12E Rifle 2H 2 40 3 -4/4 3

Vehicle Weapons

These weapons require the Gunnery Ability to use properly when mounted on a vehicle, or Firearms (for guns)/Heavy Weapons (for missiles and grenade launchers) to use when dismounted. None of these weapons are conceala-ble.

Smaller Guns

The minimum strength requirement for these weap-ons is when dismounted. One dot of Mega-Strength counts as 10 dots of regular Strength for weapons requirements. Addi-tionally, these weapons have two magazine sizes, separated by a slash. The first size is the magazine for a vehicle-mounted weapon, such as a coaxial MG, feeding from a large ammuni-tion feed. The second size is for a weapon that is not mounted to a vehicle, but rather carried by hand or mounted on a pintle (note that some weapons expect backpacks or giant barrels full of ammunition).

ABERRANT

157

Medium MG: Identical to the man-portable version, save that the vehicle-mounted version is stabilized for better accura-cy, has a better cooling system for superior fire rate, and feeds from a much larger ammunition supply.

Heavy MG: A larger machine gun, using bullets around twice the size of the medium machine gun and roughly equiva-lent to antimateriel rifle rounds, the heavy MG is surprisingly long-range, accurate, and devastating. In addition, their low cost means that many Mega-Strong Novas who still like guns can easily get one.

Minigun: Generally used as helicopter door guns, they are an action movie favorite. Putting out a ridiculous amount of lead and requiring a backpack full of ammunition to use, they are incredibly intimidating weapons.

20mm AC: A quantum leap over the heavy machine gun’s firepower, the 20mm autocannon rapidly fires very large shells at targets. Generally only found on vehicles, heavily en-hanced individuals or Mega-Strong novas can use specially

modified versions with shortened barrels and superior balance, as well as 100-round belts of 20mm rounds.

30mm AC: The start of the weapons only Mega-Strong novas can use reliably (rather than being usable by many augmented cyborgs), the 30mm autocannon fires 500 explod-ing or armor-piercing shells almost as big as a person’s fist every minute, at velocities of over a kilometer a second. Nova Elites and military-employed novas often use these with a 50-round box magazine, but their normal home is on light armored vehicles.

Vehicular Grenade Launcher: An automatic, box-fed grenade launcher that fires up to 3 grenades a second on au-tomatic fire, a vehicular grenade launcher is an excellent sec-ondary weapon for vehicles, with a wide variety of ammunition. These weapons can be used dismounted by particularly strong enhanced infantrymen or just about any Mega-Strong nova, giving them incredible versatility and popularity among super-human combatants.

Smaller Guns

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Str Min Mass Size/ Structure

Cost

Medium MG

+3 12L Support AP 2, B 4, H, FA

60/15 2400/120 3 12 -2/9 3

Heavy MG +1 15L [3] Support AP 3, B 3, H, FA

30/10 1200/150 7 30 -1/10 3

Minigun +5 12L [1] Support AP 2, B 40, H, FA

320/8 4000/2000 8 35 -1/10 4

20mm AC +1 16L [4] Support+ AP 4, S 2, H, FA

25 900/100 10 45 -1/10 4

30mm AC +0 18L [4] Support+ AP 5, S 3, H, FA

25 600/50 15 60 0/12 4

Vehicle Grenade Launcher

+0 See Gre-nades

Rifle A 1, FA 9 200/50 7 50 -1/10 4

Aircraft Guns

As above, weapon masses are when unloaded, and the first magazine size represents the weapon being fixed on a vehicle, while the second is when unfixed (such as when mounted on a gunpod or carried by a nova). If carried, these weapons require external ammunition drums and battery packs, which also have significant mass and encumbrance.

Light Gatling: Using multiple barrels to get an enor-mous rate of fire without overheat worries, a “small” rotary can-non can put out more than a hundred quarter-kilogram high-explosive shells every second, dealing massive damage to lightly armored targets. “Nova-portable” versions are cut-down designs that meter out punishment with 20 round bursts per trigger squeeze.

Heavy Gatling: The bigger brother of the light gatling, the heavy gatling shoots a lot of very big bullets very fast. Alt-hough the fire rate is significantly reduced, the larger, faster projectiles mean greater overall damage and range. The most infamous of these is, of course, the GAU-8 Avenger, mounted

on the venerable A-10 attack aircraft. Modern versions are lighter and more efficient, but sometimes you can’t beat the classics for style.

Gatling Railgun: Gatling railguns use the same princi-ples as portable railguns in their design, firing light projectiles at high velocities, except the gatling railgun has a dozen bar-rels. The railgun itself requires extreme amounts of electrical power and is dependent on an external power source to work, such as a nova with Quantum Conversion, a superconducting cable to a military vehicle, or a half-ton battery pack.

Tactical Laser: A cutting edge directed-energy weapon, the tactical laser fires a sweeping scythe of coherent light that can be dangerous to aircraft and armored vehicle alike. Like the maser, the Tactical Laser is a continuous beam energy weapon which may attack up to six targets at once. Alternative-ly, the beam does an additional +1L [1] to one target or gains +1 accuracy for each target it could have been used to attack but was not, representing focusing it on an enemy for addition-al time or sweeping it to catch a target. The tactical laser uses up 1 ‘shot’ per 3 seconds of continuous fire, and may only fire every other round due to heat buildup.

Aircraft Guns

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Str Min

Mass Size/ Structure

Cost

Light +3/+0 20L [10] Support AP 2, B 20, S 420/21 1500/500 20 100 0/12 4

ABERRANT

158

Gatling 6, H, FA Heavy Gatling

+1/+0 24L [12] Support+ AP 4, B 15, S 9, H, FA

180/12 1200/300 30 400 2/15 5

Gatling Railgun

+3/+1 20L [10] Support+ AP 5, B 50, S 6, H, FA

800/16 8000/800 25 250 1/12 6

Tactical Laser

+2/+0 20L [10] Heavy AP 5, S 6, H Continuous 50/5 25 350 1/10 6

Big Guns

These weapons are normally found mounted on ar-mored vehicles like tanks. When used ‘dismounted’ as nova-portable weapons, it takes 2 actions, which cannot be part of a multiple action, to reload them after every shot. Tank cannons and tank railguns may use ‘beehive’ rounds, firing a swarm of flechettes to kill infantry. Beehive rounds have halved damage, range and AP (round up), an Ar-ea of 3, and their attacks are resolved as if they were Size 0.

Heavy AC (Autocannon): A “light” dual-purpose artillery piece designed for versatility and cost-efficiency rather than sheer firepower, cannons of this caliber are generally used on heavier armored cars and light tanks rather than on heavy ve-hicles.

Tank Cannon (Small/Large): Tank cannons are the pinnacle of large, high-caliber direct-fire weapons. Although most are outdated with the advent of reliable railguns and coil-guns, they still pack a punch and are cheap compared to more high-tech weapons.

Tank Railgun: The cutting edge of anti-tank armaments, tank railguns use small-caliber metal spikes as their main am-munition, accelerated to 5 kilometers per second. This gives them unbelievable armor penetration and lethality, but they pay

a price in versatility-tank railguns can only use Incendiary or armor-piercing ammunition rather than the wide variety of rounds conventional cannon can use. Tank railguns may not be used dismounted without some power source, such as a generator or Quantum Conversion.

Field Gun: Field guns are man-portable light artillery pieces used by airborne and mountain infantry for artillery sup-port in lieu of more cumbersome towed or self-propelled artil-lery pieces. These light guns are small- caliber, but are better than nothing. They can be used by a crew of 4 with their given statistics, or may be used and carried by 1 nova with the given Strength. Field guns are artillery, and as such are aimed by the artillery spotter, not the artillery crew for indirect fire. The accu-racy given is for direct fire.

Light Artillery: Small artillery pieces such as this are of-ten used as the basis for a self-propelled gun artillery battery. Like Field Guns, the accuracy given is for direct fire-indirect fire spotting is aimed by the spotter’s (not the gunner’s) Perception + Gunnery dice pool instead, and an accurate shot can be achieved by any character with Gunnery 2 or more in that case.

Heavy Artillery: The biggest stick that sees common deployment, heavy artillery fires very large high-explosive shells at targets very far away. Like light artillery and field guns, heavy artillery is normally used for indirect fire rather than di-rect fire.

Big Guns*

Type Acc. Damage Range Tags RoF Magazine Str Min Mass Size/ Structure

Cost

Heavy AC +1 20L [8] Heavy AP 5, S 5, H 2 120 25 500 2/15 5 Small Tank Cannon

+1 24 L [12] Heavy H, AP 10, OW 3[1], S 8

1 60 35 1000 3/20 6

Large Tank Cannon

+2 28 L [14] Heavy H, AP 15, OW 3[1], S 8

1 45 40 1500 3/20 6

Tank Railgun +2 36 L [18] Heavy+ H, AP 20, OW 3[1], S 8

½ 200 45 2000 3/18 6

Field Gun -2 20L [10] Heavy+ H, AP 3, A 4, S 6 ½ 1 20 800 2/15 4 Light Artillery -2 24L [12] Artillery H, AP 5, A 5, S 8 ½ 60 50 2000 3/18 5 Heavy Artillery -2 30L [15] Artillery H, AP 8, A 6, S 10 ½ 30 60 4000 4/20 5

Missiles and Bombs

Missiles and bombs are generally aircraft weapons, although some of them are mounted on ground vehicles (main-ly SAMs and anti-tank missiles). Missiles are generally guided, self-propelled weapons, while bombs are not self-propelled and use gravity and momentum to hit their targets. Both use Gun-nery to aim. A nova who seeks to use a missile as a detached weapon must have some way to program them to seek the cor-rect target (often Cyberkinesis) and sufficient strength to carry one. Given this, very few novas make use of anything but the lightest missiles as personal weapons.

Missiles and bombs come in single units, and thus have no magazine or rate of fire. However, a vehicle with mul-

tiple missiles of one type may fire multiple missiles as one ac-tion. This uses the same rules as firing ‘bursts’, but halve the ammunition expenditure (round up). The most common forms of this are firing two missiles at one target near-simultaneously (known as shoot-shoot-look) or hosing down an area with doz-ens of rockets.

Some missiles are particularly large, but also very fragile and thus have Armor ratings weaker than what their Structure would imply. These missiles have an Armor rating in parenthesis in their Size/Structure category.

Missiles:

Micromissile: Small air-to-air missiles, these weapons are only effective in large numbers and have short ranges. However, they are reasonably good in dogfights and may also

ABERRANT

159

be used by helicopters to defend themselves against other ro-tary-wing aircraft. Up to ten micromissiles can be mounted on a single hardpoint.

Light AAM/SAM: Short-range anti-aircraft missiles, light anti-aircraft missiles can engage aircraft at ranges of up to 30 or so kilometers with reasonable success rates, but are most effective in close-in fights. These hypersonic smart missiles are mounted by all fighters and some attack helicopters. In addition, these missiles are quite effective against flying novas. Up to two Light AAMs or SAMs may be mounted on one hardpoint.

Medium AAM/SAM: With effective ranges of over 80 km and extreme ranges of almost 200 km. medium anti-aircraft missiles are a half-ton of payload well spent, with powerful proximity-fused warheads capable of dealing significant dam-age to aircraft and ground vehicle alike-although their speed and expense means using them against anything other than enemy aircraft is a desperate maneuver. However, their larger size and decreased maneuverability make them less effective against most flight-capable novas.

Heavy AAM/SAM: Massive, ground-launched anti-air missiles are intended to take out bombers before they can launch cruise missiles. It is a specialist role that they perform well. However, modern smart missiles are adaptable enough that they can be programmed for ground attack role as semi-ballistic missiles.

Light Antitank: Smart fire and forget missiles, these light anti-tank missiles are intended to take out enemy armored vehicles with extreme prejudice using their large shaped-charge warheads. They are barely usable by unenhanced in-fantry with a 2 or 3-man crew, and most commonly used by vehicles. Up to four Light Antitank missiles may be mounted on a single hardpoint.

Heavy Antitank: The light anti-tank missile’s bigger brother, heavy antitank missiles are smarter, larger, and have a much more powerful warhead.

Folding-Fin Aerial Rocket (FFAR): Folding-fin aerial rockets are very small, unguided rockets with relatively large warheads and small motors, giving them short range, poor ac-curacy, but incredible punch for their size and weight. These rockets are generally mounted in pods, which allow a single hardpoint to carry anywhere from 30 to 60 rockets.

Cruise Missile: Self-guided missiles, cruise missiles are programmed by the firer, using Intelligence + Gunnery. Even 1 success on this is sufficient to program them, with more suc-cesses adding to the weapon’s terminal accuracy. When the weapon is in its terminal stage, it rolls its own attack pool of 4 (old, 1980s-era cruise missiles) to 8 (cutting-edge Western, Chinese, and Indian designs) dice, adding 1d for every suc-cess after the first scored on the initial programming rule. This ignores range penalties (the range given is the maximum range of the weapon). If either the firer or the missile botches, it will go wild and strike an entirely different target from the intended one. The statistics for damage assume a shaped-charge war-head with minimal area effect, normally used to kill warships. Cruise missiles may also use cluster-bomb, fuel-air explosive, or high explosive (treat as an unguided bomb) payloads, taking on the Area, Armor Piercing, Damage, and Size tags of the equivalent bomb.

IRBM: Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles are used to strike tactical targets at high speed. These massive, multi-ton

missiles hit their targets at extremely high speeds, causing widespread devastation. The damage given is for a shaped-charge penetrator warhead with minimal area effect. IRBMs may instead use the same warheads and deal the same dam-age effects as cluster bombs, FAEs, or nuclear bombs, or dis-pense larger submunitions, dropping 20 independently-targeted guided microbombs. Targeting an IRBM is similar to targeting a cruise missile, save the lower maneuverability and higher closing speed means its dice pools are generally any-where from 0 to 5 dice instead of 4 to 8. Reloading an IRBM launcher typically takes at least 15 minutes.

ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are rarely con-ventional weapons, designed to destroy cities and hardened citadels rather than anything as small as a nova or an aircraft carrier. Launched from fixed silos, they may carry up to twenty kinetic energy penetrators, each hitting as hard as an IRBM warhead (with identical options, but these warheads may only target anything smaller than a city or aircraft carrier once per warhead) or carry strategic nuclear warheads. An ICBM can be fitted with 20 independently targeted small strategic nuclear warheads or 5 independently targeted large strategic warheads. ICBMs are targeted like cruise missiles, but have a base accu-racy pool of 0 to 2 dice. On the other hand, they generally only get aimed at cities, and at that point you literally can’t miss.

Reloading an ICBM silo or mobile launcher typically takes over 12 hours for a very large support crew. They are not quickly deployable weapons by any standards.

Bombs:

Cluster Bomb: Cluster bombs dispense hundreds or thousands of individual high-explosive submunitions across an area, dealing massive damage to lightly armored targets such as houses, people, and light vehicles.

FAE: Fuel-Air Explosives, or FAEs, dispense a cloud of volatile fuel and oxygen before igniting it. This means that any-one in the area of effect has one turn after the bomb goes ‘off’ before it applies any sort of damage. Getting out of its blast ra-dius then protects you from taking damage. For those who don’t, an FAE blast deals horrific amounts of trauma to any form of armored or unarmored target.

Microbombs: Miniature bombs, these tiny bombs are used to take out fragile targets with a reduced fear of collateral damage. These can be unguided or guided as desired. Mi-crobombs can be mounted up to four a hardpoint.

Unguided Bomb: Unguided bombs, also known as “iron bombs”, are slowly being phased out by advanced militaries for more effective guided bombs. On the other hand, they are cheap and ubiquitous, and sometimes precision isn’t as im-portant as throw weight.

Guided Bomb: Guided bombs are often targeted by la-ser designation systems and are highly accurate weapons that are effective against tanks, buildings, and ships alike. With some finessing they can even be used against unaware novas.

Nuclear Bombs: Strategic level ordnance, nuclear bombs use nuclear explosives to deal massive amounts of damage. Rules for nuclear weapons are given in the section “The Nuclear Option”, below. Nuclear bombs can detonate as either Suitcase or Tactical nukes.

