Smoke and Mirrors: Special Traits

Special Traits

Advanced Armory

Task Force NEMESIS has the ability to requisition highly experimental weapons and equipment to use against its foes. Although nowhere near as powerful as the gear others can use, NEMESIS has some of the most highly trained and motivated field agents in the business. Furthermore, its experimental weapons are often specifically targeted at supernatural threats, although their use of science as we know it weakens their combat usefulness.

Etheric Rounds
Cost: 1 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 100
Type: Weapon Enhancement, Single Use
Radiation-treated, Etheric Rounds emit dangerous levels of hard radiation shifted into a spectra that allows them to affect ethereal targets. Although they are still solid rounds, the soft silver-polonium alloy they use is not nearly as effective as dedicated military-grade ammunition against most non-ethereal foes.

Pheromone Damper
Cost: 1 Advanced Armory, 2 production
Type: Equipment
Pheromone Dampers are designed to mask the scent of the user, making them difficult to detect by enemies who use smell. Many foes have senses that extend beyond sight and sound, making these critical for covert operations.

Cyberbugs
Cost: 2 Advanced Armory, 1 production
Type: Surveillance Equipment (single-use)
Cybernetic insects fitted with recording and sensors gear, cyberbugs are sometimes used when conventional bugs cannot be easily planted.

Hunter Goggles
Cost: 5 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1
Type: Sensor Equipment (Implantable)
Nobody knows why, but most supernatural occurrences have a "tell" that can be scanned for. Ghosts for example often cause anomalous radiation signatures or strange electromagnetic interference. Shapeshifters leave an odd pheromone trail, and mages have their own tells. Hunter Goggles pair advanced sensors to a computer system that can correlate these tells to detect evidence of the supernatural. You cannot, after all, hunt what you cannot see, and unlike many of the other groups they do not have mystical relics or magical powers that allow them to do so. The Implantable version costs 5 production and requires access to hospital facilities.

Reactive Armor
Cost: 2 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1 (x5 cost for vehicle variant)
Type: Body Armor (Implantable)
Reactive Armor uses advanced materials engineering to create a flexible, elastic material that is almost completely unencumbering but highly protective when struck. Enhancing conventional armor, Reactive Armor can greatly add to the survivability of a person so equipped. The implantable variant costs 5 production and requires access to hospital facilities. The vehicle variant costs five times as much in materials and production, but provides superior protection to standard applique armor.

Smartgun System
Cost: 5 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1 (triple cost for vehicle variant)
Type: Weapon Enhancement
Most modern military arms come with aim-assistance programs and devices. However, the Smartgun system, designed to deal with enemies which are supernaturally fast and dextrous, takes that to an extreme by almost entirely cutting the human out of the loop. Instead of a trigger the Smartgun has a toggle, which if removed will allow it to automatically track and fire on any target that does not match a preprogrammed database of exceptions. It uses a variety of sensors-infrared, motion scanning, radar, and geiger, to ensure that it will fire when it's supposed to and not when it doesn't. However, against foes which may disguise themselves as humans with reasonable accuracy it will often refuse to fire, causing the death of its wielder. Field agents have found a modification that removes the safety overrides, but in this case the Smartgun is literally a loose cannon, and will target and fire on just about anything in the frontal arc of the user. Field agents who are found using this modification are, at best, immediately transfered to noncombat duty. More often harsher consequences are inflicted. There is a vehicle variant, for use paired to heavy coilguns or the like.

Heavy Laser
Cost: 15 Advanced Armory, 5 production for 1 (double cost for vehicle variant)
Type: Weapon
Upkeep: 1 production/use
An advanced if experimental and unwieldy weapon, the man-portable laser is designed to counter enemies that are resistant to projectiles due to their structure-certain types of shapeshifters have no vital organs to damage, while many other creatures are difficult to wound with bullets because they are distributed swarms, or similar structures. A heavy laser weapon solves these problems, even if it is expensive to field and each shot costs a fortune in high-powered capacitor packs. Vehicles can mount an even heavier version that can burn through all but the largest foes in a single shot.

Myomer Acceleration System Circuitry
Cost: 5 Advanced Armory, 10 production for 1 (triple cost for vehicle variant)
Type: Implant
Special: Requires Full Conversion (Dragoon or Talos)
MASC gives a cyborg the ability to summon short bursts of speed and agility, but prolonged use risks severe damage to artificial muscle systems. This implant is explicitly compatible with Dragoon full conversions (past normal implant limits).

