Level Five Powers
Ecological
Supremacy
Level: 5
Quantum Minimum: 8
Dice Pool: Intelligence +
Ecological Supremacy
Range: Varies
Area: Varies
Duration: Varies
Effect: The character affects
some aspect of the planet’s ecology.
Multiple Actions: Yes
Description: The nova gains
control over the ecology of the Earth (or whichever planet she’s on at the
moment). Most effects only apply for a limited time, but the changes they
create last, just like natural changes would.
Ecological Supremacy works
primarily on non-sentient targets. Your Storyteller gets the final say on
whether it takes Consciousness Supremacy to affect self-aware beings or whether
there’s an increased difficulty (like +1 or more per dot of the species’
average Intelligence) when using Ecological Supremacy on sentient species.
Every species has a distinctive
quantum signature: All the quantum-mechanical activity in every cell adds up to
a pattern unique to each species, which the appropriate quantum senses can
easily recognize. Each technique in this power acts on that pattern in
different ways.
Adaptation
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 1,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
100 km
Duration: One year, minus (power
rating) months
The nova can induce changes of a
particular sort in a target species: They change in some way to suit their
environment. The nova can’t control what the change is, manipulating quantum
energy in indirect ways. Currently living members of the species don’t change
but give birth to offspring with the appropriate adaptations, unless the environment
is so hazardous that the species must change or perish quickly.
It generally takes just one
success on the Adaptation roll for the nova to ensure that the species he
targets will change to suit the environment he’s put them in (or that they’ve
otherwise ended up in). Additional successes let the nova target more species
in the same habitat. At the Storyteller’s discretion, hostile environments like
the interior of
The nature of the change should
be as small as possible to ensure survival. A desert animal moved to a cold,
temperate forest may need nothing more than fur and a slight change in diet,
while plants dropped into wet spots on Mars must develop temperature-resistant
hides, toughened roots, more efficient photosynthesis and the like. Major
changes may also have cascading ramifications throughout the ecosystem, though
part of the innate nature of Adaptation is to keep such disturbances to a
minimum. This technique is not a tool with which to destroy the world (there
are much more direct ways of doing that), and the Storyteller should work with
rather than against players in detailing the results.
Example: Antaeus’ current
project is the
A good afternoon’s work, Antaeus
thinks.
Acquistion
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 1,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
100 km
Duration: Permanent
This technique upsets
biologists. It lets the nova target a population of some species and lets the
target members pass on acquired characteristics. This is Lamarckian evolution,
which
Successes Inheritance
One 50 percent chance of any acquired characteristic
being transmitted; if it is, it appears at about one-quarter the level of the
parent’s aptitude.
Two 50 percent chance of transmission, at 25-50 percent
of parent’s level.
Three 75 percent chance of transmission, at 50-75 percent of
parent’s level.
Four 100 percent chance of transmission, at 75-100
percent of parent’s level.
Five 100 percent chance of transmission, at 100 percent
of parent’s level.
The nova may use extra successes
to affect multiple species in the target area. It takes one success to double
the distance or double the target area.
Example:
Extinction
Range: Global
Area: Global
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
This technique makes species
die. Alternatively, it can be used for a short period of time to rectify unchecked
overpopulation. Disease and systemic failure of all kinds strike mature members
of the species, while fertility drops and reproduction plummets. This technique
is the quantum equivalent of hitting a species’ quantum pattern with a big
sledgehammer until it breaks or the nova gets tired.
The nova generally doesn’t get
to say just what goes wrong; Extinction batters at every available weak point
with little fine control. Each success increases mortality by 5 percent and
decreases fertility by 10 percent for the duration. (The nova can choose to
change only mortality rates, in which case there’s a 10 percent increase, or
only fertility, in which case there’s a 15 percent decrease.) The nova may
choose to extend the effect by one month per success dedicated to increased
duration. When the effect wears off, the target species suffers a permanent 1
percent increase in mortality and 2 percent decrease in fertility, plus another
1 percent mortality increase and 2 percent fertility decrease for each success the
nova dedicates to that purpose. It takes two successes to specify a particular
problem, like increased skin cancers or reduced transmission of nutrients to
embryos.
21st-century science can undo
many of the problems, though scientists must accumulate more successes on
solution-related rolls than the nova got on the Extinction roll. In addition,
other Ecological Supremacy techniques can counteract it. Each success on a
Mutation roll cancels out one Extinction success, if the Mutation-using nova
chooses, and successful Speciation can breed daughter species not vulnerable to
the Extinction-related problems.
Extinction only affects one
species at a time. The Storyteller may decide what ramifications follow the
reduction or elimination of a species ― in general, any species that
depended on the extinct one as prey suffers a huge decrease as well, while any
species the extinct one preyed on experiences a population boom. An edited
ecosystem may swing through boom and bust cycles for some time before reaching
a new state of equilibrium.
