Level Six Powers
Creation Ex Nihilo
Level: 6
Quantum
Minimum: 10
Dice Pool: Wits
+ Creation Ex Nihilo
Range: (Quantum
+ power rating) x 1 million kilometers
Area: (Quantum
+ power rating) x 5,000 kilometers diameter
Duration:
Instant
Effect: The
character creates solid (and liquid and gaseous) matter out of nothing and
complex forms from simple ones.
Multiple
Actions: Yes
Description: In
a sense, this is Matter Creation on steroids. The nova can assemble the raw
materials of the universe into any form of matter he can imagine. The would-be
world builder gets best results working on purely inorganic material.
The number of
successes governs the degree of complexity the nova can add to or subtract from
his raw materials. Each success lets the nova shift the complexity of any specified
set of targets by one, if they’re inorganic. It takes two successes to move a
set of organic targets by one and four successes to move sentient targets by
one.
The “sets” are
fairly flexible. “All elemental hydrogen” is a good target when working on a
cloud of interstellar gas, for instance, if the nova wants to create a new
planet. The targets must all be at the same level of complexity and must all
share a similar, though not identical, composition ― all OpNet computers, for instance, or all sedimentary rocks.
The nova must also transform them all into something similar ― breathable
pure air, for instance, or fungi.
Extras: None.
Planck Scaling
Level: 6
Quantum
Minimum: 10
Dice Pool: Wits
+ Planck Scaling
Range: (Quantum
+ power rating) million kilometers
Area: (Quantum
+ power rating) meters
Duration:
(Quantum + power rating) hours
Effect: The
character magnifies the realm in which all normal physical laws break down.
Multiple
Actions: Yes
Description:
The physical laws that govern the universe are statistical: Quantum mechanics
describes how probable various events are, given any particular set of
circumstances. When events happen quickly enough or closely enough together,
the statistics break down. Planck length 4 x 10-35 meters, and
Planck time, 1 x 10-43 seconds, mark the boundaries of natural law.
Note that these are very small scales indeed: An electron is 10-15
meters across, while most atoms are on the order of 10-10 meters
across.
Planck Scaling
lets the nova increase the scope of space and time within which probability
become meaningless. Inside the “Planck bubble,” consciousness reins supreme, as
the mental states of those within can imprint themselves on the quantum field
around them without constraint. For novas, the experience has a strong overtone
of déjà vu, as it’s very much like eruption.
Within the
Planck bubble, complete indeterminacy prevails. People looking in find their
subconscious beliefs, fears and desires made manifest, insofar as a space a few
meters across can reflect what’s in their minds. Each extra success doubles the
bubble’s diameter. Once the bubble includes one or more sentient minds, it
stops reflecting outside thoughts. The mental states of those inside reign
supreme.
The nova can
spend extra successes to increase duration. Each extra success applied to this
purpose doubles the bubble’s lifespan. When the power wears off, normal reality
reasserts itself. Physically stable structures, even if wildly implausible,
remain. The bubble evaporates just slowly enough to avoid inflicting harm on
sentient beings inside ― it won’t leave them stranded halfway through
walls or otherwise in immediate danger of death. Changes that
people inside make to their own bodies and minds last, with some reservations.
Each success on the Planck Scaling roll provides a pool of two nova points that
each person inside the bubble can spend on permanent modifications.
As with
Universe Creation, anything goes with this power. If the nova includes herself in the bubble, her own desires reign supreme, and
others’ minds influence only incidental details. Otherwise, reality becomes
completely subjective and consensual around the people in the target area.
Dreams and nightmares alike come to life. The player and Storyteller should
work out cooperatively just how weird things get; this power is as close as it
gets to remaking the universe in one’s own image.
Extras: None
Quantum Inferno
Level: 6
Quantum
Minimum: 10
Dice Pool:
Dexterity + Quantum Inferno
Range: (Quantum
+ power rating) million kilometers
Area: (Quantum
+ power rating) x 100 km diameter
Duration:
Instant
Effect: The
character unleashes huge quantities of quantum energy in a destructive form.
Multiple
Actions: Yes
Description:
Quantum Inferno is the consummation of all damage-dealing powers. The nova
inflicts (Quantum + power rating) x 50 levels of bashing damage, (Quantum +
power rating) x 25 levels of lethal damage or (Quantum + power rating) x 10
levels of aggravated damage to every cubic meter in the target area. Focused as
a beam, Quantum Inferno can blaze through nearly everything; spread out into a
cone or sphere, it can annhilate planets. (A
hundred-kilometer-wide hole through a planet is a direct prelude to
globe-shattering explosions.)
Quantum Inferno
serves as a catch-all for any power of godlike destruction, from controlled sun
flares to true vacuum. The player and Storyteller should work out the details
of the particular character’s ability to obliterate much or everything in
sight.