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Missiles

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags Mass Size/Structure Cost Micromissile +0 14L [7] Heavy FT, G, S5 10 -3/3 4 Light AAM/SAM +3 20L [14] Artillery FT, G, OW 2, S5 50 -1/5 5 Medium AAM/SAM

+1 25L [18] Artillery+ FT, G, LR, OW 2 [1], S6 500 1/8 (Armor 5) 5

Heavy AAM/SAM +0 30L [20] Artillery+ FT, G, LR, OW 3 [1], S9 1500 3/12 (Armor 5) 6 Light Antitank +2 24L [12] Support+ AP 12, OW 2 [1], G, S 6 25 -2/6 4 Heavy Antitank +0 36L [18] Heavy AP 16, OW 3 [1], G, S 8 150 0/8 5 FFAR -2 16L [8] Support AP 5, A 3, S 3, FA 8 -3/3 4 Cruise Missile Special 50L [40] or as

bomb Theater G, OW 5 [2], S 20 2500 4/15 (Armor 5) 7

IRBM Special 50L[40] or as bomb

Theater+ AP 10, OW 5[2], S20 15000 7/20 (Armor 6) 6

ICBM Special 50L [40] x 20/Special

Strategic AP 15, OW 6[3], S20 100 tons

11/30 (Armor 8)

8

Bombs

Type Accuracy Damage Range Tags Mass Size/Structure Cost Cluster Bomb +1 12L [6] Heavy AP 6, A 10, S 4 1000 2/8 (Armor 4) 4 FAE -2 40L [20] Heavy I, AP 10, A 7, S 10 2000 3/10 (Armor 5) 5 Microbombs -2 (unguided)

+2 (guided) 15L [5] Heavy AP 4, A 3, S 6 100 -1/4 3

Unguided Bomb -2 36L [18] Heavy AP 10, A 6, S 8 1000 2/8 (Armor 4) 3 Guided Bomb +2 36L [18] Heavy AP 10, A 4, S 8 1000 2/8 (Armor 4) 4 Nuclear Bomb -2 Special Heavy Nuclear 2000 3/10 (Armor 5) 7

Weapon Accessories

Accessories can be mounted on most smaller weapons, improving their capabilities in combat. A character may mount 1 accessory per dot in the relevant combat Ability.

Melee Accessories

Dynamic Counterweights: +1 Accuracy, +1 Defense

Reinforced Edge/Strike Face: +2 AP

Strike Weights: -1 Accuracy, +2 Damage

Vibroweapon: +1 Damage, +1 AP

Ranged Accessories

Non-Magnifying Sight: Accuracy +1, first turn of aiming adds an additional +1 accuracy.

Magnifying Sight: Aiming adds an additional +1 accu-racy a turn.

Hybrid Sight: Accuracy +1 OR -1 difficulty from range penalties. Switching sight magnification is a reflexive action.

Accelerator: Damage +1, AP +1, +1 Range, +2 Strength minimum.

Bayonet: Accuracy +0, Defense +2, Damage (Strength + 4L), AP 1. A detached bayonet uses combat knife stats.

Extended Magazine: Doubles magazine capacity for weapons aside from pistols, which increase capacity by 50%, rounded up. Weapon Size +1.

Gyrostabilizer: Accuracy +2 when firing bursts.

Suppressor: Used with subsonic ammunition, attacks do not break stealth unless opponents succeed on a Percep-tion + Awareness roll (difficulty 1 for damage of 8L or more, dif-

ficulty 3 for damage of 7-5L, difficulty 5 for damage of 4L or less) to locate the shooter.

Underbarrel Grenade Launcher: Accuracy -2, Dmg (as grenade), Range 75, RoF 1, Magazine 1, A 1

Underbarrel Shotgun: Accuracy -1, Dmg 10L, Rng 20, RoF 2, Magazine 4

Ammunition

Ammunition options are available for all non-energy non-grenade weapons (note: tactical lasers are energy weapons). Most of the time you can only use one type at a time, but these types can sometimes be combined at the ST’s discretion. Some common combination ammunition combinations are De-pleted Uranium (AP or APDS + Incendiary for vehicle weapons, AP + Incendiary + Magnum for personal weapons), Subsonic JHP (JHP + Subsonic), Armor Piercing Explosive (Explosive + AP), and High Explosive Incendiary (Explosive + Incendiary).

Ammunition modifications may increase or decrease weapon statistics. However, they may never decrease any sta-tistics below 0. Some ammunition types have both –Damage and +Damage, generally –Damage dice and +Damage auto-matic successes. In this case, apply both.

Armor Piercing: AP +3, Damage -1 for small arms. AP +6, Damage –[2] for vehicle weapons.

Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot (APDS): AP +5 (+10 for vehicle weapons). All post-soak damage is halved after Size is factored, rounding up.

Beanbag/Rubber Bullet: Damage is Bashing, AP set to 0. At point-blank range (less than 5m away), the damage is still lethal.

Explosive: AP -1, Damage +3 for small guns, -3 AP, Damage -3[3] for vehicle weapons. Vehicle weapons gain Ar-ea:0, +1 for every 10L damage or fraction thereof they do (a weapon with 30L damage gains Area:3)

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Incendiary: Heavy weapons using Incendiary ammuni-tion gain the ‘I’ tag. Military vehicles are generally fireproof, however, if an incendiary round deals more HL in damage than a vehicle’s Size, the crew are set on fire. Small arms using in-cendiary ammunition may ignite flammable substances on im-pact but gain no mechanical benefits.

Magnum: Damage +1, +1 Strength requirement

Match-Grade: Accuracy +1, Aimed shots have Range +1.

Multiplex: Accuracy +2, Damage -3, Damage +[1].

JHP/JSP/Other Antipersonnel: Damage -3, AP set to 0, Damage +[3]. Minimum damage is 3L, weapons dealing 5L base damage or less add +[2] instead of +[3] to their Damage.

+P+: Damage +2, +1 AP, +1 Strength requirement. The weapon explodes on a botch, dealing base weapon damage to the user.

Subsonic: Damage -2, AP -2, Range -50%. Subsonic ammunition allows a suppressor to function effectively. Pistols and SMGs are less affected by subsonic ammunition. Pistols using subsonic ammo have Damage -1, AP -2.

Grenades

Grenades are used in grenade launchers or thrown by hand. Grenade ammunition variants cannot be mixed and matched.

Frag: Damage 10L [5], Area:1

Flechette/Buckshot: Damage 8L [4], Accuracy +3, Range 30. Note: This ammunition turns a grenade launcher in-to the equivalent of a shotgun firing buckshot and does not ex-ist in a ‘thrown’ form.

HEAP: Damage 14L [7], AP:6

Incendiary: Damage 8L [4], Area:2, I

EMP: Damage 10E, Area:2

Gas: Damage None, Area:2, Gas Payload (choose any airborne toxin to deploy)

Proximity Airburst: Damage 8L [4], Area: 2. Ignores cover, +2 Accuracy

Stingball: Damage 6B [3], Area:2

Flashbang: Damage 12S, Area:2, roll Stamina + Re-sistance at difficulty (+4) or be blinded and deafened for (Mar-gin of Failure) rounds.

The Nuclear Option

Even with these rules, the deployment and use of nu-

clear weapons is largely a plot device outside of an extremely high-power game. Dropping a nuke on anything less than Q6+ characters without some sort of 'out' is likely to end with every character dead and your players hating you forever. In general, for a lower powered game, characters should be placed on the edge of the effect radiuses if a nuclear explosion is to be used at all. The blast wave and possibility of flash burns are pretty devastating even at those distances, but survivable.

Basic Effects:

A nuclear weapon does damage in three ways. All of these are soaked separately and ignore Size under most cir-cumstances.

The first is the fireball, which is created when the raw electromagnetic energies released when an atomic bomb det-

onates interact with the atmosphere, ground, and other matter near the nuclear weapon. This roiling sphere of superheated matter rises, creating the distinctive “mushroom cloud” of a nu-clear detonation. Fortunately the radius of this effect is relative-ly small, since being caught in it is generally instant death. Be-ing caught in the fireball deals a base 100A [100] damage, plus the weapon’s EM flux (add all aggravated damage together be-fore soak is factored in). Only the most incredibly durable no-vas can survive such; otherwise assume anything within the radius is completely vaporized and don't bother to roll. Ex-tremely large objects (kilometer-long space cruisers, for exam-ple) may be large enough that the fireball fails to engulf most of the object. These objects should lose anywhere from 1/2 to 1/10th their health levels at ST discretion, but should still be functional at the end.

The second source of damage is the residual elec-tromagnetic energy, which can cause massive, damaging burns over kilometers of distance. Fortunately, the majority of this radiation is not high-penetration. However, there is plenty of ionizing radiation to go around and a sufficient dose of that tends to cause horrible death from radiation sickness. This deals a combination of lethal damage and aggravated damage. However, this is survivable for tougher targets, although unpro-tected humans are likely going to end up dead anyways from the raw force.

And finally, the blast wave, created from the expand-ing sphere of superheated gas, can pick up and bodily throw anyone who is lucky enough or far away enough to survive the first two. This last manifestation is more threatening to build-ings than vehicles or people. However, it can do some signifi-cant damage to anyone unlucky. The blast wave doesn't just deal injury from the high-speed winds and thrown objects, though. It also can pick up and throw a person, dealing "falling" damage from being slammed into hard objects. The blast wave however deals massive damage to structures; non-hardened structures like houses, skyscrapers, and so forth consider the damage lethal, triple it, and cannot soak. Hardened structures like bomb shelters and bunkers take and soak the damage as normal. The blast wave deals 25B [10] damage in its primary radius, and deals 10B damage beyond that to the secondary radius. Characters in the full-damage radius take terminal ve-locity fall damage (25 damage, lethal if it exceeds a character's (Stamina + Athletics), bashing otherwise) from being picked up and thrown, while characters in the reduced-damage radius are not moved but are knocked down unless they succeed a Diffi-culty +9 Strength + Athletics roll. In a vacuum, there is no atmosphere to create a blast wave. Instead, the unfortunate victim of a nuclear weapon merely has to contend with the first two sources of damage.

Duck & Cover

Nuclear weapons are extremely powerful, but at longer ranges trenches, intervening buildings, and other ob-jects may protect you. Each object between you and the explo-sion grants you its full soak as protection. Alternatively, being in a trench and low to the ground halves damage before soak. Duck and Cover, although much-maligned, is a valid survival method if you aren't in the primary effect radius. Both forms of cover protect the character from alpha and beta radiation, which although highly energetic can be stopped by a sheet of paper or thin amounts of metal. This negates the aggravated damage from the electromagnetic flux. Ducking and covering does not have any effect inside the fireball.

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Secondary Effects

Flash Blindness

Looking directly at a nuclear weapon is very bad for your eyes, and the blast wave is also extremely bad for your ears. Being exposed to a nuclear bomb requires a character to attempt to resist the equivalent of 10 successes' worth of the Strobe power affecting sight and 5 successes for hearing. A character who is aware of the imminent nuclear deployment may face away, cover their ears, and take other steps to re-duce flash blindness, automatically resisting the effects on sight and halving the effect for hearing.

Radiation Sickness

A character may suffer from radiation sickness if she is too close to a nuclear detonation. Severe radiation sickness occurs when a character takes more than (Stamina) levels of aggravated damage from a nuclear weapon. However, if a character takes any levels of aggravated radiation damage at all, they suffer from minor radiation sickness. Novas add their Quantum to their Stamina for resistance purposes, and Novas with Invulnerability (Radiation) are immune to radiation sick-ness.

Minor radiation sickness can also be caught by stay-ing in an irradiated area for too long. The ground zero damage radius of the fireball is considered irradiated for a 2027-era nu-clear weapon, and more than (Stamina) hours of exposure re-sult in radiation sickness. Trinity-era strategic fusion warheads do not have this problem.

Weapons Types

Suitcase: A "Suitcase Nuke" is a small, subkiloton de-vice that's more practical as a terror weapon than as a battle-field munition. They are often delivered by suitcase or satchel charge, although vehicle-size rocket launchers can deliver them as well. However, if you're really planning to go up against some kind of high-power nova like Cestus Pax or Divis Mal, this is probably the only baseline weapon which might be able to harm them sufficiently. The fireball of a suitcase nuke is Area: 3. Its electromagnetic flux deals 10A [5] aggravated damage and 40L [20] lethal damage beyond that up to Area: 7. Past that, the damage is halved to 5A [2] and 20L [10] up to Area: 12. The blast wave has a primary radius of Area: 15 and a secondary radius of Area: 20.

Tactical: Tactical nuclear weapons are low-kiloton pre-cision nuclear weapons, delivered by bomb or missile and in-tended to destroy hardened structures or enemy military for-mations. Tactical nuclear weapons have a fireball with an Area rating of 7. Their EM flux deals 20A [10] aggravated and 50L [25] up to Area: 17 and another 5A [2] and 20L [10] up to Area: 20. The blast wave has a primary radius up to Area: 20 and a secondary radius up to Area: 40.

Small Strategic: Smaller strategic-scale weapons have yields only an order of magnitude or so higher than your aver-age tactical warhead, intended to cripple cities and destroy in-frastructure. These nuclear weapons have a fireball radius of Area: 17. Their EM flux deals 30A [15] aggravated and 60L [30] lethal damage up to Area: 25, and deal a reduced damage of 5A [2] and 20L [10] up to Area: 40. The blast wave has a pri-mary radius of Area: 50.

Large Strategic: Large strategic-scale nuclear weapons are single or double-digit megaton affairs, intended to wipe out entire cities and leave nothing but ghosts and ruins. These in-credibly powerful nuclear weapons have a fireball radius of Ar-ea: 25. Their EM flux deals 40A [20] aggravated and 80L [40] lethal damage to anything within Area: 40, and a ‘mere’ 5A [2] and 20L [10] from there up to Area: 70. The blast wave has a primary radius of Area: 110.

Crustbuster: Crustbusters are science fiction “dooms-day” weapons, with yields in the gigatons or higher (that’s bil-lions of tons of TNT) which can easily doom entire smaller na-tions to complete and total annihilation. These doomsday de-vices have a fireball radius of Area: 70. Their EM flux deals 60A [30] aggravated and 120L [60] lethal damage up to Area: 100 and another 10A [5] and 30L [15] from there to Area: 110. The blast wave has a primary radius of Area: 160.

Protective Gear

Armor

Armor provides defense against most forms of at-tacks via two methods, increasing soak and granting additional health levels. Armor health levels represent armor's ability to absorb initial blows more capably than repeat hits, as the mate-rial degrades from repeated abuse, while armor soak repre-sents its ability to absorb damage without degradation.

Properties

Soak: Armor soak is added to the wearer's soak, giving them additional protection against Bashing and Lethal attacks. Armor does not grant Aggravated soak in most cases. Soak does not generally degrade with multiple attacks. Some armors (and shields) have a soak marked with a “P”. This means the armor is Primitive and provides only half soak against firearms, explosives, and energy weapons.

Armor Health Levels: Due to the semi-ablative nature of modern armor, modern armors have additional health levels which take damage before the wearer. These health levels only apply if the armor has not been bypassed-weapons that by-pass armor or called shots which bypass armor bypass the ar-mor’s protective benefits as well. Armor health levels can be repaired outside of combat using an Intelligence + Engineering (Materials or similar engineering type) roll for more advanced armors. More primitive armors can use Intelligence + Art (Sew-ing) or Intelligence + Art (Blacksmithing) instead. Each roll takes 1 hour and repairs 1 health level per success.

Penalty: Armor penalty represents the mobility re-strictions heavier armor puts on a wearer. Each point of Armor Penalty subtracts 1d from all Athletics and Stealth rolls, and adds +1 difficulty to all attempts to dodge attacks. Finally, ar-mor is tiring. The Penalty also adds +1 difficulty to all Endur-ance rolls to resist harsh environments or strenuous exertion.

Bypass: Armor can be bypassed by called shots. The Bypass rating is the additional difficulty needed to ignore the armor's soak, added to the base difficulty of the called shot it-self. Bypassing armor bypasses both the health levels it pro-vides and the bonus soak it grants.