Example: In 2039, a moment’s
carelessness with powerful mutagenic chemicals let to a proliferation of
altered species around
She hasn’t altogether removed
the species, but at this point, her nova colleagues inside the Protectorate
will have no further problems, and it wouldn’t take much extra effort to
confine it to the few environmental pockets most favorable to its continued
existence.
Mutation
Range: Global
Area: Global
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
This technique lets the nova
stir up the target species’ genetic legacy with a quantum stick. While Mutation
lasts, the species experiences a markedly greater rate of mutation. As with
Extinction, the nova generally can’t “steer” the process with much precision:
She can set the volume but not make the species’ quantum signature play a
particular tune.
Each success on the Mutation
roll produces one significant widely distributed mutation each month. There are
also many minor mutations each month. Most are slightly deleterious or
insignificant, like an increased susceptibility to baldness or reduced ability
to synthesize some rarely used amino acid. Significant mutations are peculiar
and generally fall outside the scope of normal biology: Body Modification and
minor to moderate aberration features provide good examples. This is not the
stuff of real-world genetics, but of science fiction and comic books.
The nova may choose to aim for
fewer, bigger mutations, “pooling” successes induce an enhancement or
equivalent mutation (yes, without the accompanying Mega-Attribute required),
while three successes induce a Mega-Attribute (without any automatic
enhancements). When pooled, each success can buy one nova point’s worth of a
power. The mutated plants or animals don’t have a full-blown Quantum state, but
should be considered to have the minimum Quantum necessary to use the power and
a quantum pool of 5 per Quantum pseudo-dot.
Mutations can boost Attributes
and raise Abilities ― in each case, at one dot per success. Mutations can
also reduce Attributes and Abilities
at the same rate. The nova must allocate one additional success for each two
successes that she wants to have produce some unknown beneficial effect.
Otherwise, the Storyteller should assign an even mix of desirable and
undesirable results.
The mutations this technique
creates appear at random throughout the population. They are dominant, so that
children of the mutated parents are more likely to inherit the same changed
Traits. Mutant individuals remain capable of breeding with the rest of their
species.
Example: Belladonna decides that
the United Nations needs a lesson in just what they’re dealing with and wants
to remind them that novas can change any part of the world at any time. For her
example, she chooses the common cockroach. Meditating in comfort at her
Australian compound, she unleashes a torrent of quantum energy into the portion
of the quantum field that defines cockroaches. Once again, she stretches the limits
of her power and gets nine successes.
Three successes go to refining
her target area:
Speciation
Range: Global
Area: Global
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
This technique is the
counterpart to Mutation. It doesn’t radically change the members of a species,
but it introduces and reinforces subtle yet important incompatibilities which
turn one species into several distinct ones. The members of the various new
populations can’t interbreed with each other and will, in the fullness of time,
evolve in their own distinct directions.
The nova splits off one daughter
species per success, appearing at random sometime during the duration of the
power. One extra success lets the nova specify whether a particular daughter
species appears in the first or last half of the duration, and additional
successes let the nova halve the window of opportunity again each time for one
of the daughter species.
The daughter species generally
possess a few Traits higher or lower than their parent species but nothing very
remarkable (e.g., where the parent species eats bugs, the daughter species eats
bugs and berries). The nova can apply two extra successes to produce the same
result as one success at Mutation or Adaptation for one of the daughter
species.
Spontaneous
Generation
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 1,000 meters
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
100 meters
Duration: Instant
The nova literally creates life
out of lifeless matter. It takes three successes to create a very primitive,
one-celled organisms, less complex than algae, out of a very rich mixture of
amino acids and other organic molecules. Creating new life in a life-rich
habitat requires five successes, while creating life in the midst of totally
barren rock, sterile sea floor, vacuum and other harsh environments may require
seven or more successes, at the Storyteller’s discretion.
Additional successes let the
nova create more complex life. Each extra success lets the nova add one dot of
Attribute or Ability. (Once created, of course, the nova can use Acquisition
and Mutation to refine the species.) Only the nova’s patience, imagination and
number of successes limit the complexity of creatures that can emerge via this
technique.
The target area fills with
individuals belonging to the new species. They use up most of the free
biological material in the area. They’re “born” with only rudimentary
instincts, though species with notable Mental Attributes quickly develop into their
potential.
Extras: None
Climatic
Supremacy
Level: 5
Quantum Minimum: 8
Dice Pool: Intelligence +
Climatic Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
2,000 km
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
Effect: The character
manipulates weather on the planetary scale.
