Possible player intrusions based on your character type:
Friendly NPC
An NPC you don't know, someone you don't know that well, or someone you know but who hasn't been particularly friendly in the past chooses to help you, though doesn't necessarily explain why. Maybe they'll ask you for a favor in return afterward, depending on how much trouble they go to.
Perfect Suggestion
A follower or other already-friendly NPC suggests a course of action with regard to an urgent question, problem, or obstacle you're facing.
Unexpected Gift
An NPC hands you a physical gift you were not expecting, one that helps put the situation at ease if things seem strained, or provides you with a new insight for understanding the context of the situation if there's something you're failing to understand or grasp.
Carapace
+1 to Armor.
Granted from Roach
Possible GM intrusion from your focus:
The engine develops a knock. The bridge on the road ahead is out. The windshield shatters. Someone unexpectedly runs in front of the vehicle.
https://app.lostcompanypress.com/account/cypher/players/630639CF2B0C96E4 Last Updated: November 1st, 2023 01:20 App Version: 1.02.06
", "description": "Background:
Roach
You are born of a species of evolved insects once called \"cockroach,\" but that is far in the past. Radiation and forced evolution have radically increased your size, shape, and ability to think. Your exoskeleton mimics the shape of a human being, though not perfectly. When you move about human society, shadows and cloaks are your ally if you wish to pass unnoticed. When those of your kind are discovered, it usually goes poorly for someone. You, however, have a wandering spirit and seek to explore the fallen world and find a new way forward.
Choose how you became involved in the adventure:
- The PCs didn't realize what you were when they asked for your help.
- You've managed to hide your roach ancestry so well that everyone thinks you are like them.
- You are the last of your kind.
- You have a secret agenda, and the PCs were gullible enough to let you come along.
Drives Like A Maniac
Whether balancing on two wheels, jumping another vehicle, or driving head-on toward an oncoming enemy car, you don't think about the risks when you're behind the wheel.
Background Connection:
You are part of a maligned minority, but you work to bring the injustice of your status to public attention.
Focus Connection:
Pick one other PC. That character always recognizes you or your handiwork, whether you're in disguise or are long gone when they arrive on the scene.
You can move an immediate distance each round on walls or clinging to the ceiling.
Granted from Roach
If an opponent has a straightforward weakness (takes extra damage from fire, can't see out of their left eye, and so on), the GM will tell you what it is.
Granted from Sharp Eyed
You can extend small wings from your carapace that grant an asset in jumping tasks and allow you to fall up to a short distance without taking damage.
Granted from Roach
Your Speed Edge increases by 1.
Granted from Roach
You can sense your environment even in total darkness.
Granted from Roach
Granted from Tier 1 Advancement
Granted from Roach
Granted from Sharp Eyed
Granted from Sharp Eyed
Granted from Dealer
Granted from Dealer
While among non-roaches, all positive interaction tasks are hindered.
Granted from Roach
Granted from Dealer
Defense rolls against disease or poison are hindered.
Granted from Roach
Tasks involving combat- including attack and defense rolls-are hindered.
Granted from Roach
You control the actions of another creature you have interacted with or studied for at least a round. This effect lasts for ten minutes. The target must be level 2 or lower. Once you have assumed control, the target acts as if it wants to accomplish your desire to the best of its ability, freely using its own best judgment unless you use an action to give it a specific instruction on an issue-by-issue basis. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the maximum level of the target. Thus, to attempt to command a level 5 target (three levels above the normal limit), you must apply three levels of Effort. When the effect ends, the target remembers everything that happened and reacts according to its nature and your relationship to it; assuming control might have soured that relationship if it was previously a positive one. Action to initiate.
Granted from Dealer
You can stand or move about on a moving vehicle (such as on the hood, on the roof, in the open door well, etc.) with a reasonable expectation of not falling off. Unless the vehicle veers sharply, stops suddenly, or otherwise engages in extreme maneuvers, standing or moving about on a moving vehicle is a routine task for you. If the vehicle engages in extreme maneuvers like those described, any tasks to remain on the vehicle's surface are eased. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
You have +3 Armor against damaging attacks and damaging effects that target your mind and Intellect. Defense rolls you make against attacks that attempt to confuse, persuade, frighten, or otherwise influence you are eased. Enabler.
Granted from Dealer
You hinder all actions attempted by any number of targets within short range who can understand you. You choose which targets are affected. Affected targets' actions are hindered for one round. Enabler.
Granted from Dealer
You are trained in all tasks related to driving a car, truck, or motorcycle, including mechanical repair tasks. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
You can make an attack with a light or medium ranged weapon and attempt a driving task as a single action. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
You gain 3 points to your Speed Pool. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
You gain +1 to your Speed Edge. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
You reach into the mind of a creature within immediate range and make an Intellect roll. On a success, you erase up to the last five minutes of its memory. Action.
Granted from Dealer
You are specialized in all tasks related to driving a car, truck, or motorcycle, including mechanical repair tasks. Enabler.
Granted from Tier 4 Advancement Focus Ability Expert Driver From Drives Like A Maniac
If you use one action creating a misdirection or diversion, in the next round you can take advantage of your opponent's lowered defenses. Make a melee attack roll against that opponent. You gain an asset on this attack. If your attack is successful, it inflicts 4 additional points of damage. Action.