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Armor Types

Primitive Armor

Heavy Clothing: Although not capable of protecting against serious attacks of any sort, heavy clothing can protect against a mugger's knife or a hard blow, or just the thorns and brambles of barbed wire or bush. Normally, though, it’s used to protect against cold weather rather than attacks.

Heavy Leather: Despite using technology dating back to the stone age, toughened leather is still effective against blades and blunt trauma without significant bulk or mobility problems. Modern heavy leathers are generally reinforced by plastic and used by motorcyclists to protect from crashes.

Full Plate: The pinnacle of armor design in the medieval era, full plate provides superb protection against melee attacks of all types and ranged attacks, as long as those ranged at-tacks are from stones, arrows, and crossbow bolts instead of bullets. However, the high-strength steel in full plate provides some protection against pistol bullets, even if it is woefully in-adequate against rifles.

Flak Jacket: Flak jackets are mid-20th century ballistic armor, providing protection against shrapnel and pistol fire to its wearers. Although extremely primitive and outclassed by any form of ‘modern’ armor they’re still found in poorer areas and fielded by less advanced nations.

Flak Jacket w/Trauma Plates: Adding steel or titanium trauma plate to the front and back of a flak jacket allows it to protect against rifles but makes it even heavier and bulkier.

Primitive Armors

Type Soak Health Levels Penalty Bypass Mass Cost Heavy Clothing 2B/1L (P) 0 -0 +2 1 1 Heavy Leather 4B/2L (P) 0 -0 +2 2.5 1 Full Plate 8B/8L (P) 0 -2 +5 15 3 (replica)

6 (antique) Flak Jacket 3B/4L 0 -1 +1 8 1 Flak Jacket with Trauma Plate 4B/6L 1 -2 +1 13 2

Utility Clothing

Sports Gear: Used in various contact sports, sports gear is designed primarily to protect against blunt trauma, alt-hough the hard plastic and thick padding provide some meas-ure of protection against blades and claws. Firearms, however, not only halve its soak, but deal double damage until the ar-mor's health levels are depleted (so 1 level of damage from a firearm damage roll inflicts 2 levels of damage to the armor and user until the armor's HLs are depleted, after which firearms in-flict only normal damage).

Environmental Suit: Environmental suits are designed to protect against chemical, biological, and radiological threats, as well as minor punctures. They are fully sealed, with a 3-hour air supply and provide Advanced NBC protection with a self-sealing pool of 2d.

Firefighting Gear: Firefighting gear provides protection against high temperatures, lack of oxygen, and chunks of col-lapsing building raining down on the wearer. It also provides very limited protection against explosions. Firefighting gear has

an inbuilt cooling system that adds +2 automatic successes to any Endurance rolls to endure heat, and adds +5B/5L to soak against fire or fire-based attacks. It also has an hour’s supply of oxygen.

Skinsuit: Skinsuits are lightweight, relatively skintight spacesuits that are much more fashionable and easier to move in than the big heavy hard suits that were popularized by the Apollo landings. Barely a centimeter thick, they still have Vacu-um Sealing and a self-sealing pool of 3d. Skinsuits must be custom-fitted to their wearer, and their armor penalty and cost already include the modifiers from custom fitting.

Spacesuit: Modern hardsuits are still extremely big, tough contraptions of ballistic fabrics, plastic, and metal. They provide 8 hours of oxygen, are difficult to move around in, and although not designed to survive gunfire are built with enough layers of ballistic fabric and high-impact plastic that they can shrug off a lot of small arms fire. Spacesuits have a self-sealing pool of 5d and also provide the equivalent of Vacuum Sealing and Advanced NBC protection.

Utility Clothing

Type Soak Health Levels Penalty Bypass Mass Cost Reinforced Clothing 2B/4L 2 -0 +1 2.5 2 Sports Gear 8B/3L (P) 3 -0 +2 5 2 Environmental Suit 2B/2L (P) 2 -2 +5 15 4 Firefighting Gear 6B/3L 0 -1 +3 8 2 Skinsuit 4B/4L 3 -0 +5 10 4 Spacesuit 8B/8L 5 -5 +5 45 3

Light Armor

Ballistic Underwear: Consisting of a tight-fitting ballis-tic-fabric undershirt and underpants, this armor provides mini-mal protection against shrapnel but weighs almost nothing and does not encumber at all. It can be worn under just about any form of armor or clothing without showing, and can turn a killing blow into a merely wounding one.

Reinforced Clothing: Reinforced with shear-thickening fluid and kevlar, this disguised armor can provide reasonable ballistic protection with only minor bulk and heat problems, and a fair amount of protection against blades and clubs.

Light Armor Vest: High-strength fibers combined with dilatant fluids for impact resistance are used in current-generation body armor. This is a light vest, usable by police,

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covert agents, and bodyguards, as it can be concealed under heavy clothing.

Stealth Suit: Used by covert operations ninja types, the form-fitting stealth suit is woven with photoreactive adaptive

camouflage projectors, and protects the wearer against light gunfire and injury. Stealth suits are always custom-fitted and come with adaptive camouflage by default. The armor’s stats already include the custom fitting reduction.

Light Armor

Type Soak Health Levels Penalty Bypass Mass Cost Ballistic Underwear 1B/2L 0 -0 +2 0.5 2 Reinforced Clothing 2B/4L 2 -0 +1 2.5 2 Light Armor Vest 4B/6L 2 -1 +1 4 2 Stealth Suit 2B/4L 3 -0 +3 5 4

Medium Armor

Heavy Armor Vest: A heavier armor vest with trauma plates and thicker armor weave, this armor provides significant-ly improved protection for the torso. Heavy armor vests cannot be concealed, and must be worn over clothing.

Combat Environment Suit: Combat environmental suits are tougher environmental suits designed for use in an environment where diseases, toxins, and radiation are a major threat… alongside bullets, shrapnel, and knives. It is fully

sealed to protect against airborne diseases or toxins and pro-vides Advanced NBC protection with a 3d self-sealing pool.

Combat Armor: This is a heavy armor vest with en-hanced trauma plates for greater protection and mass, paired with a combat helmet, forearm, shin, and thigh guards, knee and elbow pads, and an armored collar. The result is near full-body protection against pistols, shrapnel, and SMGs, and head/torso protection against rifles.

Riot Gear: Intended to protect against knives and blunt trauma, riot gear covers more of the body than combat armor but provides worse ballistic protection, as many of its elements are merely impact-resistant plastic.

Medium Armor

Type Soak Health Levels Penalty Bypass Mass Cost Heavy Armor Vest 5B/8L 3 -1 +1 8 3 Combat Environment Suit 4B/6L 4 -3 +5 20 4 Combat Armor 7B/8L 4 -2 +3 10 3 Riot Gear 10B/6L 5 -2 +4 12 4

Heavy Armor

Advanced Body Armor: Some concepts get revived centuries later, such as plate mail. Although it might be made of high-tech composites instead of steel, advanced body armor is recognizable as a successor to the full body hard armors that dominated the medieval battlefield. Advanced Body Armor is fully sealed with a 1-hour air supply, providing Basic NBC Pro-tection, and self-seal with a pool of 3d.

Bomb Suit: Designed for specialists who need protec-tion against close-proximity explosions, bomb suits are very dif-ficult to move in but extremely protective.

Power Armor: The cutting edge of 2020-era armor technology, power armor masses nearly 50 kilograms but ne-gates all of it and then some with its artificial muscles and load-

bearing exoskeleton. Power armor requires power (quite obvi-ously), and can only run for 24 hours of continuous combat on a trio of high-capacity batteries, 96 hours in normal conditions. Swapping out a battery takes 5 minutes, but the suit can still function during the swap. The weight of power armor does not count for encumbrance purposes as long as it still has power. Power armor has two Penalty ratings: The first is for when it has power, and the second is when it is unpowered.

When powered, the artificial muscles used in power armor add +2 to the wearer’s Strength and +2 to the wearer’s Dexteri-ty for the purposes of movement only. Power armor is fully sealed with a 1-hour air supply, and provide Basic NBC protec-tion, with a self-sealing pool of 4d. Space operations designs have Vacuum Sealing as well.

Heavy Armor

Type Soak Health Levels Penalty Bypass Mass Cost Advanced Body Armor 10B/10L 5 -3 +5 20 4 Bomb Suit 10B/12L 6 -5 +5 35 4 Power Armor 12B/12L

(+2 Str) 6 -2/-5 +5 45 5

Armor Accessories

Accessories can be mounted on all armors unless specifi-cally stated. Like weapons, a character may only effectively use 1 armor accessory per dot they have in a relevant combat ability. As armor is not governed by any combat ability, a char-

acter may mount 1 accessory per dot they have in their highest combat ability. Eufiber may mount armor accessories, as it is in fact a form of armor. However, any armor accessories ‘mounted’ to Eufiber cannot be shapeshifted along with Eufiber.

Ablative Trauma Plate: Ablative Trauma Plates provide limited protection against heavier attack by shattering or ablat-ing away to carry away force.

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Effect: +1 HL

Adaptive Camouflage: The armor is coated with display elements, making it a flexible display screen. This gives the wearer the ability to hide in plain sight, although the systems are less effective when moving.

Effect: +1 difficulty for enemy Awareness rolls to detect the user when still and over (Perception x 5) meters away, +1d to Stealth when moving.

Auxiliary Protection Systems: Most modern armor is modular, and can be quickly equipped with thicker overlapping armor elements which provide superior protection for most of the body. However, this addition reduces mobility.

Effect: +2B/2L soak, +1 bypass, -1 penalty

Exoskeleton: A powered exoskeleton increases the wearer's strength and agility by reducing the effective weight of his armor.

Effect: Strength + 1, armor’s mass no longer counts for encumbrance, reduces armor Penalty by 1 (min -0), 96 hours powered duration (24 hours in combat).

Combat Optics: Combat optics in 2027 combine IR and nightvision capability to provide all-environment imaging.

Effect: A character wearing combat optics effectively pos-sesses the Light Amplification and Thermal Vision sensory Augmentations.

NBC Protection (Basic): Basic NBC protection provides limited protection against radiation, chemicals, and biological attack. The armor is fully sealed, can inject antitoxins and anti-radiation drugs, and filters air. This fully protects against non-quantum toxins or diseases and provides 2 automatic suc-cesses against powers that create such (like Poison), as well as +2 Bashing/Lethal/Aggravated soak against radiation. This protection is provided as long as the armor has even a single health level left. If the armor has no HLs left and the wearer takes any Lethal damage, roll the armor’s self-sealing pool. Failure means the armor is no longer sealed and does not pro-vide NBC protection. If an armor has no self-sealing pool roll 1d.

NBC Protection (Advanced): Advanced NBC protec-tion provides superior protection against radiation, chemicals, and biological attack. This provides all the benefits of Basic NBC protection. but it doubles the bonuses (so +4 soak against radiation, 4 automatic successes against quantum poisons or diseases).

Personalized Fitting: Fitting armor explicitly for a per-son’s shape can reduce its penalties to mobility, but is imprac-tical for large numbers of people.

Effect: Reduces armor Penalty by 1 (min -0) for the fitted character, increases armor Penalty by 2 for all other characters. Armor cost increased by 1.

Reinforced Strike Faces: Hard plates, reinforced gloves, and other methods of improving the power of a blow can greatly assist in a hand to hand fight.

Effect: +1B to unarmed damage

Vacuum Sealed: The armor is sealed against vacuum, allowing the wearer to operate in airless areas such as space, and also has a 2-hour oxygen supply. Vacuum sealed armor is sealed as long as it has even a single HL left. If it has no HLs remaining and the wearer takes any Lethal damage, roll the armor’s self-sealing dice pool. Failure means the armor is no longer vacuum sealed and the wearer suffers from vacuum ex-posure. If the armor lacks such a pool, roll 1d.

Shields

Rarer than body armor are shields, the simplest of which are merely thin plates of metal or wood with handles, placed between a character and a source of harm. Shields, due to their size and mass, are also effective weapons, and are wielded via Melee in close combat. Shields use Melee to both attack and defend. However, unlike melee weapons they may be used to defend against things such as incoming gunfire, as the area of the body they cover is far larger than any melee weapon. A character may use a shield as a passive defense against ranged attacks, keeping it raised to deflect blows. In that case, a shield provides cover. Most shields are light cover, adding +1 difficulty to attack attempts, while tower and ballistic shields are heavy cover, adding +2 difficulty. Doing so prevents actively blocking or attacking with the shield. If the ST is using the optional rules for cover granting soak, armor ratings are provided. Shields may be broken from strong attacks. If used to parry an incoming attack with more strength or damage + damage adds than their maximum strength, they shatter after parrying the incoming attack, although like armor, they provide their benefits for that one attack. Shields are generally not concealable.

Shield Types

Table: A table is a fairly common improvised shield, suf-ficiently durable to survive some good blows and sufficiently large to protect most of the body. The problem is that they are relatively unwieldy, providing a -1 mobility penalty while used, cumulative with worn armor.

Serving Tray: A large serving tray can provide some degree of protection against incoming attacks, as long as they’re things such as knives and fists rather than serious me-lee weapons or firearms.

Buckler: Bucklers are relatively small and simple wood-en or hide shields most commonly found in the possession of historical reenactors. Useless against firearms and larger weapons, they still are lightweight and relatively small.

Large Shield: Larger archaic shields like kite shields and round shields provide superb protection against arrows and blades, but like all archaic protective measures fails miser-ably against gunfire.

Tower Shield: Large and bulky archaic shields, tower shields are the pinnacle of pre-gunfire handheld protective sys-tems. However, they are massive and bulky, adding -2 to the user’s mobility penalty cumulative with any worn armor, as well as a -2d penalty to perception rolls based on sight. Finally, these shields, although extremely protective against slow-moving projectiles and melee attacks, provide relatively little protection against firearms.

Riot Shield: A lightweight ovoid of nearly-unbreakable ballistic-resistant polycarbonate, riot shields are intended pri-marly to protect against blunt trauma but also do a fairly good job at protecting against blades and shrapnel. However, their thinness means that they are no match for gunfire and not much better against swords.

Ballistic Shield: The modern version of the tower shield, riot shields are heavy rectangles of cutting-edge materials, de-signed to deflect bullets, rocks, and blades with equal effec-tiveness. Ballistic Shields require the use of one arm, and are large and unwieldy. These shields provide a -2 mobility penalty cumulative with worn armor, as well as a -2d penalty to percep-

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tion rolls based on sight. They are generally only used by SWAT teams breaching doors and in other hostile entry situa-tions.

Liquid Shield: The absolute cutting-edge of shield tech-nology, liquid shields use a piezoelectric gel that hardens when electrified, backed by a thin composite frame. As long as the

shield has power, it is nearly impenetrable. However, if the shield runs out of power, it becomes nearly useless. Liquid shields use capacitors that are good for 10 solid blows, and may have their capacitors swapped with fresh ones in a single action, much like reloading a firearm.

Shields Chart

Shield Type Accuracy Defense Damage Tags Str Min

Str Max

Mass Armor Cost

Table -3 +3 Str + 2B AP1 3 12 6 2 1

Serving Tray -1 +2 Str + 0B n/a 1 10 1 2 1

Buckler +0 +3 Str + 1B n/a 1 15 2 3 1

Large Shield +1 +4 Str + 3B n/a 2 20 4 4 2

Tower Shield +0 +5 Str + 4B AP2 3 30 6 6 2

Riot Shield +2 +4 Str + 1B n/a 2 25 3 5 3

Ballistic Shield -1 +4 Str + 4B AP2 3 35 10 8 3

Liquid Shield (powered) +1 +4 Str + 0B n/a 2 45 3 10 4

Liquid Shield (unpowered) +1 +1 Str + 0B n/a 2 10 3 2 4

Shield Accessories

Spiked: Mostly an archaic option for historical reenac-tors, spiked shields are vicious weapons but less balanced. Modern shields (those without a [P] next to their soak) are pret-ty much never produced as spiked variants, meaning that add-ing this modification to such shields is a custom job.