Multiple Actions: Yes
Description: Climatic Supremacy
lets the nova affect the weather, both what it’s doing now and how it operates
in the long term. The nova can focus on any aspect of the planet’s climate and
shift it. Climatic Supremacy effect generally apply to narrow the scope: It
takes one extra success to affect a single hemisphere, two extra successes to
affect one continent, and three successes to affect a smaller area like one big
metropolitan area or county.
The nova can modify several
aspects of the climate with one use of Climatic Supremacy. Each success can
affect one of the following:
• Oxygen. Increase or decrease
the percentage of atmospheric oxygen in the target area by 1-2 percent. A 2-5
percent increase is equivalent to constantly dosing everyone in the area with
spike or other stimulants, while a 2-5 percent decrease is the equivalent of a
constant dose of depressants. All healing takes place at one rank lower than
normal in reduced oxygen, and the difficulty of all physical tasks increase by
+1 (or more, as oxygen levels fall). Increasing the oxygen percentage further
risks spontaneous combustion: Any minor spark can start raging conflagrations.
Oxidation of all kinds (including damage to nasal tissues and other areas where
blood vessels are close to the outside air) increases rapidly. At around 40
percent oxygen, fires are inevitable and last until all the oxygen in the area
is depleted. Oxygen concentrations below 15 percent or so make normal
respiration impossible for oxygen-breathers, and only life that doesn’t
requires oxygen in the air can survive.
• Temperature. Increase or
decrease temperature in the target area by one degree Celsius. A five-degree
cooling more than sufficient to trigger widespread glaciation and inaugurate a
new ice age. Five degrees of warming melts the polar caps and raises the
world’s sea level by about 100 meters, with massive changes to winds and
climate all over the world.
• Rainfall. Increase or decrease
rainfall in the target area by 10 percent. A persistent decrease of 20-30
percent is generally sufficient to induce drought. A sustained increase of even
10 percent can easily induce flooding.
• Wind. Increase or decrease
average local winds by 5-10 kilometers per hour. Areas that depend on monsoon
rains and the like are seriously harmed by the absence of the winds that carry
the rain, while sustained high winds strip crops and otherwise interfere with
life.
The nova can use extra successes
to increase duration, at one month per success. In addition, the nova can try
to renew an effect as it expires, simply by getting at least as many successes
on a new attempt at Climatic Supremacy in the month before the old one expires.
If the nova meets this goal, the condition continues without interruption.
Three successful extensions in a row make the change permanent.
Novas can use Climatic Supremacy
to cancel out each other’s changes, at a straight one-for-one rate. If one nova
uses three successes to increase global rainfall by 30 percent, another can use
three successes to return the normal condition. This sort of neutralization
breaks the string of extensions necessary to create permanent change, and the
nova who wants to permanently alter the climate must start over again.
It takes one hour per success
for Climatic Supremacy changes to take effect. The nova has to spend time
establishing a quantum rapport with the planet and working the changes piece by
piece.
Extras: None
Conscious
Supremacy
Level: 5
Quantum Minimum: 8
Dice Pool: Variable
Range: Variable
Area: Variable
Duration: Variable
Effect: The character
manipulates individual and collective consciousness.
Multiple Actions: Yes
Description: This power governs
the workings of sentient minds, including creating new minds where none existed
before.
Create
Consciousness
Dice Pool: Manipulation +
Consciousness Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
2,000 km
Duration: Instant
The human brain about 100
billion neurons, each with multiple connections and complex interactions with
its neighbors. A typical home OpNet unit is at least that complex by 2015, as
is an algal bloom, fungal colony or other extended plant growth. Animal brains
are generally not sufficiently complex, and it takes surgery or suitable powers
to make them suitable targets for Create Consciousness. At the Storyteller’s
discretion, several not-quite-sufficient minds may form a single hive-mind
entity or distributed consciousness. This requires two successes to do at all,
and raising the Attributes of the resulting mind takes an additional extra
success at each step.
The new mind has 1 dot in each
Mental Attribute by default. The nova can add another dot to one Mental
Attribute for every success and add a dot of Mental Mega-Attribute for two
extra successes. Adding Social Attributes takes two extra successes per regular
dot, three per Mega-Attribute dot. The new mind retains whatever Abilities its
components possessed before becoming self-aware but must be taught other
Abilities.
This technique creates one mind,
doubling for each extra success the nova allocates to the task (up to the
limits of the complex physical systems available). The extra successes the nova
spends adding Attributes apply to all the minds created.