Equalizer Grenade
Cost: 1 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1
Type: Single Use
Shapeshifters and sorcerers are both common foes, but both require concentration to take advantage of their greatest advantages. The Equalizer is intended to deny them this, by using pulses of both sound and light to cause seizures. A mage that cannot chant or move cannot cast easily, and a shapeshifter that is uncontrollably altering shape is vulnerable for a few precious seconds-long enough to take them down using specialized weaponry. Fortunately or unfortunately, Equalizers are not guaranteed effective, and are expensive to produce and use.

Neural Scan System
Cost: 30 Advanced Armory, 10 production for 1
Type: Heavy Equipment
A NSS is a lie detector, a fairly powerful one. It allows one to accurately tell whether someone is telling the truth or a falsehood, but it can't give you the truth if you don't already know it.

Relic

The Society of Athena have powerful Relics that can turn the tide of battles. However, Relics are comparatively rarer than reproducible items, and similarly more obvious. A man with a new and unknown weapon is just corp security or military. A man carrying a golden shield and sword are very different. Members of the Society discover new Relics from museums or archaeological digs, taking items with great symbolic value and then performing rituals that turn their symbolic value into usable enhancements.

Bhodidharma's Ashes
Cost: 1 Relic
Type: Single-Use
An nearly empty, sealed urn with a smidgen of ash inside, the blessed nature of the contents means that flicking the contents across eldritch abominations is effective, causing them to stop and scream in agony. The level of power in them is enough to destroy some lesser creatures outright.

The Eye of Truth
Cost: 2 Relic
Type: Implantable
The Eye of Truth is a brass-gold replica of an eye, presumably created for a king which lost his in ancient times. When implanted into a field agent, the eye allows them to see if a person they are looking at has a major secret to hide, as well as if someone one is talking to is lying. However, the eye does not discern between irrelevances such as cheating on one's spouse or being a secret sadomasochist, or planning to summon an elder god to wipe the world out. Furthermore, as a portable lie detector it also has one major issue-it cannot tell you the truth.

Dragon's Teeth
Cost: 2 Relic
Type: Single-Use
Dragon's Teeth are a catch-all term for various types of single-use abilities that summon minions. When sown, cast, or otherwise activated, these relics always summon a number of warriors which proceed to assist the summoner and his allies in whatever struggle there is. The warriors always disappear after the fight, and the relic is always expended.

Ocelotl Armor
Cost: 2 Relic
Type: Armor
The Aztecs believed that heroism and power ran in the blood of men. Jaguar armor, passed down from warrior to warrior after generations, often soaked up some of this blood from the vagaries of war, and therefore some of the essence of its former wielders. Although most of these armor examples are decayed after thousands of years resting in the dirt, patching them hasn't hurt their potency any. Nor has using ballistic fabric instead of cotton mesh. Although light, Ocelotl armor improves the wearer's agility and grace, allowing them to sprint without making a sound, leap great heights, and evade attacks with the beauty of a dancer.

Tyrfing
Cost: 5 Relic
Type: Weapon
Tyrfing is just one of the weapons of its type-cursed blades that can cut through almost anything but must kill someone whenever they are used. Although extremely potent one should remember two caveats-it must kill a human being after being drawn, and that if you do not sate its need for death the curse will fall on you.

Excalibur's Scabbard
Cost: 5 Relic
Type: Equipment
The Scabbard of Excalibur was said to allow the wearer to survive massive loss of blood. What nobody mentioned was the existence of scores of similar artifacts throughout history. All take the form of some sort of scabbard or holster for a weapon, and are generally tough but not entirely indestructible.

Govi
Cost: 5 Relic
Type: Equipment
Soul Jars, Govis are used to imprison souls for deeds, whether noble or nefarious. A govi can contain any sort of soul as long as the victim is recently deceased, and allows one to carry it off for various uses, including as a bargaining chip or for interrogation.

Adamant
Cost: 10 Relic
Type: Armor
Adamant Plates are incredibly durable, hard substances. The origin of this material is lost in mythology, similar to Primium. Unlike its Kiryu-Kai counterpart, Adamant is incredibly hard but offers no special resistance to magical abilities. A common use is to forge a plate of the material and slip it into a ballistic vest, providing superior but very discreet protection. There are vehicles plated in the material but the cost is exorbitant-multiply the relic cost by 5 to give a vehicle Adamant plate.