Extras: None
Universe
Creation
Level: 6
Quantum
Minimum: 10
Dice Pool:
Intelligence + Universe creation
Range: N/A
Area: N/A
Duration:
Permanent
Effect: The
character creates a new universe.
Multiple
Actions: No
Description:
Yes, really.
The
four-dimensional universe in which novas live is only a fraction of reality.
There are literally infinite ways to go “sideways” from the Aberrant
cosmos into other spaces and infinite corners in which to tuck an entire new
universe. 21st-century physics has demonstrated that every universe begins as a
bubble zooming off from some prior universe; with this power, the nova adds her own bubble to the endless series.
The new
universe connects to Aberrant Earth (or wherever the nova is when she makes her
universe), with one additional point of contact per extra success the nova
dedicates to the purpose. The additional points must all be places the nova
could go, through physical travel or powers. Before creating a gateway in some
place shielded by defensive powers or otherwise inaccessible, the nova must spend
the quantum energy and make the rolls necessary to get there; even though she
doesn’t actually move at this time, she must put forth the mental effort to
create a path through the quantum field to her desired gateway sites. The
gateway may also occupy a point in relation to the nova rather than relative to
the world at large ― one step to her right, for instance.
The details of
the new universe depend entirely on the nova’s ability to form a coherent image
and concentrate while using this power. Any features the nova doesn’t specify
default to the same as the nova’s own universe, so that an “unspecified”
universe is an exact duplicate. (This isn’t altogether useless: a nova could,
for instance, study Duplicate Earth’s secrets, wipe out her competitors there
as she goes and use that information back on Original Earth.) The two universes
diverge once created, of course, with quantum indeterminacy producing different
random happenstance in each case unless the nova specifies a continued quantum
link.
With one
success, the nova gets only a very vague approximation of her intended
universe. With 10 successes, she gets precisely what she wants in every detail,
including the subconscious desires she didn’t actually concentrate on but which
she’d have included if only she thought of it. Five successes are sufficient to
produce a very satisfactory universe. The nova can’t get more successes on any
one roll than she has dots in Universe Creation.
The nova can
generally only maintain one universe at a time, but she can reshape her
universe from within and from without with equal ease. Once she’s created it,
the nova can tinker with her new universe by making another Universe Creation
roll. The first time she does this, the roll suffers a +1 difficulty penalty
and it goes up by two every time thereafter (+3, +5 and so on). As long as she
gets at least one success, any further successes add to her first roll,
allowing finer definition. If she fails, nothing happens if she got more
successes on the failed roll than on the original one. If she failed and got
fewer successes this time, subtract the difference ― her universe becomes
less desirable. On a botch, the entire new universe, from ants to meteors to
sentient creatures, takes on a subtle malevolent tone toward the nova, and at
the Storyteller’s discretion, the new universe may try to prevent the nova, in
whatever ways it might devise, from returning to her native universe for a
period of one week for each dot she has in Universe Creation.
The default
gateway resembles a Warp. It’s slightly visible as a distortion in the air, and
anyone can move through; while in use, the gateway ripples and stretches
through empty air, like a stylized hole in reality. One extra success lets the
nova modify the appearance of the gateway to anything she prefers, from
complete invisibility to brimstone-reeking pits to Hell. Each extra success the
nova applies to the purpose lets her limit the range of people who can move
through, granting the equivalent of a target-restriction weakness. With five
successes, the nova can make the gateway usable only by the people she
specifically grants permission to at any given time ― wherever she is,
she feels a semi-conscious tingle, can identify the people trying to go through
the gateway and can choose to allow or disallow their passage.
Each gateway
has its own criteria and must be regulated separately. (If the nova makes
further Universe Creation rolls after the first, extra successes can go to
gateway definition as well.) The nova can close one or more gateways at any
time, simply by choosing to close them. Reopening them requires a separate
Universe Creation roll, subject to the cumulative rising difficulty, with half
the successes required first time around required to reestablish the gateways.
Creating new gateways requires the same number of successes as building the
initial ones.
There are no
boundaries on the nature of the new universe. It could be just like the nova’s homeworld except that everyone she hates was never born due
to extra-effective contraception. It could be a classive
fantasy realm. It could an Aristotelian universe with crystal spheres. It could
be a nightmare realm with vampires and zombies. The new universe may not have
an Earth at all ― or it may, but the gateways go somewhere else. Time may
flow faster or slower in the new universe. Whatever the nova chooses to
imagine, that’s what she gets.
To maintain an
existing universe while creating a new one, the nova must spend three points of
permanent Willpower. This sacrifice stabilizes the earlier creation while her
attention goes elsewhere.
Extras: None