Enhance
Consciousness
Dice Pool: Manipulation +
Consciousness Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
2,000 km
Duration: Instant
The nova boosts the intelligence
of every mind belonging to a particular sentient species or all the self-aware
minds of a particular type, such as all computer consciousnesses. For every two
successes, the nova can add a dot in one of the Mental Attributes or a dot of
innate Ability (or two specialties). It takes three successes to add an Extra
― the nova can do this without meeting the usual requirements for
Mega-Attributes ― and five successes to add a dot of a Mental
Mega-Attribute. Social Attributes, Extras and Mega-Attributes cost one more
success each than their Mental counterparts.
The changes made with Enhance
Consciousness are permanent. They can only be removed by species-wide medical
work or powers like Ecological Supremacy.
The nova can choose not to
affect every eligible mind. One extra success lets her specify one half of the
target population to affect, and each additional success lets her halve the
target population again.
Groupthink
Dice Pool: Manipulation +
Consciousness Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
2,000 km
Duration: Instant
This technique fuses separate
minds into a single collective intelligence. One success lets the nova link any
two minds together; each extra success doubles the number of linked minds. The
nova can specify the degree of linkage, from shared surface thoughts to
complete fusion. It takes an additional success to make the link a variable
one, allowing participants to tune out if they wish. Targets must make a
Willpower roll and get more successes than the fusing nova did on the
Groupthink roll to resist.
Groupthink lasts indefinitely.
The creating nova can choose to cancel it out; this requires another Groupthink
roll with at least as many successes as he got on the first roll. Groupthink is
not inheritable unless the nova chooses to make it so. This requires two
successes for the first two minds and two successes thereafter for each
doubling of minds linked. The link between minds remains instantaneous, no
matter how far apart the targets are. The Storyteller can decide whether or not
it’s affected by relativistic time dilation and other physical phenomena.
Groupthink provides some
subconscious access to shared knowledge and Abilities. Members get one extra
die added to Mental and Social dice pools for every power of 10 members who
possess a particular Ability: +1 die for 1-10 members, +2 dice for 11-100
members, +3 dice for 101-1,000 members and so on. If groupthink unites
personalities into a single new entity, any unit in the group automatically has
the highest rating possessed by any unit, plus one die for every power of 10
members who also have it. No Mental or Social score can include more dice than
the creating nova’s Quantum score.
The nova can choose to allow
minds to relocate into other bodies within the group. This requires no roll if
the minds currently in each body choose to cooperate or a contest of Willpower
rolls if the mind in the target body resists. It takes one extra success from
the initial Groupthink roll to make this effect possible.
Even a weak Groupthink influences
the outlook of its participants. Members tend to end up agreeing with each
other: Apply a -1 difficulty bonus to Manipulation, Intimidation and related
rolls for every power of 10 members in the group. Conversely, any effort to use
mind-altering powers, persuasive Abilities and the like on group members by
anyone outside the group incurs a +1 difficulty penalty for every power of 10
members. On a botch, the would-be mind controller may be assimilated into the
group and must get more successes on a Willpower roll than the creating nova
did on the Groupthink roll to retain independence.
If the nova creates a unitary
group mind, it begins with an averaged outlook reflecting the majority views of
the minds fused into it; thereafter it develops on its own. The nova can
designate a particular mind as “in charge” of the group. That individual’s
views are subject to some modification by other members, but he, she or it only
experiences half the usual vulnerability (rounded down) to persuasion and the
like.
Each body in the group gets its
normal quota of actions, and communication through the group is an instant
action that does not affect dice pools. A large group mind in operation is a
terrifying opponent.
Mental Block
Dice Pool: Manipulation +
Consciousness Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10, 000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
2,000 km
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
This power lets the nova mark a
concept “out of bounds” in the minds of one target species or class of
intelligences. One success lets the nova specify one simple sentence’s worth of
facts or ideas that simply don’t occur to others for the duration of the power.
Each additional success lets the nova add another clause, parenthetical remark
or simple sentence.
Someone attempting to think of
the forbidden topic must get at least as many successes on a Willpower roll as
the nova got on the Mental Block roll. A nova using Analyze Weakness and other
such deductive powers can deduce the existence of the block, but is no more able
to break through it than anyone else. An individual who does succeed in
breaking through the block won’t have an easy time persuading anyone else of
it: Her persuasion efforts must get at least as many successes as the nova got
on the Mental Block roll. Otherwise, other victims perceive the ex-victim as
suffering from some sort of delusion.
Yes, this power can be deadly if
the nova chooses to blank out a concept like “fire burns” or “the Mr. Yuck
label indicates poison.” The Storyteller may, at his discretion, allow victims
a Willpower roll at a moment of impending danger. Subtract the levels of damage
an action would likely inflict from the number of successes on the Mental Block
roll ― the impending victim needs to get only that smaller total of
successes to feel a subconscious urge to avoid the action even though the block
remains more or less in place.