Granted from Dealer
All non-allies within short distance who can hear your dreadful, intimidating words flee from you at top speed for one minute. Action.
Granted from Dealer
Your words, gestures, and touch invest an object no larger than yourself with an aura of doom, fear, and doubt for one day. Creatures that can hear and understand you feel an urge to move at least a short distance away from the object. If a creature does not move away, all tasks, attacks, and defenses it attempts while within the aura are hindered. The duration of the aura is extended by one day per level of Effort applied. The aura is temporarily blocked while the object is covered or contained. Action to initiate.
Granted from Dealer
Your words twist the mind of a character within short range who is able to understand you, unlocking their more primitive instincts. As a result, they gain an asset on their Might-based attack rolls for one minute. Action to initiate.
Granted from Dealer
You are trained in two skills in which you are not already trained. Choose two of the following: deceiving, persuading, public speaking, seeing through deception, or intimidation. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, you must choose two different skills. Enabler.
Granted from Dealer
By accessing the resources appropriate to your character, you can ask the GM one question and get a general answer. The GM assigns a level to the question, so the more obscure the answer, the more difficult the task. Generally, knowledge that you could find by looking somewhere other than your current location is level 1, and obscure knowledge of the past is level 7. Gaining knowledge of the future is impossible. Action.
Granted from Dealer
When speaking with a group of intelligent creatures that can understand you and aren't hostile, you convince them to take one reasonable action in the next round. A reasonable action should not put the creatures or their allies in obvious danger or be wildly out of character. Action.
Granted from Dealer
Because you must always keep an eye out when you're traveling, you are trained in all tasks related to perception and navigation. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
Your words reverberate destructively in the brain of an intelligent level 1 target within short range that can hear and understand you. They destroy tissue, memories, and personality, triggering a vegetative state. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the maximum level of the target. Thus, to shatter the mind of a level 5 target (four levels above the normal limit), you must apply four levels of Effort. Action. (The vegetative state created by Shatter Mind can be healed by advanced magic or science, or by a condition remover cypher that cures psychosis.)
Granted from Dealer
When you use a vehicle as a weapon, you inflict 5 additional points of damage. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
You convince all intelligent creatures who can see, hear, and understand you that you are someone or something other than who you actually are. You don't impersonate a specific individual known to the victim. Instead, you convince the victim that you are someone they do not know belonging to a certain category of people. \"We're from the government.\" \"I'm just a simple farmer from the next town over.\" \"Your commander sent me.\" A disguise isn't necessary, but a good disguise will almost certainly be an asset to the roll involved. If you attempt to convince more than one creature, the Intellect cost increases by 1 point per additional victim. Fooled creatures remain so for up to an hour, unless your actions or other circumstances reveal your true identity earlier. Action.
Granted from Dealer
One doesn't play games of chicken with other maniac drivers without gaining mental strength. You're trained in Intellect defense tasks. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
Having an action plan in place before facing a challenge improves the odds of success, even if that plan is eventually changed or discarded once it's put into play. If you and your allies spend at least ten minutes going over a plan of action, all of you gain one free level of Effort that can be applied to one task you attempt during the execution of that plan within the next 24 hours. The plan of action must be something concrete and executable in order to gain this benefit. Action to initiate, ten minutes to complete.
Granted from Dealer
This ability provides an asset to any tasks for attempting to deceive, persuade, or intimidate. Each use lasts up to a minute; a new use (to switch tasks) replaces the previous use. Action to initiate.
Granted from Dealer
You convince one intelligent target of level 3 or lower that you are its worst nightmare. The target must be within short range and be able to understand you. For as long as you do nothing but speak (you can't even move), the target is paralyzed with fear, runs away, or takes some other action appropriate to the circumstances. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the maximum level of the target. Thus, to terrorize a level 5 target (two levels above the normal limit), you must apply two levels of Effort. Action.
Granted from Dealer
While driving a car, truck, or motorcycle, your Might Edge, Speed Edge, and Intellect Edge increase by 1. When you make a recovery roll while driving, you recover 5 additional points. When you attempt a driving task or an extreme trick-such as jumping a ravine or other vehicle, spinning in the air, landing safely on another vehicle, and so on-the task is eased. Enabler.
Granted from Drives Like A Maniac
Cures any disease of the cypher level or lower.
", "basic": { "level": "3", "identified": true } } }, { "name": "Poison (Emotion)", "type": "cypher", "img": "systems/cyphersystem/icons/items/cypher.svg", "system": { "description": "The victim feels a specific emotion for one hour. Roll a d100 to determine the emotion. (Most poisons are not considered cyphers, except for a very few that are unique.) Rolled a 66. Sadness. All tasks are hindered.
", "basic": { "level": "3", "identified": true } } }, { "name": "Light Weapon", "type": "attack", "img": "systems/cyphersystem/icons/items/attack.svg", "system": { "description": "A light weapon of your choice. Granted from Starting Equipment. Attacks are eased by 1 for Light weapons.
", "basic": { "type": "Light", "damage": 2, "skillRating": "Practiced", "modifier": "eased", "steps": 1 } } }, { "name": "Punch", "type": "attack", "img": "systems/cyphersystem/icons/items/attack.svg", "system": { "description": "A right jab. Attacks are eased by 1 for Light weapons.
", "basic": { "type": "Light", "damage": 2, "skillRating": "Practiced", "modifier": "eased", "steps": 1 } } } ] }