Effect: +1 damage, damage is lethal, -1 to accuracy or de-fense (chosen on installation), +2B/1L soak

Shock: Shock shields are electrified and have insulated handles, meaning that anyone who touches the shield besides the user gets a powerful, stunning shock.

Effect: successful attacks with the shield deal an addition-al 10S damage, as does successfully parrying unarmed attacks with the shield. This damage is soaked separately from the at-tack itself.

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VEHICLES Vehicles encompass everything from motorcycles to tanks to autonomous combat robots.

Speed

A vehicle’s Speed is a modifier to the driver’s Dexteri-ty + Drive/Pilot dice pool for movement purposes representing how fast the vehicle goes. High speed vehicles can chase down foes and control distances better than lower-speed ones. There are two speeds listed, with a slash. The first series of numbers is the vehicle’s speed in game terms for chase scenes, combat movement, or other situations where it’s im-portant. The second is the vehicle’s speed for figuring out how quickly a character can get from Point A to Point B, given in kilometers per hour.

If the first number has a multiplier in parentheses, that is the vehicle’s Speed Multiplier, multiplying all successes (after subtracting difficulty) by that number.

Note that the in-combat/chase speeds of vehicles are often much lower than their travel speeds. This represents how vehicles are often more restricted in where they can go than humans and do not accelerate or decelerate extremely quickly. Realistically speaking, a normal human has no chance of catching up to a speeding car, and the ST is recommended to use judgment in such situations.

Strength

A vehicle’s Strength score determines what the vehi-cle can carry outside of its passengers. Vehicular strength is generally not used for melee attacks outside of ramming. Hu-manoid ‘vehicles’ may, however, use their Strength normally, save that any Melee or Brawl attacks use Dexterity + Pilot in-stead of Strength + Melee or Strength + Brawl. Note that like Augmented Strength, automatic suc-cesses for vehicle Strength behave differently for damage rolls. Each automatic success adds +1d to the attack’s damage in-stead, and every 2 automatic successes add [1] to the damage roll’s automatic successes instead.

Handling

A vehicle’s handling rating represents how well it can handle difficult terrain (such as tight turns, confined spaces, or rough terrain), attempt dangerous maneuvers (such as 180 degree hairpin turns or various dogfighting maneuvers), and its ability to avoid attacks.

A positive Handling rating reduces the difficulty penal-ties from difficult terrain or tricky maneuvers on a 1-1 basis and is directly added to the vehicle’s Dodge DV. A negative Han-dling rating increases the difficulty penalties from difficult ter-rain on a 1-1 basis (but no more than doubling the penalties), subtracts from the vehicle’s Dodge DV, and also adds +1 diffi-culty per point of negative Handling to the difficulty of rolls to achieve superior position or find cover.

Crew/Passengers

Every vehicle can carry a certain number of passen-gers.

Durability

A vehicle’s durability is listed as two numbers. The number before the slash is the vehicle’s Armor, the number af-ter is the number of HLs a vehicle has.

Vehicle armor protects the passengers and the vehi-cle itself from attacks. Many civilian vehicles use “primitive” armor (designated by a ‘P’ behind the number, like “6P”), meaning that the protection is optimized against crashes and scrapes rather than bullets and grenades and is halved, round-ed down, against bullets, explosives, and energy weapons. Most vehicles leave the crew and passengers somewhat ex-posed, so if they are directly attacked the vehicle’s armor only protects them at half value (acting as “cover”, so the soak fully stacks with the passenger’s). However, this lets the passen-gers hang out the windows and shoot out. Military vehicles of-ten are fully Enclosed (represented by an ‘E’ after the soak) and protect their crew with their full soak rating.

Hardpoints

Many military aircraft have Hardpoints, mounts which can accept missiles or bombs. Each hardpoint can carry either 1 missile or bomb (missile pods with a larger magazine size than 1 count as 1 missile for hardpoint purposes) or 1000kg of missiles or bombs, whichever is less. Fighters tend to carry ex-clusively air-to-air missiles, bombers tend to exclusively carry anti-tank missiles or bombs, and tactical nuclear weapons are unlikely to ever be fielded unless something has gone very wrong. Stealth vehicles may only use half their hardpoints without losing their stealth quality.

Large Vehicles

Some vehicles, such as wet-navy warships, hypothetical future starships, are large and relatively compartmentalized, and therefore have multiple components, which each have individ-ual soak and health levels. These vehicles are as much terrain as they are vehicle, though, and should often be treated as such. Therefore, a unit will often be considered to be made up of multiple components, which each take "damage penalties" and have their own soak ratings and whatnot.

Damaging Vehicles

Vehicles take damage differently from humans. Vehi-cles ignore Stun damage, and do not take Bashing damage normally. Instead, every 2 levels of Bashing damage inflicted in an attack become 1 level of Lethal damage, rounded down. Vehicles take Lethal and Aggravated damage normally.

Vehicles use a simplified Health chart without -0/-1/-2/-4 HLs. Instead, a vehicle's penalties are listed below - note these add penalties instead of dice. All penalties are cumula-tive, even penalties from the same damage level - so if a vehi-

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cle with minor damage is maneuvering (+1 difficulty) at maxi-mum speed (+1 difficulty), it suffers +2 difficulty.

Has lost 25% or less of its HLs: Cosmetic damage, no penalties.

Has lost 26-50% of its HLs: Light damage, +1 diffi-culty to maneuver rolls, +1 difficulty to any rolls made when moving at maximum speed.

Has lost 51-75% of its HLs: Heavy damage, +1 dif-ficulty to all rolls

Has lost 75-99% of its HLs: Critical damage, safe speed only, +1 difficulty to all rolls (total +2), +1 difficulty to maneuvering rolls (total +2)

Has lost 100% to 150% of its HLs: Disabled, all sys-tems nonfunctional

Has lost 151% or more of its HLs: Destroyed

Repairs

Repairing a vehicle requires 1 hour per HL if they have taken only cosmetic damage, 2 hours per HL at minor damage, 4 hours per HL if the vehicle has taken major damage, 8 hours per HL after taking critical damage, and 1 day per HL lost if the vehicle is disabled.

Cars

Compact Car: A compact car is a cheap and effi-cient method to transport a family, but is rather vulnerable to gatling gun fire and antitank missiles, making it a poor vehicle choice for most PCs.

Midsize Car: Midsized cars can carry an average family of 4 in decent comfort.

Large Car: Large town cars are stylish and tasteful ways to show wealth and power. Running on either a hyper-combustion engine or fuel cell, their environmental footprint nowadays is also negligible.

Sports Car: If you need to get somewhere fast but can't afford a helicopter you probably want one of these.

Limo: A Limousine is a great way to show off your plethora of resource dots and make yourself a target for assas-sins and Communist revolutions.

Armored Limo: For those who want all the ostenta-tiousness and none of the vulnerability, an armored limo is like a regular limo but with thick armored windows, reinforced tires, heavy composite armor plates, and a more powerful engine. Some even have firing ports so the passengers and their bod-yguards can fire out of the vehicle while benefitting from the armor it provides.

Cars

Type Speed Strength Handling Crew/Passengers Durability Size Compact Car +2[2]/120 7 [1] +0 1/3 6P/16 3 Midsize Car +2[2]/120 8 [1] +0 1/4 8P/18 4 Large Car +1[2]/100 10 [1] -1 1/5 8P/20 4 Sports Car +3[3]/160 7 [1] +1 1/0-2 7P/16 4 Limo +0[2]/100 10 [2] -2 1/6-18 10P/22 5 Armored Limo +1[2]/100 12 [2] -1 1/6-12 12/30 5

Trucks and Bikes

Motorcycle: The preferred transportation method for robot assassins from the future, bad boys, middle-aged men suffering from a midlife crisis, and other people who don’t seem to manage risk as much as ignore it, a motorcycle is lightweight and maneuverable but provides negligible protec-tion to the operator.

Small Truck: Small trucks carry cargo and passen-gers, and more often than not are owned by individuals rather than companies. An entire range of vehicles fall into this cate-gory.

SUV: SUVs are kind of like trucks but carry people instead of cargo. Just as rugged and all-terrain capable as your normal pickup truck, with plenty of room for people and things,

they are the preferred ride of soccer moms. Milita-rized and enhanced versions with concealed weapons and ar-mor are used by paramilitaries and bodyguards.

Armed SUV: This is the militarized version of the SUV. A few passenger seats were replaced by a concealed turret that flips out of the roof, with a minigun on it for things like “crowd control”, and the vehicle is bulletproofed and rein-forced. An oversize engine gives it excellent maneuverability for its size and mass.

Features: 1 x Minigun

Large Truck: Large trucks are much larger and tend to pull several tons' worth of cargo behind them. They are in a very real way critical to commerce, and in an emergency make decent kinetic weapons when barreling towards some-one at full speed.

Trucks and Bikes

Type Speed Strength Handling Crew/Passengers Durability Size Motorcycle +2[1]/80 5 +2 1/0-1 4P/10 0 Small Truck +0[2]/100 10 [2] -2 1/2 8P/22 5 SUV +0[2]/90 8 [2] -2 1/5-8 8P/22 5 Armed SUV +0[2]/90 10 [2] -1 2/4-6 12/30 5 Large Truck +3/80 15 [5] -3 1/2 10P/25 7

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Civilian Aviation

Small Prop Plane: A small prop plane is a small ci-vilian aircraft, little more than a toy. That said, they can land almost anywhere and are relatively cheap.

Large Prop Plane: Larger prop planes have more commercial applications but tend to be slightly less convenient.

Small Jet Aircraft: A personal jet is a necessity for any globetrotting multimillionaire.

Jumbo Jet: And for the rest of us, you have large air transport which is good at several things: 1. Carrying lots of people across long distances with a minimum of comfort, and 2. Becoming an impromptu cruise missile at the hands of some-one sufficiently crazy.

Civilian Helicopter: Civilian helicopters combine the convenience of a military helicopter with the legality of a thing that isn't bristling with dangerous weapons, and are fast and maneuverable, if fuel-inefficient, methods of getting from Point A to Point B no matter how rough the terrain at Point B is.

Civilian Aviation

Type Speed Strength Handling Crew/Passengers Durability Size Small Prop Plane +2 [4]/300 7 [2] +0 1/4 6P/20 6 Large Prop Plane +3 [5]/500 15 [5] -3 2/40 8P/36 8 Small Jet Aircraft +5 [6]/700 12 [5] -2 1/20 9P/36 9 Jumbo Jet +6 [6]/800 30 [20] -5 2/300 9P/60 15 Civilian Helicopter +1 [5]/200 7 [1] +1 1/4 6P/28 6

Military Aircraft

Strike Aircraft: Strike Aircraft are (relatively) heavi-ly armored aircraft designed for CAS, armed with heavy rotary cannon and a variety of very deadly missiles.

Features: Hardpoints x 8, 30mm Rotary Cannon

Fighter Aircraft: They might be old, but venerable fighter aircraft with proper updates can still put up a pretty im-pressive fight at an eminently affordable price point. That is, af-fordable to the average nation-state, not a single person.

Features: Hardpoints x 6, 20mm Rotary Cannon, Ad-vanced Sensors (+1d to awareness and attack rolls, no penal-ties for darkness or poor vision conditions)

Advanced Fighter: Later-generation fighters de-signed and built in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are common in the arsenals of large power blocs such as the EU, China, and the United States, combining speed, maneuverabil-ity, firepower, and defenses to create deadly birds of prey.

Features: Hardpoints x 6, 20mm Rotary Cannon, Stealth (+2 difficulty to enemy awareness and missile attack rolls), Ad-vanced Sensors (+2d to awareness and attack rolls, no penal-ties for darkness or poor vision conditions), Computer Assis-tance (-1 multiple action penalty, +3 Initiative)

Superfighter: These cutting edge prototype de-signs are often the brainchildren of Nova designers, combining bleeding-edge electronics and materials science to create fly-ing supercomputers with the combat effectiveness of an entire fighter squadron and a comparable price point.

Features: Hardpoints x 8, Tactical Laser, Stealth (+3 diffi-culty to enemy awareness and attack rolls), Advanced Sensors (+3d to awareness and attack rolls, no penalties for darkness or poor vision conditions), Computer Assistance (-2 multiple action penalty, +5 Initiative)

Bomber: Bombers find themselves assigned to the role of carrying large amounts of ordinance and dispensing it with varying amounts of discrimination on various countries.

Features: Hardpoints x 20, Stealth (+2 difficulty to enemy awareness and attack rolls), Computer Assistance (-2 multiple action penalty)

UCAV: Cutting-edge in 2027, UCAVs are fully au-tonomous strike aircraft. Rapid advancements in artificial intel-ligence have created robotic assassins which are capable of successfully executing even incredibly complex attack maneu-vers without any difficulty.

Features: Hardpoints x 4, Stealth (+2 difficulty to enemy awareness and missile attack rolls), AI Piloted (Init 15, 6d for attack and piloting rolls before adding bonuses), Advanced Sensors (+3d to awareness and attack rolls, no penalties from poor vision conditions or darkness)

Military Aircraft

Type Speed Strength Handling Crew/Passengers Durability Size Strike Aircraft +5 [8]/1000 12 [5] +1 1/0 15E/36 8 Fighter Aircraft +5 [12]/1500 10 [2] +2 1/0 9E/30 8 Advanced Fighter +5 [16]/2000 10 [3] +4 1/0 9E/30 8 Superfighter +6 [20]/2500 12 [4] +5 1/0 9E/30 8 Bomber +5 [8]/1000 20 [10] -3 3/0 10E/50 12 UCAV +5 [5]/600 10 [2] +2 0/0 9/24 6

Military VTOLs

Attack Helicopter: Gunships carry an autocannon and a variety of rockets and missiles into combat, generally performing strike missions or escorting transport helicopters. Heavily armored for flying vehicles, they can resist heavy ma-

chine gun and even light autocannon fire, and are armed with a deadly arsenal of cannon and missiles.

Features: Hardpoints x 8, 30mm Cannon, Advanced Sen-sors (+1d to awareness and attack rolls, no penalties from poor vision conditions or darkness), Computer Assistance (-1 multi-ple action penalty), Stealth (+1 difficulty for enemy awareness and attack rolls)

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Transport Helicopter: There are few better ways to move a bunch of light infantry into combat fast, but transport helicopters tend to be vulnerable to AA weapons. Lightly armed for clearing landing zones, transport helicopters can engage lighter foes with some success but are incredibly vulnerable to

serious opposition and can be shot down very easily if not carefully used.

Features: Hardpoints x 4, Miniguns x 2 (one per side), Stealth (+1 difficulty for enemy awareness and attack rolls)

Military VTOLs

Type Speed Strength Handling Crew/Passengers Durability Size Attack Helicopter +4 [4]/400 12 [5] +2 2/0 16E/36 7 Transport Helicopter +2 [4]/300 10 [5] +1 2/10 12E/28 7

Military Ground Vehicles

APC: APCs are wheeled or tracked armored vehi-cles with light self-defense armament intended to increase the mobility of infantry.

Features: Light MG x 2, Vehicle Grenade Launcher x 1

Infantry Combat Vehicle: ICVs are heavier APCs which can carry fewer passengers but have far more weapons and heavier armor. They are used to support infantry as well as increase their mobility.

Features: Hardpoints x 2 (missiles only), Heavy MG x 2, 30mm Cannon x 1. Alternatively: Heavy MG x 2, 105mm Can-non x 1

Light Tank: Light tanks are smaller tanks, used as tracked reconnaissance vehicles, skirmishers, or airmobile ar-mor.

Features: Heavy MG x 2, 105mm Cannon x 1

Main Battle Tank: The pinnacle of the armored combat vehicle, your average MBT is fast, incredibly tough, and armed with enough firepower to smash just about anything in its way.