Grail Shard
Cost: 10 Relic
Type: Other
The Shards of the Holy Grail have many magical properties, the most important and useful of which being accelerated healing. Although too valuable to bring on missions, they allow rapid healing of wounded agents back on base.

Antikythera Calculator
Cost: 10 Relic
Type: Facility
The true Antikythera Calculator was intended for astrological purposes, but not just for religious rites. It is also capable of being used to run routines that can predict the future to a good degree of accuracy using astrological routines, something even the most advanced quantum computers in laboratories cannot. A handful of these were constructed and the Society have control over all but two. They know that one is in the hands of the enemy in BosWash, but they cannot locate it... yet.

Spear of Athena
Cost: 15 Relic
Type: Weapon
The original weapon of the goddess of war, the spear was splintered, broken, split into a hundred shards as best to seperate its divine power. As one weapon it would have been too much of a risk, it would have drawn too much attention. Polearms with a shard of the original spear at the core have survived, lovingly preserved, since the founding of the Society of Athena. Powerful melee weapons, they are capable of cleaving through even vehicle armor with disturbing ease.

Brahmastra
Cost: 15 Relic
Type: Weapon
Forged by Brahma, there are a handful of these weapons in existence, ranging from the original bow to the most modern ones, forged by the few who can. Seeing as that no person on Earth can invoke him, the latest few were forged in the 2010s, at great expense, on Society-funded suborbital "research flights". Each of them is a lovingly crafted, beautifully ornate missile weapon, traditionally a bow, although there are a handful of breech-loading or bolt-action rifles forged with these powers. The ultimate weapon, one can be fired to almost guarantee the annihilation of any target, at great cost to the environment and to self. They can only fire once in your lifetime, after all, and to guarantee this the user always expires after firing, clinging to life just long enough to see the results of his or her heroic sacrifice.

Arcanotechnology

Fusing magical power with cutting-edge technology, Kiryu-Kai can create some inordinately impressive equipment for its agents, but it is similarly expensive.

Disruption Blades
Cost: 2 Arcanotechnology, 1 Production (triple cost for vehicle variant)
Type: Weapon
Generally it's considered unnecessarily risky to engage the enemy in melee combat. They are faster and tougher than you are, and blessed with impressively sharp claws. Much safer to stand off and shoot them full of holes. The Kiryu-Kai didn't get the memo. Following in the footsteps of their samurai ancestors, disruption blades cut cleanly through metal and bone as if it were air. Their deadliness is only balanced by the risk to the user. The vehicle variant is a larger blade that can only be effectively wielded by combat androids, heavy cyborgs, and GOLEMs.

Spirit Goggles
Cost: 1 Arcanotechnology, 1 Production
Type: Sensor Equipment (Implantable)
Allowing the user to see into the spirit realm, these sensors are instrumental in detecting incorporeal foes. With most of the functionality of the Enhanced Imaging devices in common military use, they also help detecting a lot of other stuff.

Primium
Cost: 3 Arcanotechnology, 2 production
Type: Enhancement
A legendary alloy that dampens the power of the supernatural, Primium anti-magic alloy can be incorporated into (mundane) weapons or armor, as well as cybernetic enhancements, to reduce their vulnerability to enemy sorceries. Passed down by oral tradition for the past centuries from since it was granted to the Kiryu-Kai by a forge god, the knowledge of how to create it was nearly lost in the 20th century.

Combat Androids
Cost: 15 Arcanotechnology, 30 production
Upkeep: 1 Arcanotechnology/year
Type: Combat Unit
The Kiryu-Kai fields combat androids, shells of metal and myomer with a spirit bound to them by ritual and honor. Nobody knows why half of them look like schoolgirls. The other half appear similar to Dragoons and other full-conversion heavy cyborgs, but often stylized with Samurai influences. No matter the design, they are functionally identical, as even the ones which are human looking are obviously and disturbingly fake, and can wield heavy weapons nontheless. Combat Androids, like Heavy Cyborgs, can wield light vehicle weapons. Like the Dragoon heavy cyborgs combat Androids can equip one vehicle enhancement.

