Aberrant 2.0 Chrysalis

Basics

Chrysalis is directed evolution of a character's M-R node according to their will, rather than the undirected evolution of Taint. A character who gains Chrysalis treats it as Taint, but with a minor advantage-rather than the ST determining the gains from Taint, and the aberrations, the player does.

Gaining Chrysalis

Once per scene, a character gaining Taint may pay 1 willpower and an additional 10Q per point of temporary Taint gained to convert this Taint into temporary Chrysalis instead. Doing such an action is an extreme act of will and requires a Willpower roll, difficulty (+points of temporary Taint gained). If failed, the character gains that much temporary Taint and loses the quantum points. If botched, the character gains double the normal amount of temporary Taint.

A character who gains 10 points of temporary Chrysalis gains 1 point of permanent Chrysalis, which behaves identically to permanent Taint except with the caveat that the character (and by extension, the player) gets to choose any aberrations or body modifications gained from this process.

Transformation

A character with 5 Permanent Chrysalis or more may attempt to go into Chrysalis, rolling (Willpower + Chrysalis) at +4 difficulty while exposed to a condition that challenges the character's preconceptions of his or her powers. If successful, the character is surrounded by a chrysalis based on their powers and paradigm, which protects them as they rebuild their body from the ground up.

Characters inside Chrysalis are immobile and incapable of perceiving or acting in the real world, locked in dream or nightmare or death-like sleep. However, the Chrysalis gives the character the equivalent of the Regeneration and Adaptability enhancements, and grants an additional +10B/10L/10A soak against all attacks. However, characters in Chrysalis are not immortal and sufficient applied force can still kill them.

It takes 1 week per 2 XP spent for Chrysalis to end.

Advantages

While in Chrysalis, Novas may purchase quantum powers and other related abilities at reduced cost. Furthermore, Novas may mitigate permanent and temporary Taint with minimal XP cost.

Increasing Traits

TRAIT INCREASE		XP cost
Background		Current (Attunement, Dormancy, Node only)
M-Attribute		Current x 3
Q-Power (L1)		Current x 1
Q-Power (L2)		Current x 3
Q-Power (L3)		Current x 5
Q-Power (L4)		Current x 7
Q-Power (L5)		Current x 10
Q-Power (L6)		Current x 13
Quantum		Current x 4
Reducing Taint		1 XP (remove 1 temporary taint)/10 XP (remove 1 permanent taint)
Quantum Pool		1 XP / point

New Traits

NEW TRAIT			XP cost
Body Modification		Normal XP Cost/2
Background		1 (Attunement, Dormancy, Node only)
Enhancement		3
M-Attribute		3
Q-Power (L1)		2
Q-Power (L2)		3
Q-Power (L3)		5
Q-Power (L4)		10
Q-Power (L5)		12
Q-Power (L6)		15
Extra		5
Strength		2

Disadvantages

Psi Vulnerability

Against Psionic attacks, Chrysalis makes a character especially vulnerable. All Elevated Novas consider themselves particularly vulnerable to damage from psions. Psions consider all psionic direct damage against a Chrysalis Nova to have an Armor Piercing rating equal to the Nova's total taint social penalty, and reduce any dice pools to resist their powers by that same amount. Against powerful Psionic beings such as Proxies or Doyen, Elevated Novas consider all damage they deal unsoakable above and beyond the normal effects of Noetic/Quantum interference (so all damage is still counted as one severity level higher it merely is also unsoakable).

Chrysalis also has additional side effects that relate to the Nova drifting ever farther from the noetic universe.

Social Isolation

Chrysalis social penalties stack with all other social penalties and also gain a number of aberrations anyway. Against races which communicate and sense predominantly via psionic powers, Elevated Novas double their Taint-based social penalties before applying modifiers such as Soothe.