Features: Heavy MG x 2, Tank Railgun x 1. Alternately Heavy MG x 1, 120mm Cannon x 1, Vehicle Grenade Launch-er x 2

Military Ground Vehicles

Type Speed Strength Handling Crew/Passengers Durability Size APC +3/60 12 [5] -2 2/10 16/36 8 Infantry Combat Vehicle +3/70 15 [5] -3 3/7 20/40 8 Light Tank +3/70 15 [5] -2 3/0 18/44 8 Main Battle Tank +3/60 18 [6] -3 3/0 25/50 9

Combat Robots

All Combat Robots have the following features: AI Piloted (Init 15, 6d for attack, defense, and maneuver rolls before add-ing bonuses), Advanced Sensors (+3d to awareness and at-tack rolls, no penalties from poor vision conditions or darkness), Remote Control Option (can be remote-controlled, uses con-troller's attributes)

Assault Mech: Assault Mechs are 3-4 meter tall humanoid combat robots, powered by artificial muscles and armed to the teeth. They have Strength 16 [6] due to their massive musculature, and have arms and legs, allowing them to use hand-to-hand attacks like normal humans

Features: 30mm Autocannon x 1, Vehicle Grenade Launcher x 1, Light MG x 2 (linked, both fire as one action), Anti-vehicle Vibroblade (Damage Str + 7L, AP (3)), Multitasking Computer (+2 actions/turn).

Light Mech: A light mech is barely 2 meters tall and masses only about a half-ton. Much weaker and more lightly armed than its bigger brother, the Gunsen is often used for in-

ternal security. The Gunsen's fast-contracting artificial muscle reduces multiple action penalties by 2, and its artificial muscles have Strength 10 [2].

Features: Vehicular Grenade Launcher x 1, Light MG x 1, Vibroblade (Damage Str + 5L, AP (2)). Alternatively, Portable Laser x 1, Light MG x 1, Vibroblade, Multitasking Computer (+2 actions/turn).

Security Mech: The skeletal security mech is the size of a human and masses only slightly more. They have Strength 6.

Features: Light MG x 1 or Portable Laser x 1, Reinforced Strike Faces (+2 damage to unarmed attacks).

Cybertank: The pinnacle of unmanned ground combat vehicles, cybertanks are the 21st century equivalent to mythological monsters. With nearly infinite endurance, thick armor plating, and tons of firepower, they are very nearly un-stoppable.

Features: Tank Railgun x 1, PD Masers x 2 (as Maser, may defend against missile attacks), Vehicle Grenade Launch-er x 2, Multitasking Computer (+3 actions/turn)

Combat Robots

Type Speed Strength Handling Crew/Passengers Durability Size Assault Mech +3/60 16 [6] +1 0/0 18/24 3 Light Mech +3/60 10 [2] +4 0/0 12/12 1 Security Mech +2/30 6 +1 0/0 8/10 0 Cybertank +3/60 20 [6] -2 0/0 30/60 9

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EQUIPMENT

Modification Pack-

ages

The increasing ubiquity of augmentations in the nova age is a testament to just how quickly humans are finding their natural talents insufficient to compete in an era increasingly saturated with superhumans. Dependent on your views, it is gratifying, depressing, or perhaps a little bit of both to see just how quickly men and women are embracing body alterations to improve their own performance in every field.

Modification packages are common modifications that have relatively fixed enhancements. To find out what each of the enhancements does, refer to the Body Modifications sec-tion.

Exomuscle

The problem with power armor is fairly simple. Sure, being faster, stronger, better is awesome. But 45 kilograms of my-omers and composites are not only about as obvious as a tank, but you can’t exactly wear them to a formal event. When you need that level of armor and strength to survive a fight, this might be a problem.

Exomuscle implants most of a powered armor suit under your skin. It won’t stand up to extensive scrutiny, but it’s much less obvious than powered armor. It won’t let you bounce rifle rounds off of your chest all day, but it’s better than nothing. And wiring all that stuff into the body helps with endurance and agility in a way power armor can’t.

Augmentations: Attribute Enhancements: +2 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +2 Stamina, 2xExtra Health Levels (4 x -0), +4B/4L armor (+2 difficulty Awareness roll to detect by sight, obvious from touch): Total: 36 XP

Chemicals

The variety of toxins and drugs available in the Nova Age is an extensive litany of performance enhancers, recrea-tional drugs, and toxic chemicals for help or harm. This system covers chemicals as well as diseases as both can be modeled in a similar fashion.

Properties

All chemicals, toxins, and diseases have several traits, listed below with their explanations. The effects are listed per dose, or per turn of exposure. If a drug does damage, it does

Vector: The method the drug or toxin is delivered. In-gested, inhaled, injected, skin contact, etc. Injected drugs re-quire either a willing (or restrained) subject to inject or a weap-on coated in the toxin to deal at least 1 lethal health level of post-soak damage.

Potency: A drug or disease's potency is the difficulty penalty to resist the drug's effects (applied to a Stamina + En-durance roll) if they're unwanted.

Addiction: The addiction rating of a drug is the difficulty penalty on the Willpower roll to resist addiction. A drug with an addiction of "-" has no addictive qualities.

Duration: A drug or disease has a duration rating, which is how long it lasts before it fades naturally. This may decrease with successful resistance rolls.

Cost: How much a drug costs, in resources dots.

Effect: What the drug does. This may be attribute or sit-uational bonuses, damage, penalties, or just about anything.

Novas and Chemicals

Novas are heavily resistant to most drugs and dis-eases, and gain no benefit from most everyday drugs. Novas add an automatic success on all Endurance rolls made to resist the effects of a drug or disease, and halve the potency of all drugs that are not Nova-derived (round down, min 0). This is applied in addition to Mega-Stamina's effects. Some Quantum-active or superscience drugs may have special rules when ap-plied to novas.

The automatic successes from Mega-Stamina and just being a Nova apply even if the Nova is not rolling to resist a drug's effects. Therefore, a Nova is always immune to any drugs with potency less than double (Mega-Stamina + 1).

Toxins

Alcohol

Description: Well, it's not really that much of a toxin, but it is a depressant. One 'dose' of alcohol represents a fair amount more than just one beer. Drinking in moderation really doesn’t have any actual benefits or penalties.

Vector: Ingested Potency: +0 Addiction: +0 Duration: Scene Effect: -1 to all dice pools, -1 to Willpower for the scene, 1d of Bashing damage. Successive doses increase the dice pool and willpower penalties by 1 each.

Riot Agent/HP Riot Agent

Description: A standard anti-personnel riot agent. Riot agents cause uncomfortable but generally nonlethal effects on victims such as burning pain, choking, and other nasty effects. Standard riot agent is intended for normal crowds while High Power (HP) riot agent can incapacitate even the most hard-ened rioter but is much more likely to be lethal to its victims.

Vector: Inhaled/Contact Potency: +2 (+4 for high power versions) Addiction: - Duration: Until dissipated Effect: Victims suffer from an additional -(6 -Stamina)

“wound penalty” and 1d of unsoakable Bashing damage per round. High-power riot agent’s effect is a –(10 – Stamina) “wound penalty” and 3d of unsoakable Bashing damage per round. Success on a resistance roll halves the dice penalty (af-

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ter Stamina is subtracted, round down) and negates the dam-age. Exceptional success negates all effects.

Sweet Dreams

Description: A more humane and potent riot agent, de-signed to disable targets via a combination of euphoric and soporific effects. However, due to its nature, this riot agent may be psychologically addictive—and you really don’t want rioters addicted to being gassed, do you?

Vector: Inhaled/Contact Potency: +2 Addiction: +1 Duration: Scene Effect: -(6 -Willpower/2) to all dice pools (round penalty

up), must succeed on a Willpower roll at +1 difficulty to take any hostile action.

Blister Agent

Description: Blistering agents were first used in World War I against unfortunate conscripts. Now they’re mostly used by third world countries with chemical weapons programs and terrorists. Although nonlethal, they are horrifically scarring to skin and lungs. Victims often suffer permanent lung and skin damage, and are at increased risk for cancer.

Vector: Contact Potency: +4 Addiction: - Effect: -(5 -Stamina) to all dice pools and 2d unsoakable

Lethal damage per turn of exposure. Success on a resistance roll negates the damage but not the penalty. An exceptional success (5 successes over difficulty) on the resistance roll ne-gates all effects. Characters injured by a blister agent add +1 difficulty to all Endurance rolls for every 2 levels of lethal dam-age taken (round down) until they are given medical care at a high-end hospital.

Nerve Gas

Description: Your normal everyday VX-alike nerve gas. Vector: Contact Potency: +6 Addiction: - Effect: -(10 -Stamina) to all dice pools and 2 Lethal health

levels of damage per turn. Success on a resistance roll halves the dice pool penalty and reduces damage to 1 Bashing lev-el/turn. An exceptional success (5 successes over difficulty) on the resistance roll negates all effects.

Nanokill

Description: Nanotech anti-personnel weaponry that ly-ses cells in vital organs.

Vector: Contact Potency: +10 Addiction: - Duration: 1 minute (20 combat rounds) Effect: 2 Lethal health levels of damage per turn. Success

on a resistance roll halves the damage for that turn. Exception-al success negates all effects.

Eclipsidol-α

Description: Anti-Nova biochemical weaponry. Eclipsidol puts the M-R node into a state of seizure, causing the nova to involuntarily dump her stored Quantum as quickly as possible. The Alpha variant was the initial prototype of Eclipsidol, with the most potent effects but the most difficult method of de-ployment-injection.

Vector: Injection Potency: - Addiction: - Duration: Scene Effect: A Nova dosed with Eclipsidol- α loses all control of

Quantum powers and wastes his or her Quantum Pool as quickly as possible. This generally involves using whatever powers the nova has on random targets nearby. The nova’s ability to regain quantum from stressful situations shuts down for the scene, protecting the nova from becoming an indefinite threat to everything around her. For the rest of the scene, all Mega-Attributes and powers work at half effectiveness (round down) and no Enhancements or powers that cost quantum may be used.

Eclipsidol-β

Description: The beta Eclipsidol variant can be deployed via contact or ingestion rather than intravenous/intramuscular injection. However, it is significantly less potent, although it is also less dangerous to the surroundings.

Vector: Contact/Ingested Potency: - Addiction: - Duration: Scene Effect: A Nova dosed with Eclipsidol- β is significantly

weakened, no longer gaining quantum while in stressful situa-tions and halving the effects of all quantum powers and Mega-Attributes (round down). Furthermore, all quantum powers and enhancements the nova uses cost double.

Eclipsidol-γ

Description: Eclipsidol variant gamma is a inhalable vari-ant of the anti-nova chemical weapon Eclipsidol. Weakest of all three variants, it is designed to provide short-term crippling of a target nova.

Vector: Inhaled/Contact Potency: - Addiction: - Duration: (10 – Stamina) turns, minimum 1 Effect: When a nova is exposed to Eclipsidol- γ, he loses

the ability to spend quantum points for the duration of the drug’s effect. Furthermore, all Mega-Attributes and powers have their effective rating reduced by 1 dot.

Drugs

Adrenocilin

Description: Designed to improve Nova control of quan-tum powers, adrenocilin is also a pain deadener.

Potency: - or +2 for baselines Addiction: +0 or - for baselines Cost: Resources ••• for continuous monthly use, Re-sources • for a single dose per month. Duration: Scene

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Effect: +1 to all Quantum powers and -1 to all wound penalties. Baselines take 3 dice of unsoakable Lethal damage per round for (10 - Stamina) rounds instead. Succeeding on the potency roll reduces the damage to Bashing.

Anagathics

Description: Recent high-tech developments, anagathics are anti-aging drugs that slow the aging process, allow for a character to stay in their prime longer, and, to some extent, even revitalize the aged. Generally useless for novas, they are still a vital part of modern society.

Potency: - Addiction: - (psychological dependence may result) Duration: 1 Month Cost: Resources •• for a regular regimen Effect: Characters taking anagathics on a monthly basis

age at half the speed. Older characters who have lost physical or mental attributes due to aging may roll 1d for every attribute they have lost-each success allows them to regain 1 dot of a lost physical or mental attribute. Novas without Mega-Stamina gain full effect from anagathics. Novas with Mega-Stamina gain nothing.

Analgesics

Description: This covers a variety of pain management drugs, from over-the-counter medications to addictive ones like morphine and opium.

Potency: +0 to +4 Addiction: - to +2 Duration: 1 day Cost: Anywhere from Resources • for aspirin to Re-sources ••• for PCP. Effect: Wound penalties are reduced by anything from -1

(aspirin and other over the counter pain medication) to -5 (things like PCP). The potency of the drug is equal to the wound penalty negation -1 and the addiction is equal to the po-tency -3 (so a drug that negates 5 points of wound penalty would have a potency of +4 and addiction of +2). A negative addiction is considered to be (N/A).

Go-Pills

Description: “Go-Pills” are a very specific combination of stimulants and artificial neurotransmitters that induce a state of wakefulness in a user, replacing the need for sleep. With obvi-ous military benefits, the companies which make these drugs have already gotten rich. Now, with loosening drug regulation due to pharmaceutical enhancement being ever-more-necessary to compete with novas and transhumans, they have found a new market in college students.

Potency: - Addiction: - Duration: 1 day Cost: Resources • for a single dose, Resources •• for reg-ular monthly use. Effect: Eliminates the need to sleep for 1 day. Every week

of usage adds a cumulative +1 difficulty to all actions a charac-ter takes until they get proper sleep.

Mite

Description: Nova-harvested steroids. Mite allows even baselines to achieve Mega-Strength, at the cost of extreme

cardiovascular strain and physical deformation. For novas, they are merely fast-acting steroids.

Potency: +4 Addiction: +1 Duration: Scene/Permanent (see below) Cost: Resources •• for a single dose a month, •••• for con-tinuous monthly use. Effect: +1 Strength/Stamina for 1 scene upon use. Con-

tinuous use for a month makes this increase permanent. Past Str/Sta 5, another month of Mite use grants the character the Large body modification and -1 to Appearance, and one last month of continuous use grants Mega-Strength 1 after that (fur-ther reducing appearance by 1). Further usage just maintains the character's superhuman physique. Each month of Mite use requires the character to make a Resistance roll, failure means heart attack. Novas do not gain any permanent effects from Mite.

Moxinoquantamine (Mox)

Description: Mox reduces a Nova's ability to use quan-tum powers.

Potency: - or +2 for baselines Addiction: - Duration: Scene Cost: Resources • for a single dose a month, ••• for con-tinuous monthly use Effect: Reduce all Mega-Attributes and quantum powers

by 1 dot (min 1), reduce all temporary Taint gains from botched rolls by 1. Baselines take 3 dice of unsoakable Lethal damage per round for (10 - Stamina) rounds instead. Succeeding on the potency roll reduces the damage to Bashing.

Nootropics

Description: Cognition-enhancing drugs are in their rela-tive infancy but still effective.

Potency: +0 Addiction: +0 Duration: Scene Cost: Resources • for a single dose, •• for continuous monthly use. Effect: +1 to any one mental attribute (maximum 5) for 1

scene, -2 to all mental attributes (minimum 1) for an equal amount of time later.

Panacea

Description: Triton has created a cutting-edge anti-disease drug that provides broad-spectrum protection against all known diseases.

Potency: - Addiction: - Duration: 1 week Cost: Resources • for a single dose, but mostly supplied for free to poorer areas and the sick. Effect: +2 automatic successes to rolls to resist disease

for a week.

Retroviral Enhancement

Description: Retroviral genetic modification can be used for anything from curing birth defects to giving well-off children an edge or creating superhuman spies. Guess which two of the three get more attention and make more money? Although lim-ited to merely allowing its subjects to achieve peak human ca-

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pability or maintain it, and requiring specifically tailored retrovi-ruses for every subject, the relative lack of side effects and high cost-effectiveness means this is probably the most popu-lar form of human enhancement technology in existence.

Potency: - Addiction: - Duration: Permanent Cost: Resources •• for the first attribute boost in a catego-ry, +1 for every subsequent attribute Effect: One year of retroviral usage along with proper ex-

ercising of the attribute in question increases a physical or mental attribute by 1 permanently (up to the human normal maximum of 5). At the start of treatment, the subject suffers from a severe flu (-3 wound penalty for the duration of the dis-ease) for (10 – Stamina) days. Retroviral enhancement has no biological effect on novas, but the placebo effect (and how no-vas work) means the treatment has identical effects on novas. Player characters who use retrovirals do not normally get an XP discount, but a ST may rule that they pay half-cost or even nothing for improving the attribute.