Muse
Dice Pool: Charisma +
Consciousness Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating) x
2,000 km
Duration: Instant
Muse is the counterpart to
Mental Block; Muse allows the nova to give people an idea. One success lets the
nova give one simple sentence’s worth of facts or ideas (or images or other
concepts) to 100 people. The nova targets specific individuals, specifies
criteria for the recipients ― left-handed disabled writers, for instance
― or scatters the inspiration completely at random. Each additional
success lets the nova multiply the number of people inspired by a factor of 10
or add another clause or simple sentence’s worth of inspiration.
Targets who get one or more
successes on a Perception + Awareness roll may be aware of the idea as
something out of the ordinary; they must get at least as many successes on this
roll as the nova did on the Muse roll to realize fully that the idea was
implanted in their minds by someone else.
Suppress
Consciousness
Dice Pool: Manipulation +
Consciousness Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10,000 km
Area: (Quantum + power rating)
x 2,000 km
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
The nova can reduce his targets’
self-awareness. This isn’t the same thing as making them stupid: Some animals
are extremely intelligent, and so are some computers. It’s just tat they have
little or no “interior life,” no driving goals beyond instinct and rudimentary
personalities. A person with suppressed consciousness can respond to stimuli
and even carry out complex instructions. She simply can’t analyze her own
behavior or formulate her own goals and desires, nor does she have a mind in
the sense that telepathy and other powers aim at.
One success lets the nova reduce
a target individual’s Willpower by 2. At Willpower 0, the target becomes
functionally non-sentient for the duration of the power. The nova can use an
extra success to reduce the target’s Willpower by another two points or to
double the number of affected individuals. The nova may specify particular
individuals to affect or set categories ― “the people nearest to me,”
“the wealthiest people in
Extras: Omni-Intelligence (the
nova can affect sentients of any species or class, including more than one type
in a particular usage of power)
Geological
Supremacy
Level: 5
Quantum Minimum: 8
Dice Pool: Intelligence +
Geological Supremacy
Range: Global
Area: Global
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
Effect: The character affects
some aspect of the planet’s geology.
Multiple Actions: Yes
Description: The nova gains
control over the workings of the Earth (or whichever planet he’s on). The
effects are temporary but can become permanent with repeated effort.
The nova picks one aspect of the
global geology, including (but not limited to):
• Level of volcanic activity.
• Location of the magnetic
poles.
• Rate of continental drift.
• Rate of radioactive decay and
natural radiation.
• Strength of magnetic field.
Each success on the Geological
Supremacy roll changes that aspect of the planet by 5 percent for the duration.
The nova can use the power again before it wears off. Successes on the second
roll extend the duration; extending a modification three times in a row makes
it permanent.
Novas with Geological Supremacy
can seek to counter each other’s effects. The planet tends to repair itself,
and natural processes work with novas. Each success spent to undo Geological
Supremacy modifications cancels two successes used to create a change…until the
change becomes permanent. Then the new situation is the planetary baseline and
must be modified just as it was the first time around.
It takes one hour per success to
put Geological Supremacy into effect. The nova has to spend time establishing a
quantum rapport with the planet and working the changes piece by piece.
Geological Supremacy effects
generally apply to the entire planet. The nova can choose to narrow the scope:
It takes one extra success to affect a single hemisphere, two extra successes
to affect one continent and three successes to affect a smaller area like one
big metropolitan area or county.
The full consequences of
Geological Supremacy can be very complex. Players and Storytellers keen to get
the details should look at introductions to geology. Sample effects include:
• Volcanic activity. A 5 percent
increase in volcanism warms the planet 1 degree Celsius and increases cloud
cover 5-10 percent. Dormant volcanoes erupt, and active ones become more
active. At a 50 percent increase in volcanism, volcanoes deemed extinct begin
erupting and new ones appear along active fault lines. A 5 percent decrease in
volcanism cools the planet one degree Celsius and reduces cloud cover 1-5
percent.
• Magnetic pole location.
Compasses point to magnetic north, of course. Migrating animals rely on an
innate sense of the magnetic poles to navigate. Each 5 percent change in the
location of the magnetic poles adds +1 difficulty to rolls related to migration
and orientation by magnetic sense. Human beings possess a rudimentary magnetic
sense that contributes to balance and equilibrium: Each 20 percent change in
the poles’ locations add +1 difficulty to balance-related rolls and feeds a
general sense of disorientation and confusion.
• Continental drift. Each 5
percent change in continental drift rates changes the rate of earthquakes by 10
percent, since plate movements create most earthquakes. Each 20 percent change
in continental drift rates produces a 5 percent change in volcanism, since the
two processes interact.