General Operations Light Exoskeletal Machine (GOLEM)
Cost: 50 Arcanotechnology, 200 production
Upkeep: 1 Arcanotechnology, 2 production/month
Type: Vehicle
GOLEMs are small bipedal war machines, similar to oversized power armor. Approximately 3.5 meters tall, they can fit through most areas in the city, although they cannot squeeze into the interiors of many buildings. They can carry up to two vehicle weapons and two personnel weapons, and have 3 upgrade slots.

Stealthsuits
Cost: 5 Arcanotechnology, 15 production
Type: Armor
Stealthsuits are based off of shadow magic, similar to the enchanted shinobi shozoku worn by ancient Kiryu-Kai assassins and saboteurs. They flow into shadows naturally, appearing to completely disappear into patches of darkness. Cutting edge materials technology makes these suits excellent armor, equivalent to combat armor but with even less encumbrance.

Jump Booster/Flight Booster
Cost: 20 Arcanotechnology, 30 production
Type: Vehicle Enhancement
Commonly found on GOLEMs, jump boosters allow a vehicle to leap, in defiance of gravity. Powered by bound spirits they have few of the inconveniences of conventional methods of allowing a vehicle to leap immense heights and modify their direction in midair. The increased agility this gives is extremely useful. A variant mounted on VTOLs is the "flight booster", which gives similar agility to flying vehicles.

Vehicle Stealth System
Cost: 40 Arcanotechnology, 80 production
Type: Vehicle Enhancement
The Kiryu-Kai use esoteric vehicles that would be easily recognizable, and therefore need better methods of hiding them. The Vehicle Stealth System allows a Kiryu-Kai vehicle to become nearly invisible, allowing them to make use of them more effectively.

Scram Cannon/Heavy Scram Cannon
Cost: 10 Arcanotechnology, 20 production (double cost for vehicle variant)
Type: Weapon
A Scram cannon looks like a fairly conventional heavy weapon until it fires, with its keening wail being the first hint that this weapon is not in any way conventional. The projectiles it fires are invisible without the ability to see ghosts and shades, but seek out living targets and literally tear it apart. Primarily designed for dealing with foes that are immune to mundane weaponry they are nevertheless effective against human foes.

Lightning Gun/Heavy Lightning Gun
Cost: 2 Arcanotechnology, 5 production (triple cost for vehicle variant)
Type: Weapon
The Lightning gun is the only rifle-sized energy weapon in existence, and owes its existence to a pact with the God of Lightning. Firing devastating arcs of lightning, it is superior in lethality to a conventional assault rifle, but is similarly far more expensive.

Mana

Unlike the others, these are not items, but magical abilities that can be activated. Mana can be used to create small effects, like warping probability, or large and obvious effects, but the latter are not recommended if one wishes to stay discreet. A "multiple-use" spell only must pay the activation cost once for a given sim, but a single-use spell must pay once per activation.

Self-Sacrifice
Cost: -2 Mana, Single Use
The caster willingly gives his flesh and blood as a sacrifice in a ritual, and is rewarded with mana in its stead. These rituals kill one of your personnel and give 2 mana for free use.

Healing
Cost: 1 Mana, multiple use
A basic spell, the ability to heal wounds in the field is inordinately powerful, something that other groups would generally kill for. As long as a mage can continue to cast, he can cure light to moderate wounds instantly but not someone who is at death's door.

Zap
Cost: 1 Mana, multiple use
A simple attack spell, this takes many forms from electrical bolts to fireballs to wounds simply spontaneously appearing on the target. About equivalent in firepower to a civilian longarm, Zap has one significant advantage in that it cannot be detected and can easily be snuck into secure areas.

Jinx
Cost: 1 Mana, single use
Cursing someone with poor luck is a oft-attributed power to magicians. In this case the bad luck is short-term, but almost immediately manifests. Guns misfire, electronics crash, people trip and fall off stairs-and bad things happen to the unfortunate.

Sense Thought
Cost: 1 Mana, single use
The caster can detect whether one person is lying or telling the truth. Like various lie detectors it cannot tell you what the truth is, but it can tell you that they're trying to hide something.

Destroy
Cost: 3 Mana, multiple use
An improved version of the simple "Zap", the "Destroy" spell allows a Mage to carry the ability to threaten even armored vehicles virtually anywhere. Similarly, it can manifest in almost any form, depending on the personality of the mage in question.