Retrovirals are not easily cumulative. Although the first modification is cheap, every additional modification costs more as the effects of previous modifications must be taken into ac-count. Retroviral enhancement initially costs Resources ••, but every additional modification in the same category (physical or mental) costs one additional dot as it becomes harder and harder to enhance the character.

The ST may waive this additional cost for black-market retrovirals due to lack of safety oversight. If he or she does so, the character who gets them anyways probably deserves whatever aberrations you give her.

Soma

Description: Derived from a processed Nova M-R node, Soma is very illegal, very difficult to make, very expensive, and extremely powerful.

Potency: - Addiction: +3 Duration: 1 scene Cost: Resources •••• for a single dose. Effect: +1 to all Mega-Attributes and Powers a Nova pos-

sesses for the duration. A baseline which ingests Soma must roll (Stamina + Resistance) or instantly die. If the baseline sur-vives, he gains 6 NP worth of powers/Mega-Attributes/enhancements and a quantum pool of 5 points for a scene.

Stimulants

Description: Drugs that increase the mental and physical reaction speeds of a character, stimulants are sought after by the sleep-deprived, the junkie, and anyone whose life may de-pend on their reaction speed.

Potency: +2 Addiction: +0 Duration: 1 scene Cost: Resources • for a single dose, ••• for a monthly supply. Effect: +1 to Wits, +1 to Dexterity (maximum 6) for a sce-

ne. After the scene ends, a character suffers +1 difficulty to all physical actions for the rest of the day due to lethargy.

Red 7

Description: Red 7 is an advanced designer combat drug derived from Novas, developed by French pharmaceutical companies for brief performance boosts. Psychological addic-tion rates are considered high but acceptable.

Potency: - Addiction: +0 Duration: 1 scene Cost: Resources •• for a single dose, •••• for a monthly supply. Effect: +2 to all physical attributes (maximum 6) for 1 scene, -2 to all physical attributes (minimum 1) for an equal amount of time following that scene.

Diseases

AIDS

Description: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is caused by the HIV virus. An effective antiviral and vaccine for the disease have been created by Utopia's Triton medical facili-ties, but in poorer countries the disease still exists.

Vector: Bodily Fluids Potency: +4 Duration: Until cured Effect: Cumulative +1 difficulty to any roll to resist disease

per (Stamina) years. Curing AIDS requires 10 successes on an extended (Intelligence + Medicine) roll, where each roll is a month of tailored antiviral medication.

The Common Cold

Description: The most aggravating disease in existence, the cold is adaptable but weak and generally nonlethal.

Vector: Contact Potency: +0 Duration: 1-7 days Effect: Increase wound penalties by one step for the dura-

tion of the disease. Success on a Resistance roll eliminates this penalty. Exceptional success means the disease has no effects.

Gangrene

Description: Gangrene is an awful necrotizing disease that kills living tissue, causing wounds to slowly worsen. Left untreated it can easily cause death.

Vector: Infected Wounds Potency: +2 Duration: Until treated Effect: The character takes 1 level of unsoakable lethal

damage per (Stamina) days until gangrene is treated. Success on a Resistance roll reduces the damage to Bashing. Excep-tional success means the disease has no effect. Treatment of gangrene often requires the surgical removal of dead tissue.

Influenza

Description: Influenza is a somewhat more dangerous but still generally nonfatal disease. Symptoms include cough-ing, headache, muscle pains, and lethargy.

Vector: Contact Potency: +1 Duration: 1 week

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Effect: -1 wound penalty for the disease duration. Suc-cess on a resistance roll downgrades its effects to equivalent to the Common Cold (above). Exceptional success eliminates the disease.

Radiation Sickness (Minor)

Description: Absorbing a large dose of radiation from var-ious sources can cause radiation sickness, which is largely in-curable in baselines but can be shrugged off by novas.

Vector: Nontransmittable Potency: +2 Duration: Until cured Effect: Reduce all physical attributes and appearance by

2 (minimum 1). Take 1d unsoakable aggravated damage per year. A success on the resistance roll negates the damage and halves the attribute reduction (to -1). Exceptional success puts it into remission for (Stamina + Resistance) years for a base-line or cures it for a nova. Curing Radiation Sickness requires a high-tech hospital and 20 successes on an extended (Intelli-gence + Medicine) roll, where each roll is a week of intensive care and cellular repair.

Radiation Sickness (Major)

Description: Absorbing a large dose of radiation from var-ious sources can cause radiation sickness, which is largely in-curable in baselines but can be shrugged off by novas. This is the more dangerous version, created when someone is ex-posed to extremely high levels of radiation, such as those in a nuclear reactor core or atomic bomb detonation.

Vector: Nontransmittable Potency: +4 +(number of aggravated damage levels tak-en from radiation source, maximum +10) Duration: Until cured. Effect: Reduce all physical attributes and appearance by

2 + (number of aggravated damage levels taken from radiation source) (minimum 1). Take 1 level of unsoakable aggravated damage per hour. A success on the resistance roll changes the damage from levels to dice and halves the attribute reduction (round down). Exceptional success reduces it to the equivalent of Minor Radiation Sickness. Baselines automatically fail re-sistance rolls. At the ST’s discretion, this damage may not be

visible or affect the character until they reach Incapacitated, at which point they suddenly and horrifically die.

Curing major radiation sickness requires a high-tech hos-pital and 30 successes on an extended (Intelligence + Medi-cine) roll at +2 difficulty, where each roll is a week of intensive care and cellular repair. At the ST’s discretion this may require outright organ replacement and other forms of artificial modifi-cation.

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY There are three "types" of technical advancement in

Aberrant. Conventional science, super-science, and Gadgets. Conventional science is stuff that fully meshes with

the laws of physics and requires no exotic ingredients, nor does it play with the nigh-magical forces that the Inspired pos-sess. Conventional science creates things like suborbitals, ad-vanced body armor, railguns, powersuits, the occasional robot, fusion reactors, pollution-eating microbes, genetic enhance-ments, the list goes on and on. Anyone, baseline or Inspired, can advance conventional science.

Super-science isn't the same thing as cutting edge science. It's research and development which requires exotic, Nova-created ingredients or perhaps uses Noetic or Quantum forces (as opposed to small-q quantum). Super-science can be duplicated by baselines with the right materials and enough money, but cannot be advanced by baselines. Super-science developments include FTL drives, Soma, eufiber- based infra-structure, hypercore rounds, and several varieties of free-floating active nanotech.

Gadgets are systems which are unique to the creator and their harnessing of Quantum or Noetic forces. Gadgets can be only be built by the Inspired and identical Gadgets are quite rare, as they are manifestations of their creator’s will ra-ther than any actual ‘technology’. In fact, some Gadgets may not even pretend to be technology. An “enchanted sword” or “mystical power gem” can be a device.

Super-science and conventional science use the same system for invention, while gadgets are created via a separate system due to their one-off nature.

Assistants

No man is an island, or a nation, and although a No-va can give a good show at being one, it's always easiest to accomplish tasks with assistants. A lab assistant must have a minimum rating in one of the abilities used for an advancement or gadget of 2+, making them reasonably competent in the ar-

ea, but most lab assistants are more skilled than the bare min-imum, and provide commensurately better benefits. However, project management is limited by both a Nova's personal skill in management, and the Nova's scientific acumen. A Nova may have no more than (Charisma + Command) or (Charisma + Science), choose the lower

A lab assistant provides a minimum of +1d in bonus-es, plus an additional +1d for every qualification they meet be-low. All bonuses in this case are cumulative. Additional Bonuses given for having:

A rating of 4+ in at least one relevant ability

A rating of 6+ in at least one relevant ability

A rating of 2+ in at least two relevant abilities

A rating of 4+ in at least two relevant abilities

Mega-Intelligence 1+

Mega-Intelligence 3+

Mega-Intelligence 5+

An applicable Enhancement (Inventive Genius, Sci-entific Prodigy, etc)

Inspiration (i.e. a Quantum, Psi, or Inspiration rating)* *only applies for super-science or constructing Gadgets

Lab Quality

Large amounts of assistants are not simulated in this system, which primarily deals with the idea of a small group of gifted scientists a la the pop culture image of the Manhattan Project. But scientists do not function in a vacuum, and a large and well-stocked facility is critical for the most effective ad-vancement of science. Labs can modify the difficulty and roll in-terval of an Advancement or Device roll. Lab techs are not highly qualified assistants, but rather just guys who can do the grunt work such as poring through experiment results and comparing models, fetching coffee, and so on.

Laboratory Examples Difficulty Interval Adjustment No Tools n/a +9 Increased by two steps (day ->

month, week-> year) No Lab n/a +6 Increased by 1 step Poorly Equipped Lab Your average high school sci-

ence lab +6 Double roll intervals

Basic lab A handful of useful specialist tools, most general purpose tools are available, a dozen or so lab techs

+2 n/a

Standard Lab A broad array of relevant tools, enough lab techs exist to re-move most of the grunt work

+0 n/a

Advanced Lab More or less every currently available tool in the lab, 50-200 or so lab techs

-1 Halve roll intervals

Top of the Line Facility LHC, ITER, Montressor, costs exorbitant amounts to maintain, costs even more to build

-2 Reduce intervals by one step

Reality Bubble Planck Scaling -5 Reduced by 2 steps (year -> week, month -> day, all other rolls take 1

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day to complete)

Invention

To invent something, players must first have a clear idea of what they want to do. The character may not always have a clear idea of what they’re working towards, however. Many scientific discoveries are accidents, and many technolo-gies are derivatives of other technological developments. Acci-dental inventions such as inventing a new supersoldier drug when attempting to treat a rare disease, creating an AI by sheer accident when working with self-evolving software, and so on are treated in the same fashion as purposeful inventions. It isn’t any harder or any easier to do.

Basic Invention

Inventions need a certain amount of successes to develop, whether they’re a new technology, a new product, or just a scientific theory with far-reaching ramifications. To adju-dicate how many successes a certain invention needs to de-velop, an invention should be given ratings in three categories: How much of the world they affect, their ingame benefits, and the changes the item produces in the setting. Multiply the three ratings together to find the total number of successes neces-sary on an extended roll. The Affected Population rating determines how much of the population is affected. Low ratings mean the prod-uct is niche, while high ratings mean that the development af-fects an increasing percentage of the world. The World Changes rating tells the ST how much the invention changes the world. Low ratings mean the chang-es are largely cosmetic, while high ratings in this area mean that the world can be massively altered by this new develop-ment. Finally, the Mechanical Benefit rating tells the ST exactly what mechanical benefits of the invention are. Although items with high mechanical benefit often also have significant effects on the game world, this is not necessarily true. Some-thing may change the world significantly yet have few mechan-ical benefits (such as a cheap filter for water or a cure for AIDS) while something may have minimal effect on the world yet significant mechanical benefits (a better gun to kill things with).

Ratings of 11+ require an arbitrary number of suc-cesses dependent on the Storyteller, as they are literally set-ting-destroying changes which may easily end the campaign entirely. Furthermore, something that shakes the foundations of the setting like so will generally be an endgoal for a charac-ter and involve more than just simple rolling, but plenty of com-plications that play out in sessions.

Equipment Stats

On the table some game mechanics effects are listed as ‘equipment stats’. +1 in an equipment stat is considered to be any of the following: +1 to Accuracy, +1 to Damage, +[1] damage automatic succ, +2 to a vehicle’s Strength or Speed, +1 to a vehicle’s Armor (or +1B/1L soak for personal armor), or +25% to a weapon’s ammunition capacity or a vehicle’s health levels.

Complications

The difficulty of an Invention roll is normally equal to the average of the three ratings on an Invention roll, rounded

up. Oftentimes, this difficulty can get prohibitive, especially for single inventors or budget-strapped companies which can’t af-ford a high-end research facility. However, taking Complica-tions on the Invention itself can reduce this difficulty. Perhaps the new car has a depressing habit of catching fire. Maybe the new body armor falls apart if exposed to sand. Flaws such as these on a new invention can reduce the final difficulty of the invention process. There are three types of flaws: Minor, moderate, and major. Minor flaws are small negative quirks that make the end product more annoy-ing to use but are generally easily worked around. Moderate flaws are significant downsides that apply often and are difficult to work around. Major flaws are ones which make a product almost more trouble than it’s worth. A product with a major flaw has a very good chance of being treated as a ‘lemon’ and showing up in “failed inventions” programs on the internet.

A minor flaw, such as the product being fragile, re-quiring external power (for something which normally wouldn’t, such as a gun) or being extremely bulky (compared to similar products) reduces difficulties by 1. A moderate flaw, such as being extremely fragile (halved armor or health levels for equipment likely to see combat, armor 0 and 1 HL for equip-ment unlikely to see combat), being vulnerable to a relatively common threat such as EMP (for a military weapon), or so on reduces difficulties by 2. A major flaw, such as only working in comfortable temperatures, bursting into fire upon taking any damage, or requiring constant cooling by liquid helium, reduces difficulties by 4. A product may only have 1 flaw.

Field Experience

In all but very gritty games or games with extensive amounts of downtime, inventor-type characters should be al-lowed to take inspiration for their invention from every session they participate in. Every session between invention rolls adds +1 bonus die to the next invention roll, simply because the character is exposed to something outside the lab and allowed . Furthermore, if the player can argue that events in the session would have provided further

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Rating Affected Population (Examples) World Changes (Examples) Mechanical Benefit (Examples) 1 1 in a million, very tiny number

(Only the very rich with Resources 6+) (Only Q6+ novas)

Trivial (Introduce a new brand of soft drink) (Introduce a new electronic device) (An equation or theory that has few practical applications) (Create a new martial arts school via biome-chanical research)

Up to +1 to an Ability or a specific cat-egory of rolls (Improved tools giving +1 to Medicine) (Drugs that improve memory, adding +1d to any rolls involving remembering facts) (Smart targeting scopes that add +1 to their user’s Firearms score)

2 Extremely small cross section (Only people with Resources 4+) (nearly extinct racial group) (obscure hobbyists)

Minimal (Cure a rare disease) (Solve a minor problem, such as the extinc-tion of a single species) (Spread an already-developed technology fur-ther) (Develop a slightly improved weapon)

+1 to Attributes/Abilities/Backgrounds (Genetic engineering that gives +1 to Stamina) (Robot assistants equivalent to a sin-gle Follower) +1 to equipment stats

3 Very small cross section (People with Resources 3+) (small racial minority) (military personnel of a small nation) (Only Q5+ novas)

Minor +2 to Attributes/Abilities/Backgrounds (nanofabricators that free up 2 dots of Resources for all affected characters) (Nootropics adding +1 Int/+1 Wits)

4 Small cross section (people who enjoy a) (military personnel in a large nation) (Q4+ novas)

Moderate +3 to Attributes/Abilities/Backgrounds +3 to equipment stats

5 Moderate cross section (People who enjoy a popular prod-uct) (Q3+ novas)

Significant +4 to Attributes/Abilities/Backgrounds +4 to equipment stats

6 Extensive (Cure a common disease, like the cold)

+5 to Attributes/Abilities/Backgrounds +5 to equipment stats

7 (Q2+ novas) (People who use

Very Extensive (Cure aging) (Greatly alter the balance of geopolitical power) (Render a natural resource obsolete)

+6 to Attributes/Abilities/Backgrounds +6 to equipment stats Augment Level 1 nova powers by up to 1 dot

8 (majority of a small nation) (minority in a large nation) (small number of people worldwide, such as ‘all soldiers’)

Paradigm-Modifying (Cure all diseases) (Make an entire method of warfare obsolete) (Make an entire method of government obso-lete)

Enhance major non-mundane traits (Augment Level 1 or 2 nova powers by up to 2 dots)

9 World-Shaking (A small nation, such as Britain or Japan) (all novas)

Paradigm-Shifting (Cure natural death) (Create a Faster-Than-Light drive) (Allow cheap space travel) (Erupt anyone with the potential to erupt) (Alter a nova’s powers)

Allows characters to gain traits that normally cannot be possessed (Emulate Level 1 or 2 nova powers) (Augment Level 1-3 nova powers by up to )

10 Massive (An entire large nation, like the US, China, or India) (Large segments of world popula-tion, like ‘all Asians’, ‘all elderly’, ‘all children’)

Setting-Shifting (Eliminate poverty and resource shortages) (Create a method of mitigating Taint) (Reliably clone novas)

Edge of System (Emulate Level 3 nova powers) (Augment Quantum)

11+ Worldwide (100% of population)

Setting-Transforming (Unerupt novas) (make everyone a nova) (Cure all Taint) (Time travel)

Godlike (Emulate Level 5 or 6 powers)

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Gadgeteering

“Gadgets” are the catch-all term used for the most unique devices in the nova age. These items are, for now, the sole form of device which can use and channel nova powers. Although lumped under ‘technological advancement’, gadgets are nothing of the sort. They are focused expressions of the nova’s will and capability to alter reality, Quantum-infused tal-ismans that do not work because of any coherent and con-sistent scientific laws, but rather because a godlike being said so. Even technological-seeming gadgets are only super-ficially technological, while other gadgets are crafted out of, quite literally, quantum magic, resembling nothing more than the trappings of fantasy novels and games. Enchanted swords made of purest gold coursing with the energies of the sun, magical staves, a sapphire that summons fireball-throwing djinns, and more are all possible ‘gadgets’.

