stillfleet

Were bullied into doing a job for the Wetan Mafia recently. They threatened your kin. What did they want? When were they last in touch with you? Did you enjoy this illegal work?

You can calmly smooth over misunderstandings—the kind that doom many planetside runs: burn 3 GRT for an easily remedied bad situation (difficulty 5 CHA check), 5 for a difficult one (difficulty 6), and 7 for a nearly impossible one (difficulty 7). Roll a CHA check. If you succeed, all works out (for now—you can always re-blunder). If you fail, roll another CHA check: success on this one means you haven’t made the situation worse; failure incites your interlocutors to attack immediately. In actual game play, this is arguably the single most useful class power!

• ҂ Bonus Item: you begin play with a set of Archival travel pamphlets about one world of your choice; this gives you a one-time +4 on a REA or CHA check regarding this world. (You can choose the world well after character creation.)

You participate in an important local ritual: this could be a religious service, an election, a marriage, etc. The time requirement depends on the ritual but is typically one hour and never less than one round. It must be logically possible for you to lead this ritual. (You can bend but not break narrative logic here; GM’s discretion.) Burn X GRT and choose an effect:

• ҂ Religious Rite (Standard) – Everyone involved except you gains 2X GRT. This GRT can stack beyond their normal limits.
• ҂ Romantic Nudge/Ban (Hour) – A sapient person (not a beast or non-sapient machine) of X or lower level falls in or out of love with someone else. You have total control over the basic change in affect that you want to happen; you do not have total control over how this plays out for the nudged/banned individuals.
• ҂ Political Event (Day) – You gain the loyalty and social capital of 100X locals for X days. They will do your bidding within reason, including fight for you. They will give up if faced with obviously superior firepower or numbers, however, unless you conduct a second ritual to steel their resolve.

Regardless of what you’re encountering, if it’s kinda humanoid at all, you can quickly get a good sense of who they are, what they want, and how to communicate with them. Burn 4 GRT and make a REA check: if you succeed, you establish lasting contact. If you fail, you establish some sort of contact but anger your new friends in doing so. The GM should raise the difficulty of the REA check to 7 if the entities you’re reading are already suspicious, or 9 if they are hostile.

Burn 2 GRT. Choose one entity; this entity can represent the median characteristics of a group (a gang, a small army, etc.). By spending a round studying it, you gain a good idea about its general nature and likely powers. (In game terms, the GM tells you its level, species, and classes.) Assess does not let you read someone’s mind or automatically catch someone in a lie.

You gain a +1 bonus to all non-Weird rolls related to health—resisting disease, fighting poison, not falling asleep when you don’t want to, etc. This does not help with resisting Weird forms of mind control.

You gain a permanent bonus of +1 WIL.

All weapons you purchase during character creation are well-made and deal an extra d4 damage.