Mind over Body
Cost: 3 Mana, single use
A mage knows that as long as his mind, the seat of his ability to cast magic, is strong, his body is identically strong. When you can affect gross changes to reality, you can simply make your body better. The effects are temporary, of course, but for a brief period the mage is capable of accomplishing things with flesh that would make full cyborgs stare in awe. More devastatingly, mages can augment themselves further with cybernetic implants.

Shield
Cost: 3 Mana, single use
The caster creates a ward that protects him or her against harm. Until broken by either countermagic or heavy firepower, it deflects all sorts of harm away, whether the origin is mystical or mundane.

Communing with the Ancestors
Cost: 3 Mana, single use
The caster can ask a single question to one of the deceased. They will only know what happened up to the time of their death, and the longer they were dead, the less likely they are to give a clear answer to your queries.

Scrye
Cost: 3 Mana, single use
The caster of this spell can see remote lands or events, which allows the Anu Foundation to conduct surveillance on targets with near-impunity. Although detectable by several magical methods, it is perfectly effective against mundane foes.

Flight
Cost: 5 Mana, single use
Self explanatory, one would think.

Warp
Cost: 5 Mana, single use
The ability to appear somewhere quickly is critical, and warp allows a mage to respond to a critical situation nearly instantly. Warp requires the ability to see the destination, which means that it is often done together with Scrying to appear virtually anywhere in an instant, albeit at extremely high cost.

Soma Transference
Cost: 5 Mana, single use
Conservation of energy exists in magic as well. Therefore, it is more efficient to heal by taking from the enemy than it is to heal grievous injuries with pure mana. To cure critical wounds, a mage rips the lifeforce out of another, whether it's an enemy or an innocent bystander, and transfers it. One can be brought back from death's door by this method, but the mana costs are exorbitant despite only being a catalyst for the healing process.

Gate
Cost: 10 Mana, single use
The caster creates two portals, one at his current position, another at a place he is intimately familiar with. These portals last for a short period of time, during which personnel and equipment can be sent through. However, so far all gates summoned have been man-sized at best, larger sized gates being incredibly unstable. Gate is not a subtle spell, creating effects that are clearly supernatural, and takes a fair amount of time to set up.

Theft of the body
Cost: 10 Mana, single use
The caster of this spell takes the form of a victim, who has his very soul destroyed in the process of imitation. The caster keeps the body for weeks, during which time he or she is now a perfect infiltrator into another organization.

Biotics

Implanting the parts of eldritch abominations into one's agents is useful, but also dangerously risky. All Biotic components have an Insanity rating, which is how much damage they do to the user's psyche. Obviously the higher the level is the more likely someone is to go cuckoo and jeopardize your mission objectives.

For sanity's sake, Biotics and Cybernetics are not compatible. You can't be half-demon half-robot.

Holdout Weapon
Cost: 1 Biotics
Insanity: 1
Implanting the severed natural weapons of a shapeshifter, whether they be tentacles, fangs, or claws, as well as an enzyme pack that triggers their transformation into an agent gives them an undetectable weapon for assassination or self-defense use. Suddenly one can sprout claws, or razor-edged tentacles, or other weapons to defend themselves with. Unfortunately the transformation is always painful.

Adrenaline Overproduction
Cost: 1 Biotics
Insanity: 1
Some eldritch creatures can frenzy, becoming far faster and stronger than normal for brief periods of time. SV8 has found the organ responsible for this, and implants it into its agents routinely. When activated by mental command, it dumps a cocktail of unearthly substances into the bloodstream, giving a SV8 agent supernatural strength and speed. Observational evidence shows that for several seconds, frenzying agents can literally rip limbs off of other humans, outrun cars, and do other impossible feats of physical prowess. Unfortunately frenzying is extremely fatiguing and cannot be repeatedly invoked in a short period of time.

Predator's Eyes
Cost: 1 Biotics
Insanity: 0
The eyes of a dead horror, plucked out and fused into your own sockets. They let you see many things. They let you see ghosts, they let you see heat, and pheromones, and other things that might be useful for your own hunt. Unlike all other biotic enhancements these eyes do not have any effects on the user's mental state, although as windows to the soul, they reveal a massively warped one. Given the amount of biotic improvement most SV8 agents undergo, if that wasn't already true it becomes true before long.