Gadget Creation

To create a gadget, a character rolls Intelligence + Quantum. Each roll is roughly 1 week of work time, assuming working on the gadget for 12 hours a day for an entire week (84 hours in total). If the character does other things during this period of time, each roll may take more than 1 week. A roll may not be done faster than 1 week, even if the character has En-hancements such as Fast Tasks or powers such as Temporal Manipulation, as building a gadget is not a mundane activity at all, but rather a nova splitting off a shard of him- or herself and weaving it into a device.

Each success on the creation roll becomes 1 nova point, which is used to purchase attributes, abilities, and pow-ers for the gadget. All gadgets start at Quantum 0 and have no Quantum pool. A gadgeteer is limited in the power of the gadg-ets he or she builds as well - a gadgeteer cannot build a gadg-et with a Quantum higher than his own Quantum, and may not spend more NP on powers, attributes, abilities, and Mega-Attributes than ([Intelligence + Quantum)] x2) for a non-autonomous gadget. An autonomous gadget, such as an an-droid or AI-driven supercar, may double the maximum amount of NP spent on powers, attributes, abilities, and Mega-Attributes, to take into account the additional necessary attrib-utes. She may spend as many NP as she wants on increased duration or quantum pool, however.

If a gadget is defined as an autonomous system, it requires at least 1 dot of Intelligence to interpret commands and/or act autonomously. An autonomous gadget may only use its own dice pools.

Gadget Powers

Gadgets normally may be given the powers and Mega-Attributes of their creators only. However, it is possible to emulate powers the creator is familiar with via a gadget. To do so, a character must study the power for 1 week per dot, or 1 day per dot if the character has a lab equipped to study quan-tum effects. No matter how long the power is studied, though, this still increases the difficulty of the construction roll. Gadget powers are treated just like nova powers, ex-cept they use the gadget’s internal quantum storage. A charac-ter using Quantum Bolt 5 from a gadget adds his Dexterity to the 5 dots of Quantum Bolt to find the dice pool, and rolls that. However, the gadget may have its own attributes, which can be

used in conjunction with the gadget’s powers (so a gadget might have Dexterity 5 and Quantum Bolt 5, allowing anyone who uses it to throw out 5-dot Quantum Bolts with a 10d pool).

No power on the gadget may have a rating higher than the gadgeteer's (Mega-Intelligence + 1), or the rating the gadgeteer possesses it at, whichever is higher (although the maximum rating of a power is still limited by the Quantum). Powers the gadgeteer lacks may not be rated higher than (Mega-Intelligence) or the rating of the studied subject, which-

ever is lower.

For every power the gadgeteer desires to add which he or she lacks at the desired level but can study in a lab, add +1 to difficulty. For every power the gadgeteer desires to add which she cannot study in a lab, add +2 to difficulty. Increasing the gadget's lifespan past 1 month adds +1 or more difficulty.

Gadget Items

Many gadgets have mundane origins which provide their own benefits-an enhanced suit of full plate which projects a forcefield, an assault rifle with a few special firing modes, so on and so forth. A gadget retains these mundane benefits, such as armor soak, mundane offensive ability, and so on. Fur-thermore, a gadget may potentially be built tougher or do more damage than its mundane counterparts, via the proper use of Enhancements, "Body Modifications", and powers. Although powers typically enhance both the user and the gadget, body modifications modify the gadget itself. Improvements to gadget "health levels" only affect the gadget by increasing its durabil-ity-they do not improve the user's durability. Armor gadgets gain +2 to their Destruction rating and +1 Armor Health Level from every augmentation which increases health levels, no matter how many health levels the augmentation provides.

Gadgets typically look like what they do. A suit of power armor provides protection, a jetpack lets the user fly, a blaster pistol shoots ranged attacks at people, and so on. This is because it is harder to make gadgets which don’t look like what they do, such as earrings which shoot quantum bolts. A character adds +1 difficulty to gadget creation rolls if the item looks only vaguely related to the purpose of the gadget (a mag-ic wand that controls the weather, a broomstick that flies, a forcefield belt, a computer that is used to Dominate others), or +3 difficulty if the item has absolutely no relation to its powers (a ring that gives the wearer super-strength and speed, a tongue piercing that fires off Quantum Bolts).

In addition, many gadgets are fairly large to reduce the difficulty of constructing them. A Conceal N gadget (one which cannot be concealed on a person) is normal cost. Build-ing a gadget requires an additional +1 difficulty for Conceal O (can be hidden under an overcoat, such as a lightweight wet-suit or a carbine), +2 difficulty for Conceal J (can be hidden un-der a jacket or ‘street clothes’, such as a T-shirt, small SMG or swimsuit) and +4 difficulty for Conceal P (can basically be hid-den via anything, such as a smartphone, underwear, or the aforementioned tongue piercing).

Augmentation

Non-autonomous gadgets are often used to augment, rather than replace, a user's prowess. Therefore, it is possible for a character to pay double the normal NP cost for a trait to have it add to the user's rating. For example, a Nova gadgeteer might make a suit of powered armor, paying 4 NP to have it add +4 to strength and another 4 NP to have it add +1 to

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Mega-Strength. However, a gadget may not augment its user by more than (creator’s Quantum) in any trait.

In addition, if a gadget augments its user’s Quantum, powers, or Mega-Attributes, the difficulty of building the gadget increases by +1 for every such trait that the gadget enhances.

Flaws

Complex, powerful gadgets often end up with mas-sive difficulty modifiers that make it virtually impossible for a character to build them. However, a character may give a gadget flaws to make up for this problem. Flaws in a gadget can reduce its construction difficulty by anywhere from -1 to -4, allowing even the most powerful gadget to be built by any nova. If the sum of flaws would reduce the difficulty below 0, the addi-tional reduction is added in as automatic successes. Gadgets may have any number of flaws-but they must have at least one Moderate flaw for every 3 Minor flaws, and at least one Major flaw for every 3 Moderate flaws. The ST is the final determinant for what category a Flaw falls into.

A Minor flaw is one that reduces the utility of a gadg-et to some extent but is has little impact on normal use. A shapeshifting gadget that cannot be used for disguise, a flight gadget that only allows for a few minutes of flight at a time, a healing gadget that doesn’t work against rare diseases, or a powered armor suit that has hissing hydraulics and glowing ra-diators instead of quiet artificial muscle (adding +3 difficulty to stealth rolls) are all gadgets with Minor flaws. Minor flaws re-duce the construction difficulty by 1.

A Moderate flaw is problematic but can be worked around. Examples include the gadget being entirely powerless against a significant portion of the population, or providing no benefits against a relatively common occurrence. Examples in-clude gadget armor that fails to protect against bullets, gadget weapons which cannot harm the ‘righteous’/’wicked’ as defined by the creator), or a healing gadget that doesn’t heal injuries, only diseases and poisons. Another example would be giving the user an extremely inconvenient aberration such as extreme aggression or being literally addictive when used. Moderate flaws reduce construction difficulty by 2.

A Major flaw is one that makes using the gadget al-most more trouble than it’s worth. A major flaw may be some-thing like gaining an automatic point of temporary Taint every time you use the gadget, having to kill people to charge the gadget, or a healing gadget spreading lethal radiation (but only to people you like). Major flaws reduce construction difficulty by 4.

Quantum

A gadget must fuel its abilities from its internal battery, and requires it for normal operating. If it lacks such a battery, a Nova may fuel its powers from his own Quantum Pool, but this requires double cost. Furthermore, a gadget without a quantum storage system of some sort costs the Nova 1 quantum point whenever the Nova wishes to take advantage of its abilities, at-tributes, or enhancements above and beyond any costs for powers. Recharging a gadget's Quantum pool costs 2 Quan-tum per point of Quantum it possesses, and gadgets do not normally regenerate Quantum pool. To do so, the character must give the gadget the Quantum Regeneration power.

Usage

Gadgets, as directed manifestations of a nova’s will, resemble magical items more than anything technological. A

user must imprint on a non-autonomous gadget before it works for them, which may involve anything from a mystic ritual for an enchanted dagger to adding the user to a list of authorized pro-files for an advanced computer. This process takes a minute per dot of Quantum in the gadget. Autonomous gadgets are simpler to use-they need no imprinting. A single gadget may be imprinted on any number of people, and by default has no se-curity. If it may only be imprinted on someone via the creator’s permission, add +1 difficulty to its creation roll.

Characters may be imprinted on as many gadgets as they have Quantum, plus one. This means even baselines can use a single gadget. If they wish to use a new gadget and have already imprinted on Quantum + 1 gadgets, they must lose their imprint on another gadget. Characters may un-imprint on a gadget reflexively.

Costs

A gadget is held together by the will and quantum power of the creator. It costs 1 point of temporary Willpower per dot of Quantum to build a gadget, which may not be re-gained during downtime. To keep a gadget from degrading, ei-ther its builder must sacrifice 2 points of Quantum pool per dot of Quantum in the gadget to make it permanent, plus 1 point of Quantum pool per every 5 NP that the gadget possesses to stabilize it in reality. As this can get quite expensive, many no-vas don’t create ‘permanent’ gadgets. Instead, they leave them in an ephemeral form, forcing their users to maintain these de-vices by constant expenditures of quantum power or will.

Ephemeral gadgets are maintained by their imprinted users. A nova may do so by paying the amount of quantum pool that the gadget would have required to be made perma-nent upon imprinting. This spent quantum does not regenerate by any means until the gadget is no longer imprinted. A base-line has a much harder time, and must spend 1 point of Will-power for every 2 quantum pool that making the gadget per-manent would normally cost. Like quantum spent for this maintenance, this willpower may not be regained by any means until the imprinting is broken.

A gadget that is not maintained by either method may still be used, but breaks down and is rendered completely use-less at the end of a scene where it was used unattuned.

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ALLIES AND ANTAGONISTS

Baselines

Still making up more than 99% of the human population on Earth, baselines are often important supporting characters (or sometimes even main characters) in an Aberrant game. Notable attributes are above-average attributes that the arche-type possesses. These are a minimum, the attributes of a character are often higher. Notable abilities are either abilities which might not be immedi-ately obvious for a character of that role or abilities that might be at particularly high levels. Notable backgrounds are above-average or exceptional back-grounds all characters of the archetype possess. These back-grounds might go even higher for some.

Everyday

These character archetypes are pretty common, with millions of them (if not tens or hundreds of millions of them) existing throughout the world. These characters are often Admirers or Regulars.

Worker (White-Collar)

White collar workers do any form of job that requires relatively little manual labor. Although this term could go up to CEOs, in this case it means secretaries, data entry specialists, call cen-ter workers, paralegals, lab assistants, and other characters who are relatively low on the totem pole. Admirer quality. Notable Attributes: None Notable Abilities: Computers 2, Bureaucracy 2, possibly 1 Field skill (Science, Engineering) at 1-2.

Worker (Blue-Collar)

Blue collar workers do any form of job that requires a lot of manual labor. Admirer quality. Notable Attributes: Strength 3, Stamina 3 Notable Abilities: Athletics 2, Endurance 2, Might 2. Skilled blue-collar workers (Electricians, Plumbers, Mechanics) will have Engineering (relevant field) at 1.

Petty Criminal

Petty criminals are, well, petty. They do things like petty theft, forgery, and con games. Although only rarely a threat in com-bat, a nova or baseline with low Mental and/or Social attributes and abilities is perfectly vulnerable to their charms. Notable Attributes: Manipulation 3, Wits 3 Notable Abilities: Legerdemain 2, Subterfuge 2, Streetwise 2

Thug

The staple of your average superhero comic, thugs largely ex-ist to terrorize the weak and get beaten up by superior force. These stats work just as well for government goons as they do for criminal underlings. Regular quality. Notable Attributes: Strength 3, Stamina 3 Notable Abilities: Brawl 2, Intimidation 2

Beat Cop

Are these men and women selfless defenders of the people, or power-maddened pigs who regularly abuse their authority? That depends on the individual and the region, but police gen-erally have similar traits. Cops are regular quality. Notable Attributes: Stamina 3, Strength 3, Perception 3 Notable Abilities: Firearms 2, Drive 1, Intimidation 1, Academ-ics (Law) 1 Notable Backgrounds: Sanction 1

Soldier (Green)

These trained but inexperienced soldiers are the backbone of most militaries. With no combat experience, they tend to be rough around the edges, but make no mistake, they can kill you just as dead as an elite commando. Regular quality. Notable Attributes: Stamina 3, Strength 3, Dexterity 3 Notable Abilities: Athletics 2, Firearms 2, Gunnery 1, Drive 1 Notable Variants: Vehicle Crew (switch Firearms and Gun-nery, add Pilot 2 or Drive 2)

Exceptional

Exceptional archetypes are incredibly skilled and talented. Alt-hough not out of reach of most people should they put enough work into it, they are relatively rare and quite important.

Elite

These character archetypes are incredibly uncommon, often just as rare as novas. Characters at this level are great men and women, with attributes and abilities on a rarefied sale of excellence that few people comprehend, let alone have experi-ence with. Some of them can even take on weaker novas with little difficulty. These characters may be of Expert quality on the low-end, but are generally better represented as allies than any other thing.