• Radioactive decay. Each 5
percent increase in radioactive decay warms the ground 1 degree Celsius, plus
another degree per kilometer beneath the surface. At 20 percent increase,
uranium-rich lodes turn into low-powered natural nuclear reactors, and at 100
percent increase, the lodes spontaneously explode as very high-yield atomic
bombs. Particularly rich lodes may begin exploding at 50-75 percent increase.
Each 5 percent decrease in radioactive decay cools the ground 1 degree Celsius.
A 20 percent change in radioactive decay also produces a 5 percent change in
volcanism or continental drift rates.
• Magnetic field strength. Each
5 percent decrease in the planetary magnetic field increases the mutation rate
of all living things by 1 percent, and adds +1 difficulty to rolls to resist
electronic failures created by cosmic rays. When the magnetic field reaches
zero, the magnetic poles reverse; as the field rebuilds (which it does
automatically at 1-5 percent per year), the former magnetic north is now
magnetic south. Each 20 percent reduction in the magnetic field cools the
planet 1 degree Celsius, as extra incoming radiation evaporates more water and
feeds the growth of clouds and glaciers. At 10 percent of normal magnetic
strength, the planet almost always enters an ice age. Each 5 percent increase
in planetary magnetic field adds +1 to the difficulty of long-range
electromagnetic communication efforts and to related powers. Each 10 percent
increase adds +1 difficulty to rolls to resist disease, as it disrupts
individuals’ neurology and immunology and increases the intensity of existing
psychological disorders.
Extras: Extended Range ([Quantum
+ power rating] x 10 million kilometers)
Quantum
Supremacy
Level: 5
Quantum Minimum: 8
Dice Pool: Manipulation +
Quantum Supremacy
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 1,000 kilometers
Area: Variable
Duration: Variable
Effect: The nova gains extensive
control over the quantum field.
Multiple Actions: Yes
Description: With Quantum
Supremacy, a nova manipulates quantum as an extension of his own will. Various
techniques let him radically transform his own quantum signature and those of
others.
Novas with quantum signatures linked
by this power become wholly immune to each other’s powers (though they can
always choose to be affected).
Quantum
Enhancement
Area: (Quantum + power rating)
kilometers
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
The nova raises (or lowers) the
effective Quantum level of everyone in the target area. One success grants +1
Quantum to people in the area; two successes can reduce Quantum by 1. The nova
can’t raise Quantum above his own score. Novas with one or more levels of
suppressed Quantum must earn more successes on a Willpower roll than the
enhancing nova got on the Quantum Enhancement roll to use powers the
suppression blocks and pay double quantum costs for the difference between
their normal and current scores.
Baselines gain limited benefits
from the enhancement. They gain 1 Quantum for every two successes on the
Quantum Enhancement roll. They don’t develop powers, but may (subconsciously)
choose to develop Mega-Attributes and enhancements, at one dot per point of
this temporary Quantum boost.
Quantum Enhancement affects
everyone in the target area when the nova uses it. They remain affected no
matter where they go; people entering the area later are also affected if the
nova chooses to spend one extra success for this result.
Quantum
Synchronization
Area: Special
Duration: (Quantum + power
rating) months
The nova fuses two or more
quantum signatures into a composite entity. In practical terms, the individuals
with synchronized signatures gain all of the powers any of them possess.
Further, as they develop new capabilities, those all become part of the shared
signature. This technique affects all aspects of the targets, including mundane
Abilities as well as nova powers.
Each success lets the nova
affect one other person within range. The nova normally takes part in the
synchronization; if he chooses not to, it takes two successes per target, since
the nova has to work harder at manipulating a quantum pattern he’s not directly
tied to. If the target is willing, the synchronization happens automatically ―
people can feel the influx of powers and choose whether or not to accept them.
Target who resist must make a Willpower check and get more successes than the
synchronizing nova did on the Quantum Synchronization roll.
Shared Abilities and powers rise
to the highest score any of the synchronized characters has but cannot go
higher than the number of successes on the Quantum Synchronization roll.
Targets who haven’t erupted on
their own get a temporary Quantum score equal to half the Quantum
Synchronization successes, rounded up, and a quantum pool of 5 dots per
success. The synchronizing nova may decide whether or not target share their
quantum pool or not.
Synchronized individuals can
drop out of the pattern at any time, if they entered voluntarily; they must get
more successes on a Willpower roll than on the Quantum Synchronization roll if
they resisted in the first place. Once the pattern is set, it can’t be added
to. A nova who wants to add more participants must let the old synchronization
lapse and create a brand new one.
Quantum
Transformation
Area: One target
Duration: Instant
The nova can rewrite a quantum
signature, adding and deleting nearly at will. The target must be willing or,
at least, not actively resisting: To use this technique on an unwilling target,
she must first win a contest of Willpower, gaining a total of one extra success
per point of the target’s Willpower. If the nova fails one of the rolls, she
must start over, and if she botches, she cannot attempt to transform the target
again for a full day.