Brain Leech
Cost: 1 Biotics
Insanity: 3
The Bone Leech is a symbiote burrows into a subject's spine and replaces its spinal cord and inserting filaments into the brain. After the lengthy recovery time it becomes an asset, greatly increasing a subject's reaction time. However, side effects include various types of seizure, which are treated with medication, as well as delusions that can only be treated by willpower and counseling. Although extremely powerful and inexpensive, Brain Leeches are incredibly straining on one's sanity.

Detective's Ear
Cost: 3 Biotics
Insanity: 2
Dead men tell no tales. Unless you have this piece of biotic enhancement, in which they talk to you. All the time. You can ask them questions, too. This isn't actually an ear, but something implanted into the spinal cord that lets you see and talk to the dead. And they talk back. However, their whispers make it difficult to sleep at night.

Negation Worm
Cost: 3 Biotics
Insanity: 2
A Negation Worm is a creature from a dimension of pure nihilism. When touched to the bare chest of a living human, it burrows inside, painlessly (although subjects all state that it feels like the chill of the grave touching them) and benefits them with the ability to negate sorceries. Enemy spells will fizzle against the target, or sometimes backfire. The only side effect is that the user becomes colder, sometimes borderline sociopathic.

Needle Pods
Cost: 3 Biotics
Insanity: 1
An improved version of the holdout weapon, Needle Pods allow an agent to spit/flick hypersharp crystal needles at enemies when they find it necessary. Hitting with the force of armor-piercing rifle rounds, they give even an unarmed agent a lethal offensive capability.

Metabolic Booster
Cost: 3 Biotics
Insanity: 1
A metabolic booster is an unidentifiable, sickly-looking organ extracted from a handful of alien horrors. When carefully implanted into a human being, it increases their activity rate to superhuman levels, increasing one's speed and agility. Side effects include attention deficit, schizophrenia, seizures, and occasional outbreaks of bipolar disease, which are all drug-treated.

Muscle/Bone Grafts
Cost: 5 Biotics
Insanity: 1
Although many horrors are merely human sized, they are often far stronger than humans can hope to be. Cybernetics have helped to reduce this gap, but have not completely closed it. These grafts of extradimensional muscle tissue, combined with painful injections that ossify human bone into crystal, have amazing results on their users. Their skeleton becomes denser and transparent, while the new muscle and tendon grafts allow them inhuman strength. Although painful, there are few aftereffects and the most it generally causes is a feeling of overconfidence due to the agent's newfound strength and durability.

Bile Demon
Cost: 5 Biotics
Insanity: 2
Replacing the digestive tract and several endocrine glands are those coming from a noxious abomination. The agent becomes immune to poisons and diseases, able to gain sustenance from even the most horrible of objects, and their very body becomes poison. Their blood will corrode on touch, their sweat kills if ingested, their breath becomes noxious. The lack of human contact that this enforces generally is very stressful on one's psyche.

Dermal Grafts
Cost: 10 Biotics
Insanity: 2
"Lizard skin", as it is called, is harvested from demons. When implanted and treated it takes the appearance of human skin, but unearthly pale and hairless, as well as prone to rashes. Like the demons it is harvested from, the agent becomes impossibly resistant to mundane weaponry, but similarly gains a vulnerability to blessed/cursed weapons that would normally have little effect. Agents so modified are cold to the touch and often rapidly gain addictions to medicines that offer relief for the constant itching.

Personal Defense Swarm
Cost: 10 Biotics
Insanity: 4
There are eldritch horrors that can summon and control swarms of lethal, otherworldly insects. So why not a properly modified field agent? A complex network of porous tissue under flesh turns the agent's body into a hive for these creatures, and when needed they burst out of the agent's flesh and tear his or her foes apart. Although painless, the very knowledge that you are infested with uncountable thousands of insects, burrowing around, cozying up to your internal organs, is likely to change everyone's worldview significantly.

Globe of Immortality
Cost: 15 Biotics
Insanity: 3
A tennis-ball organ found in some regenerators that produces healing substances, the Globe of Immortality gives incredible regenerative capability to its user. Life-threatening wounds heal in minutes at most, minor ones almost instantly. However, use of this has psychoactive effects, not including the sheer megalomania that develops when one is rendered nigh-unkillable, or the sadomasochistic tendencies common to field agents with such an implant. Eventually pain becomes second nature, and one stops perceiving it as undesirable.