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CEO

If business is war, the CEO is the general. The Chief Executive Officer of a company is responsible for many of its actions and business decisions. A good CEO can turn a profit even in a bad situation, while a bad CEO can ruin a company with de-pressing speed. CEOs, due to their influence, resources, and company ties, are better Allies or Contacts than they are Fol-lowers and may not be purchased as Followers without ST permission. If they are Followers, they are of Expert quality. Notable Attributes: Intelligence 4, Wits 4 Notable Abilities: Strategy 3, Business 4, Command 2 Notable Backgrounds: Resources 5, Backing 2, Influence 2

Senior Politician

Senior politicians are veteran members of congress, the Politi-buro, Parliament, or even higher-up figures such as Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Supreme Leaders. With political savvy honed from decades in power, these powerful men and women are best represented as Allies or Contacts rather than Follow-ers, and may not be purchased as Followers. Even though they might ‘merely’ be baselines their influence and resources allow them to be extremely powerful friends or contacts. Notable Attributes: Intelligence 4, Manipulation 4, Charisma 4 Notable Abilities: Strategy 3, Academics (Political Science) 4, Subterfuge 4, Etiquette 4, Rapport 4 Notable Backgrounds: Allies 5, Resources 5, Influence 5

Special Forces

The best of the best, special forces are chosen for their intelli-gence, physical fitness, loyalty, and willpower. Trusted with the most sensitive missions, special forces of this type are some of the best soldiers the world has ever seen… except for all the augmented ones. Augmented commando units and novas have made baseline special forces increasingly marginalized-which has largely meant that the old guard have had to find employ as private military contractors. Special Forces are Ex-pert quality. Notable Attributes: All physical attributes at 4, all mental at-tributes at 3, Willpower 5+ Notable Abilities: Endurance 4, Resistance 3, Athletics 4, Firearms 4, Survival 4, Tactics 3

Augmented Commando

With the advent of safe and reliable human modification sur-geries that allowed truly superhuman physical and mental abil-ity for those who could afford it, those who were willing to sacri-fice their humanity for superhuman capability became a valua-

ble asset, too expensive to waste. Superhuman speed, strength, toughness, and precision are all available to these supersoldiers, who tend to be the glamorous elites which show up in 2027-era tactical shooters and war movies. Augmented commandos are Expert quality. Notable Attributes: All physical attributes at 5, all mental at-tributes at 4, Willpower 7+ Notable Abilities: Endurance 4, Resistance 3, Athletics 4, Firearms 4, Survival 4, Tactics 3 Notable Backgrounds: Bioenhancement 2

Olympian

Olympians are the pinnacle of athletic prowess. Well, they were, until novas came along and left them in the dust, and elective augmentation surgery came along right after and dealt a death-blow to the idea that baseline human performance was still terribly relevant. But the baseline Olympic Games are still puttering along, even though the Hyper Games have become what the Olympics once were. Olympians are Expert quality. Notable Attributes: A 5 in any one physical attribute, 3+ in two others. Notable Abilities: Athletics 5 (specialty in the relevant sport). Notable Backgrounds: Fame 1

Post-Human Warrior

Almost certainly possessing a name that might reference some sort of prison, like Folsom or Alcatraz, or possibly a religious text, such as Adam or JC, the post-human warrior may not be one of the new gods of the nova age, but he is still far more than human. He might not have a M-R node, but given his in-credible skills and inhuman prowess having one isn’t even close to a guarantee of victory against one, let alone several. Post-human warriors come in a large variety of variants, from more investigative and social superhumans with high social at-tributes and skills, to inhuman killing machines imprisoned in suits of cutting-edge power armor and fused to nonsapient combat AIs. Post-human warriors may not be purchased as Followers and are much better suited as Allies. Notable Attributes: 4+ in all mental attributes, all physical at-tributes in the 7 to 10 range. Strength is almost always boosted via Augmented Strength to the maximum supportable (any-where from [2] to [5]), Willpower 7+ Notable Abilities: Firearms 4-5, Gunnery 4-5, Athletics 4-5… if it’s related to combat, it’s above 4. This includes things like Tactics and Awareness. Notable Backgrounds: Bioenhancement 6+, Sanction 3

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CRITTERS AND CONSTRUCTS

Animals

Sometimes a nova might have a pet, or sometimes a nova might gain the aid of these critters via Quantum Construct or Nature Mastery. A nova with Biomanipulation might take an animal and massively alter it to be a better guard dog, or a nova with Mega-Intelligence might turn one into an outright gadget, infusing quantum-powered devices into it to grant it powers. Whatever the case, these are the attributes for various types of animals. Animals are given physical attributes and mental attributes. Being incapable of speech they generally do not have any social attributes besides Intimidation. If the ST wants to allow an animal to make a social roll (for example, a housecat trying to persuade someone to feed it or scratch it via mewing) just give them whatever amount of dice feels about right. Animals may be (and often are) Extras. In that case, they have half their health levels, rounded up, take 1 automatic level of damage for every 2d post-soak damage an attack deals, and suffer no wound penalties.

Insect

Although pretty physically pitiful, insects can still see sort of well. Note that they only have 1 HL: Any damage can kill them. Some fly, and some crawl, but their main advantage is that they aren’t easy to spot and thus are great spies if you can control them. Stinging in-sects may attack characters, injecting a toxin into them as long as their natural lethal soak is lower than 4L. Non-stinging insects might have some attacks of their own, but they’re unlikely to do more than be somewhat annoying, and thus have no stats. Physical Attributes: Str 0/Dex 3/Sta 0 Mental Attributes: Per 1/Int 0/Wits 4 Abilities: Athletics 1, Brawl 3 (for stinging insects) Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 4, Soak 0B/0L Health Levels: Squished, Size -12 Attacks: Sting (Accuracy 3d, Damage 0L + Toxin)

Mouse/Rat

Mice and rats probably won’t play much of a role in your game, except as flavor or as lab rats. But if you want to, for some reason, have a super-intelligent rat escape from a top-secret government research institute and attempt to take over the world, go for it. Just remem-ber that this may change the tone of the game, quite significantly. Physical Attributes: Str 0/Dex 4/Sta 1 Mental Attributes: Per 3/Int 0/Wits 3 Abilities: Athletics 1, Stealth 1, Awareness 1, Brawl 1 Health Levels: -4/Dead, Size -6 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 5, Soak 1B/0L Attacks: Bite (Accuracy 1d, Damage 1B)

Housecat

The natural enemy of the mouse, the housecat is a pretty common pet. Physical Attributes: Str 1/Dex 4/Sta 2 Mental Attributes: Per 3/Int 1/Wits 4 Abilities: Awareness 2, Athletics 1 (Controlled Falls +3), Stealth 2, Brawl 2, Survival 2 Health Levels: -2/-4/Dead, Size -4 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 5, Soak 2B/1L Attacks: Claw (Accuracy 3d, Damage 1L)

Guard Dog

Guard dogs are large, intimidating dogs that provide security (or the illusion thereof) to many households. Physical Attributes: Str 3/Dex 3/Sta 2

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Mental Attributes: Per 4/Int 1/Wits 3 Abilities: Might 1, Awareness 3, Athletics 1, Intimidation 1 (pair with Strength), Brawl 2 Health Levels: -0/-2 x 3/-4/Dead, Size -1 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 4, Soak 3B/1L Attacks: Bite (Accuracy 5d, Damage 4L)

Attack Dog

Attack dogs are even bigger and meaner than guard dogs. Used by police and military forces to guard checkpoints and catch fleeing people, they are often extremely well-trained and disciplined. Physical Attributes: Str 4/Dex 3/Sta 3 Mental Attributes: Per 4/Int 1/Wits 3 Abilities: Might 2, Awareness 3, Athletics 2, Intimidation 2 (pair with strength), Brawl 3 Health Levels: -0/-1 x 2/-2 x 2/-4/Dead, Size 0 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 5, Soak 4B/2L Attacks: Bite (Accuracy 6d, Damage 6L)

Wolf

A wolf is a more agile, somewhat weaker attack dog. What’s scary, though, is that it’s a pack predator and doesn’t come alone. Physical Attributes: Str 3/Dex 4/Sta 3 Mental Attributes: Per 5/Int 1/Wits 3 Abilities: Might 1, Awareness 3, Athletics 2, Stealth 2, Intimidation 2 (pair with strength), Brawl 3, Survival 2, Tactics 1 Health Levels: -0/-1 x 2/-2 x 2/-4/Dead, Size 0 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 6, Soak 4B/2L Attacks: Bite (Accuracy 6d, Damage 5L)

Predatory Cat

This category represents things like lions, tigers, and cougars. Vicious attack predators, they can kill an unarmed or unsuspecting hu-man in very little time at all. Physical Attributes: Str 6/Dex 6/Sta 4 Mental Attributes: Per 4/Int 1/Wits 4 Abilities: Might 2, Awareness 3, Athletics 3, Stealth 4, Brawl 3, Survival 3 Health Levels: -0 x 2/-1 x 3/-2 x 3/-4 x 2/Dead, Size 1-2 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 9, Soak 7B/4L Attacks: Bite (Accuracy 9d, Damage 8L), Claw (Accuracy 10d, Damage 6L)

Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees are small compared to humans, but their muscle configuration means they are quite strong and more than capable of beating a human to death with bare hands. Physical Attributes: Str 6/Dex 3/Sta 4 Mental Attributes: Per 2/Int 2/Wits 2 Abilities: Might 2, Awareness 3, Athletics 3, Brawl 2, Survival 2 Health Levels: -0 x 1/-1 x 2/-2 x 2/-4 x 1/Dead, Size 0 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 6, Soak 4B/2L Attacks: All normal unarmed maneuvers

Gorilla

A literal 800 pound gorilla. Exceptionally strong, quite smart for your average creature, and capable of using tools (like clubs, rocks, and if you’re entirely crazy enough, guns). Physical Attributes: Str 9 [3]/Dex 2/Sta 4 Mental Attributes: Per 2/Int 2/Wits 2 Abilities: Might 3, Awareness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Survival 2 Health Levels: -0 x 2/-1 x 2/-2 x 3/-4 x 1/Dead, Size 1 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 4, Soak 7B/4L Attacks: All normal unarmed maneuvers

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Rhinoceros

Heavily armored and extremely tough, rhinos are not immortal but they are really good at hurting things and quite surprisingly tough. Their thick, armored hides mean that non-called shots will generally bounce off unless one uses a large-caliber firearm such as an ele-phant gun. Physical Attributes: Str 10 [2]/Dex 1/Sta 4 Mental Attributes: Per 3/Int 1/Wits 1 Abilities: Might 6, Awareness 3, Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Survival 3 Health Levels: -0 x 4/-1 x 4/-2 x 4/-4 x 4/Dead, Size 5 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 2, Soak 14B/9L Attacks: Charge (Accuracy 6d, Damage 11L [2], requires 1 turn to set up), Gore (Accuracy 4d, Damage 10L [1])

Elephant

The biggest still-extant land mammal, elephants are patient, surprisingly intelligent, work in herds, and very dangerous if provoked. Physical Attributes: Str 12 [4]/Dex 1/Sta 4 Mental Attributes: Per 3/Int 2/Wits 1 Abilities: Might 6, Awareness 3, Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Survival 3 Health Levels: -0 x 4/-1 x 4/-2 x 4/-4 x 6/Dead, Size 6 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 2, Soak 14B/9L Attacks: Charge (Accuracy 6d, Damage 14L [2], requires 1 turn to set up), Gore (Accuracy 4d, Damage 12L [2])

T-Rex

The Tyrannosaurus Rex is extinct, but that really won’t stop novas who like dinosaurs. You might find these in a cloning lab, in a dino-saur park that works with a cloning lab, or as a quantum construct. In the last case, it might also be bulletproof and shoot fire out of its mouth. Naturally, they’re dumb and find it hard to notice details. Unnaturally… well, anything goes. Physical Attributes: Str 12 [3]/ Dex 3/Sta 3 Mental Attributes: Per 1/Int 1/Wits 1 Abilities: Might 8!, Awareness 2, Athletics 2, Brawl 2 Health Levels: -0 x 4/-1 x 4/-2 x 4/-4 x 4/Dead, Size 5 Defenses: Dodge DV Pool 5, Soak 12B/8L Attacks: Stomp/Tail Swipe (Accuracy 10d, Damage 12B [3]), Grapple (Accuracy 10d), Bite (Accuracy 3d, Damage 14L [3])

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Quantum Strangeness

The nova age has brought stranger things to the world than anything nature could have dreamed of. Novatech gadgets have allowed even mere baselines to touch the power of the gods. Other things that were once consigned to the realms of fiction-autonomous robots, zombies, eldritch horrors from beyond imagining, and more, have become a part of the world now. Most of these are uncommon in a game with the default tone, but a more 4-color game might have quantum strangeness show up more often. Or perhaps less often, in the case of things that let humans compete with novas. After all, a 4-color superhero game is about keeping the status quo, not turn-ing it upside-down, and the more people have the power of the gods and the ability to use it, the less plausible it is that someone hasn’t completely changed the world.

Zombie (Slow)

Whether created by “magic” or by a virus or by something else entirely, a slow zombie is a slow zombie. They shuffle at a slow walk, moan, survive massive damage without impairment, and swipe at the living. Zombies take only Bashing damage from firearms without a called shot to the head. Physical Attributes: Str 6/Dex 1/Sta 6 Mental Attributes: Per 1/Int 0/Wits 1 Abilities: Might 4, Brawl 1 Health Levels: 9 HLs, Size 0 Defenses: Soak 6B/3L, does not dodge Attacks: Swipe (Accuracy 4d, Damage 7L)

Zombie (Fast)

The next generation of zombie, fast zombies are faster and deadlier but no less zombie-like. Like slow zombies they take only Bashing damage from firearms. Physical Attributes: Str 6/Dex 4/Sta 6 Mental Attributes: Per 1/Int 0/Wits 1 Abilities: Might 4, Brawl 1 Health Levels: 9 HLs, Size 0 Defenses: Soak 6B/3L, does not dodge Attacks: Swipe (Accuracy 6d, Damage 7L)

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Psychomorphs

As of 2027, few know of Psychomorphs.”Psions” or “Psiads”, as they will be known in later eras, are the antithesis of novas, channeling ‘sub-quantum’ or ‘noetic’ energies instead of quantum forces. To simplify this distinction, a Psion sees the universe in terms of information, and their powers result from them editing the information in the universe to achieve the desired result. Meanwhile, a nova simply achieves their desired result by brute-forcing it via quantum power. Although the manifestations in both cases are identical, the process is not. Noetic energies and quantum forces are opposed, and thus psions excel at fighting novas. This will be shown again and again in the Trinity era, where psionic shock troopers are the sole defense Earth has against its many, many foes.

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QUICK REFERENCE

Health

Base: 1x -0 / 2x -1 / 2x -2 / 1x -4 / Incapacitated

At Stamina 3 and every odd point thereafter, (5, 7, 9, etc.), a character gains an additional health level, going in the order of -0/-1/-2/-4. So a character with Stamina 3 or 4 would have a Health chart of -0 x 2/-1 x 2/-2 x 2/-4 x 1/Incapacitated. A character with Stamina 5 would have a track of -0 x 2/-1 x 3/-2 x 2/-4 x -1/Incapacitated.

Each point of Quantum a nova possesses gives the nova an additional -0 health level.

Each dot of Mega-Stamina gives the nova 1x -0, 1x -1, 1x -2, 1x -4, and 1x Incapacitated Health Levels

Each dot of Mega-Strength gives the nova one -0 health level

Certain Body Modifications and powers may in-crease a character’s health levels

Armor may provide health levels

Initiative

(Dexterity + Wits)

Movement

Walk: (5 + Dexterity) km/h Run: (10 + [Dexterity x 2]) km/h Combat movement speeds are based on Dexterity +

Athletics rolls rather than on fixed movement speeds.

Quantum Pool (initial on-

ly)

20 + (Quantum x2)

Soak

Natural soak

Stun/Bashing Soak: Stamina + (Mega-Stamina * 2) + Quantum

Lethal Soak: Stamina/2 + Mega-Stamina + Quan-tum

Aggravated Soak: Quantum/2

Power-Based soak

Power-Based soak is gained from quantum powers.

Armored soak

Armored soak comes from body armor or eufiber, and some other body modifications.

Stacking Soak

Any character may only gain the full defensive value of one source of each soak type (normally the highest soak value). The second source of said soak is halved, the third source has its value divided by 4, and so on, to a minimum of +0L/0B from stacking. Round stacking soak values down. Note that some soak (primarily gained from body modifications) is noted to be Stackable. This means you add up all sources of stackable soak and treat it as one source of soak.

Example: A Nova with Eufiber 2 (+4B/4L soak), Ad-vanced Body Armor (+10B/9L soak), and Subdermal Armor (+2B/2L soak) with a Hyperdense Skeleton (+2B/1L soak) cal-culates his armored soak by taking the full value of his Ad-vanced Body Armor (10B/9L), then halving the value of his Eufiber (4B/4L halves to 2B/2L), and then quartering the value of his body modification soak (4B/3L quarters to 1B/0L), giving him a total of 13B/11L soak from armor, rather than 18B/16L.

Round down all fractional soak down.

Non-Soak Defenses

Ablative defenses: Ablative defenses give external health levels, providing a pool of damage reduction that gradu-ally is used up. A character may only have one ablative de-fense ‘active’ in a turn. If a character has multiple powers, body modifications, or pieces of equipment that provide ablative de-fenses, only one is considered ‘active’ and allowed to absorb damage. All others are considered to be on ‘standby’, meaning that they can recharge themselves but will not absorb attacks. If a character has multiple ablative defenses, he may choose which one is absorbing damage and which ones are inactive as a reflexive action at the start of each turn.

Stacking Other Defenses: Defensive powers or benefits that do not provide soak or ablative defense, do not stack unless they are explicitly stated to. Simply use the most effective defensive power against the specific attack.