Each success on the Quantum
Transformation roll lets the nova add or subtract three nova points worth of
freebies from the target. For instance, one success lets the nova add or remove
a dot of Mega-Attribute, an enhancement, a Level 1 power or 9 dots of regular
Attributes. Two successes lets the nova add 1 Quantum to the target and have a
nova point left over. This does induce regular, permanent, full eruption in
someone who wasn’t previously a nova.
“Unerupting” a nova by removing
the last dot of Quantum, is a difficult task. It requires twice the usual nova
point cost ― that is, 10 nova points, which ties up four successes (with
two nova points left over for other tasks).
The nova using Quantum
Transformation can choose to accumulate successes over several uses, to heavily
modify a target. The target’s pattern becomes charged with not-quite-focused
quantum energy. The nova can attempt Quantum Transformation once per day.
Accumulated successes dissipate at the rate of one per day, so the process
isn’t entirely efficient. On a failure, the nova can’t try again for a number
of days equal to the target’s Willpower, and on a botch, all accumulated
successes are lost. Once the nova has all the successes she seeks, then she can
modify a target using Quantum Transformation.
Time Travel
Level: 5
Quantum Minimum: 8
Dice Pool: Variable
Range: Variable
Area: Variable
Duration: Variable
Effect: Character moves through
time; details depend on the technique.
Multiple Actions: No
Description: Time travel can
exist in many forms. Your Storyteller has the final say on which methods, if
any, actually apply to your particular series. In some games, just one method
works. In others, several do. If more than one works, a particular character
may be able to use just one or may be able to learn several. Even more than
with most of the high-level powers, the fact that a technique appears here
isn’t license to demand it in a particular game. Negotiate and adapt as need be
to suit your game.
The most fundamental question
for time travelers is “Can you change the past?” Possible answers include:
• No time traveler ever changes
the past. The documented facts of history cannot be changed. Novas in their
past can make a difference when specific events aren’t known in their native
time, when the nova’s actions don’t produce changes that will eventually affect
known history.
• No, changes create new
timelines. The time traveler’s own history always remains intact. Changes to
history create a new timeline. Whether the time traveler returns to his own
present or to the present moment in the new timeline depends on how the time
travel method works.
• Maybe. It’s hard to tell if
history changes. Documentation is never completely accurate. Certainly the time
travelers can’t make big, dramatic changes, but they simply don’t know how far
minor changes cascade.
• Yes, but it’s hard. History
has a sort of inertia. Kill off a dictator as a child, and someone else much
like him appears to occupy the same role. Stop the Galatea from exploding, and the spacecraft blows up a few months
later. Nonetheless, carefully planned actions can alter history, sometimes in
dramatic ways.
• Yes, and it’s catastrophically
easy. Everything a time traveler does changes the past. The air turbulence
created by walking moves the wind a little then and the patterns of global
weather a few years later. Every social interaction cascades forward; within a
generation, a whole different set of people is born, the result of each genetic
pairing going differently.
Sooner or later, time travelers
are bound to do something that would affect the chain of events that leads them
to travel into the past. Can they create paradoxes: Possible answers include:
• No. However much a time
traveler can change history in other ways, the laws of causality prevents him
from murdering his immediate ancestors (at least for three or more
generations), stopping his younger self from making contact with others
responsible for the time traveling and so on.
• Sort of. Time travelers can
alter some aspects of the causal chain that brought them into the past, though
they can’t cancel out the whole thing. They may or may not remember the
original version of events.
• Yes. Once a time traveler is
in the past, the universe doesn’t care how she got there. Time travelers can
wipe out their ancestors and even their past selves. They remain in existence
and either remember the original course of events or remember an overlay of
both versions. This may or may not be a violation of causality from the point
of view of the universe as a whole. It looks like a paradox to three- and
four-dimensional observers, but perhaps only because they don’t see the flow of
events in all N dimensions of space-time. Alternatively, messing with their
ancestors in any way could delete the novas from space-time altogether.
Finally, time travelers may try
to undo changes they made or that others made. Does the universe “remember” its
prior state and attempt to reset itself, given a nudge? Possible answers
include:
• No. The current state of
affairs overwrites and displaces anything that used to exist. One change is as
good as the next, and once done, it’s done. Attempting to reset history won’t
automatically restore a previous state.
• Sort of. The events most
directly affected by a compensatory change do return to their original state.
Events at a further remove may or may not change. The resulting history is a
composite of the changed and original versions.
• Yes. No matter how easy it is
to change the past, it’s also easy to restore history. The universe “wants” to
go a certain way.