True Faith

Similar to mana, True Faith can be used to cause miracles, from the subtle to the extreme. Burning Faith Points to do so, an agent of the Company of Jesus can deal with foes that would cut a bloody swath through entire platoons of elite infantry.

Mark of Cain
Cost: 1 Faith
Those who commit sins are marked, albeit invisibly. The Faithful can see these marks, and what sin they have committed. Although not a precise method, being able to see their sins against all can definitely be extraordinarily powerful in many situations.

Visions of Hellfire
Cost: 1 Faith
It is only the most stalwart of souls that can resist for even a moment when confronted with visions of Hell. By invoking them in the mind of a target, one can attempt to get them to tell you what they know (or what you want to hear), or paralyze them with the realization that they will soon be doomed to eternal damnation.

Unbroken Soul
Cost: 1 Faith
The Faithful know that the soul is immortal and the true seat of one's self. With this knowledge they know that injury of their mortal shells is merely a temporary thing, an inconvenience to be ridden out. This miracle enhances this process, allowing them to heal wounds of the flesh far more quickly than normal.

Cherub's Flaming Sword
Cost: 2 Faith
Mundane weapons are often of only marginal effectiveness against the eldritch horrors that the Company hunts. This blessing turns properly prepared ammunition or weapons into devastatingly lethal implements against the occult, piercing magical wards and sending demons back to where they belong. Similarly, a weapon enchanted with this becomes effective against even ethereal targets.

Strength of Samson
Cost: 2 Faith
The Faithful know that no matter how frail their body, they are strong in spirit, and as long as they stay strong in spirit they are strong in body. This blessing gives one of the Faithful superhuman physical capability.

Endurance of Job
Cost: 3 Faith
An Agent of the Company learns through their training and through their religion, to persevere, no matter how difficult life gets, no matter what the obstacles in their way are. By invoking this miracle this becomes supernatural, allowing them to ignore the most devastating blows and the harshest punishments and get up for more.

Truth of Divinity
Cost: 3 Faith
There are those enemies which can create illusions and warp thoughts, but one with faith and willpower can see through the tricks of demons and see the world as it is, despite their seductive lies. One with sufficient Faith can completely ignore them, seeing the world as it is, whether they like it or not.

Weapon of Faith
Cost: 3 Faith
Weapons are merely an extension of the will and one's desire to protect the world. A true warrior, one who has accepted their duty in life, their duty to God, knows that a weapon is unnecessary in the end. This miracle allows one to take any implement that can be easily wielded and turn it into a powerful weapon that can strike horrific blows against foes.

Seal of Purity
Cost: 5 Faith
Those blessed with True Faith can create wards against that which should not be, weakening them and forcing them away. Weaker foes will shrivel against one so empowered, while stronger ones will still be weakened against the power of the agent's faith.

Exorcism
Cost: 5 Faith
There are those which possess others to do their bidding, whether temporarily or permanently. In such an event most other compacts would have to destroy both the body and the true enemy, but the agents of the Company of Jesus see that as unnecessary, when it is possible to cast the enemy out, to destroy them in their true form.

Swords to Plowshares
Cost: 10 Faith
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who do not. The Company of Jesus knows of this, and one of their miracles invokes the old saying, by causing weapons to stop working temporarily. Disruption blades fizzle, guns jam, swords rust. Without the power of true divinity behind it, the changes are temporary, but the unaffected soldiers of the Company can take advantage of this moment of weakness to cripple the enemy resistance.

SCIENCE!

The idiosyncratic minds of the Null Mysterium have created many powerful tools to aid their quest. Their mastery of ether and mad science has given them an arsenal that is varied, but does things no other power can do.

Old-School

The "Classicalist" camp believes that abandoning their heritage for a gain in "efficiency" is tantamount to surrendering to whatever darkness lies in wait. They're doing just fine with their "antiquated" weapons and equipment, after all. There's no need to improve it. And even the "Progressive" camp must realize that they're using a theory two hundred years dead and out of fashion to power their plasma rifles and cyborgs, why is being a little behind the times so bad?

