stillfleet

Enjoy the fact that every single time you go out into the void, you might never return. You fully expect to die out there, and you probably give off that energy in an obvious way.

Open, close, or change the destination of a stiffworks. Costs and mechanics vary by the works. Open stiffworks remain open for 10 Minutess per tack… usually. Some stiffworks may be retacked (i.e., their destinations changed), although this varies by type.

The ship is on fire—you have to get your party through the stuck bulkhead before the O2 combusts! (Or whatever!) This is your big getaway power. Burn 6 GRT and make a MOV check: if you succeed, you and some or all of your party make it out safely. You can bring 1 +your level humanoid-sized beings along with you to safety, or burn an additional 6 GRT to bring one additional being beyond your limit. Small sapient beings (0.5-M tall/long) count for half a slot; large sapes (3-M tall/long) count double; small pets (cat/beagle-sized) are free. If you fail your MOV check, you alone get away but injure yourself for 2d6 HEA damage.

Use, alter, or repair tech. Burn XY GRT, where X is the stratum (type) of tech (ranked 1–7, clank [medieval], bio [contemporary on-Spin], code [Ancient, Early Tephnian], force [High Tephnian], nano [Late Tephnian, Snakeman], bug [cryptocerid, heechee, mantid, mi-go], Escheresque) and Y is the level of complexity (ranked 1–6, simple, standard, complex, corporate, military, godlike). Thus, a force artifact of standard complexity costs 4 × 2 = 8 GRT to interact with. Once this cost has been paid, the artifact functions as designed, within reason. A laser (standard force) keeps firing until it runs out of juice, which is up to the GM to determine (e.g., d20 charges). Repowering requires access to the appropriate resources and an additional use of this power.

• ҂ Note: It is possible to heal informatic beings using this power at a 2 to 1 GRT to HEA cost. A pepper elf’s body is complex force tech (3 × 4), so a banshee can burn 12 GRT (the minimum required to interact effectively with the technology) in order to heal the pepper elf 6 HEA.
• ҂ Bonus Item: Instead of a standard envirosuit, you begin play with a perfect environment suit that you have repaired. This allows you to safely operate in the void for 36 hours.
• ҂ Bonus Item: you also begin play with a fannypack-sized sample collection kit.

You can, with effort, actually pilot spacefaring vessels. Cost to command a vessel is based purely on its class (a combined 1–6 rating based on its size, complexity, and condition), with each point of vessel class costing 6 GRT. Burning this GRT grants you the ability to pilot or otherwise command the ship, within reason. (If the hyperdrive’s broke, it ain’t jumpin; mining vessels may not sport armament, etc.) While piloting, you are essentially stuck and unable to otherwise venture. You must pay the astrogation cost each time you chart a course into or out of a system, or each time the ship is damaged or upgraded. Doing anything with the ship other than moving from point A to B (firing weapons, scanning a mysterious craft, remotely salvaging damaged life support systems, etc.) requires relevant checks, typically REA or, in a dogfight, COM and MOV.

You gain a permanent bonus of +1 MOV.

You can metabolize a much greater range of chemicals than hominins, only a few of which are cognizable to them as “food”—from rotting fungusbark to human-urine energy shots. Whenever you encounter something possibly edible, make a WIL/resist world check. Take that result and roll as many d4s. For every resulting 4, you regain 1 point of pool, assigned to HEA or GRT as you like. (The GM gets final say on what things around you might be “edible,” but they should be generous!) Eating possible-food takes at least 20 seconds (two rounds).

Wetan is actually a family of so-called rasp-languages: it involves pheromonal and electrical signals that nonbugs can never fully understand. It is weakly mutually intelligible with other bug languages such as Cryptocerid (extinct), Mantish (on Terra), and Yuggothi (the language of the mi-go).

You gain a permanent bonus of +1 COM.