Traveling into the future raises
a distinct question of its own. Is the future that the time traveler encounters
what must be? Possible answers include:
• No. The time traveler goes to
one of the infinite variety of futures possible at the time he leaves his
present. If he returns to his present and goes forward again, he may return to
that same future or enter a different one. In either case, what actually
happens to the people living through time from second to second probably isn’t
what he experiences.
• Sort of. The events the time
traveler deals with most directly do become set. The rest of the world,
unobserved by the time traveler, remains free to evolve as it will.
• Yes. The act of traveling into
the future casts it into temporal concrete. If the past can’t be changed by
time travelers, then the same prohibition applies to all of history to the
farthest future moment reached by a time traveler. It’s all locked down.
One concept may seem unobvious,
even confusing, at first. In some versions of time travel, a change to history
instantly affects the whole universe from that point forward. In others, it
takes “time” from the point of view of an outside observer. Likewise, time
travel itself may take a while.
Example: A mad scientist sets
out from 2058 to change the Galatea
explosion. She creates a temporal transit bubble and heads back at a subjective
rate of 10 years per minute, so she arrives in 1998 in six minutes. She
succeeds in making a change, which moves forward (and backward) at one year per
minute. She immediately returns to her own time, taking another six minutes.
2058 still looks as it did, and does so for another 54 minutes. Then the front
line of change history arrives. The world alters around her, and only she
remembers the earlier history, thanks to the temporal transit bubble.
Aberrant assumes by default that
time travelers can change history but that it’s hard to do so, that time
travelers can partially alter their own causal pasts, that history does tend to
restore itself, that traveling into the future defines the future partially but
not completely and that changes to history apply instantly.
All methods of time travel
operate with the same results per success. The player decides how to allocate
successes between timeframe (how far into the past or future the nova can go
this time) and duration (how long the nova can stay there). Time normally passes
at the same rate in the nova’s native time and in the time to which she
travels; lack of temporal synchronization is an Extra.
At the Storyteller’s discretion,
the basic number of required successes for timeframe and duration get the nova
to the right general vicinity, but with a margin of error equal to one time
frame unit less than the trip involves, for instance, a nova allocating four
successes to timeframe can go up to one month per dot; he’ll arrive with an
error margin of one week (no matter how many dots he has). Extra successes can
narrow the margin by one level of timeframe per dot. This is an optional rule
for characters and series where it’s appropriate. Adopt it only if everyone
involved agrees.
Time Warp
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Time
Travel
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10 meters
Area: (Quantum + power rating)
meters
It’s astounding. The nova
creates a two-dimensional gateway into another time. Objects must move through
it under volition ― that is, they must be sentient beings or be driven,
thrown or otherwise moved by sentient beings. The portal can be any shape the
nova chooses, and the nova can choose whether it shows a view of what’s on the
other side or not.
Mental
Projection
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Time
Travel
The nova’s body stays in his
native time, and he sends only his consciousness back into the past. The nova
gets one automatic success to apply to timeframe, since there’s less temporal
resistance to non-physical passage. The nova can apply extra successes to
specifying the nature of his host in the past or future: One success lets the
nova set very broad criteria (gender, race), while five successes lets the nova
choose a particular individual. Powers that identify possession and the like
can spot the nova, and if the host realizes the intruder is there, the nova
must win a contested roll of Willpower scores to remain in the host. The nova
can specify whether he simply rides in the host, takes complete control or
exercises some intermediate level of influence.
Physical Projection
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Time
Travel
The nova physically sends
herself (and anything Attuned to her) into another time. The process looks more
or less like teleportation, depending on the nova’s chosen special effects. The
nova automatically shifts just enough to avoid materializing inside of
something in the target time.
Time Bubble
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Time
Travel
Range: (Quantum + power rating)
x 10 meters
Area: (Quantum + power rating)
meters
The nova sends everything in the
target area back or forward in time. Unwilling individuals may make a Willpower
roll to resist, with a difficulty equal to the number of successes on the Time
Bubble roll. The time bubble exchanges its contents with whatever’s in the
target space in the other time. Everything the nova brought into the past
returns to the present when the time bubble expires; requiring people and
things from the people to return within Time Bubble range of the nova is a
2-point weakness, and requiring a return to the original spot is a 3-point
weakness.
Extras: Asynchronous Time (the
nova can decide how much elapses in his “present” no matter how long he spends
in the past or future); Asynchronous Location (the nova can apply successes in
accordance with the Teleportation range chart to emerge at a different spot)
Weaknesses: Only into past/only
into future (3 points), fixed timeframe/fixed duration (2 points each, choose a
single category for the successes chart that applies every time the nova uses
the power)