Etheric Ray Projector/Heavy Etheric Ray Projector
Cost: 1 Gadget, 2 Production (x5 cost for heavy projector)
Type: Weapon
Packing the firepower of a large-caliber rifle in pistol form, the Etheric Ray Projector was originally invented in 1908 by Doctor Charles Weatherworth-Godfrey, also known by his pseudonym, Doctor Fury, globetrotting adventurer. A powerful weapon in its day, it is really only exceeded by some modern "pistols" that are exclusively designed for Dragoon full conversions. Although not even on last-name terms with "subtle", the weapon is an exceedingly devastating backup. Modern variants look like varying types of firearm, although retro-futuristic ray guns are still by far the most common stylings and other designs are seen as woefully unfashionable. The Heavy Etheric Ray Projector is a more powerful variant, capable of disintegrating 7/9ths of a Earth elephant in a single shot.

Doctor Fury's Forgetfulness Grenades
Cost: 1 Gadget, 1 Production
Type: Single-Use
Another famous invention of the late Doctor, forgetfulness grenades come in handy when you need a household of people to forget that you were ever there. The pink haze of unidentifiable chemicals can erase eyewitness accounts of a happening, but are obviously not useful against electronic accounts, and their very use can draw some attention as they do have a chemical trace, even though the compound degrades quickly enough to render the chemicals unidentifiable.

Doctor Fury's Action Jacket
Cost: 2 Gadget, 5 Production
Type: Armor
Doctor Fury himself wore a stylish leather jacket, treated with a special elixir that made it impossible to pierce with arrows, knives, or bullets. It also was fairly resistant to claws, acid, and corrosive spit, as was demonstrated many times on his travels. He created many of these jackets, in varying styles, and passed down the techniques. Today, hundreds if not thousands of these jackets have been created, and they are as durable as ever. Often styled as a trenchcoat or duster for maximum coverage, more stylish members of the Null Mysterium prefer bombardier jackets. Occasionally someone shows up with pants so treated, but the absolute ridiculousness of leather pants in any environment but a fetish club has prevented them from becoming commonplace. In any case, an Action Jacket provides roughly equivalent protection to a suit of combat armor but is much lighter and more concealable.

Lord Mandelson's Magnetic Stakegun
Cost: 2 Gadget, 5 Production
Type: Weapon
Lord Mandelson, Earl of Surrey made his name as a vampire hunter in the 1930s, fighting against various types of unsavory bloodsucker. One discovery he found was that although stakes were effective at disabling the creatures, their ribcage made it a very losing prospect unless one came with a method of propelling said stake through the vampire's bones, and seeing that many of them had supernatural durability, that was fairly suicidal. Seeing the advertisements that another, lesser, inventor had made for a "magnetic machine gun", he decided to adopt that principle and create the world's first Magnetic Stakegun. Using a special wooden stake with a magnetic core, the primitive coilgun was a potent anti-vampire weapon at short ranges. At longer ranges the wood burned off due to air resistance, leaving a very deadly, very high-velocity iron penetrator. Needless to say, it is still a powerful sniper rifle.

Lord Mandelson's Antigravity Belt
Cost: 10 Gadget, 5 Production
Type: Equipment
Lord Mandelson's most impressive invention was not his anti-vampire stakegun, but rather the antigravity belt, using etheric field manipulation to allow the user to float. A belt with various silver devices of unidentifiable nature and large pockets of much more identifiable nature, the Antigravity Belt is a boon to adventurers of all sorts. Even the Progressives admire it, even though they put the technology and theory into "blowing shit up".

Lord Mandelson's Gas Bullets
Cost: 1 Gadget, 1 Production for 10
Type: Equipment (Single-Use)
Lord Mandelson had a few encounters in which he needed a non-lethal weapon to deal with hypnotized or otherwise unwilling slaves of his vampire foes. These gas bullets were extremely effective in their day, capable of being fired from various types of pistol or rifle, as well as having little risk of wounding the target. Unfortunately due to the improvements in biochemical protection as well as the advent of environmentally-sealed combat and powered armor, these gas bullets are no longer a cure-all for capturing foes alive.

New Wave

The "Progressive" camp believes that their inventions should keep up with the times. No more of this ridiculous "two fisted adventurer" bullshit. The Mysterium should use every edge we have, every cutting-edge invention, to assist humanity in this struggle. Not allowing the use of the full range of tools and solutions borders on insanity when most of the "old-school" materials are so wonderfully schizophrenic.

Lord Mandelson's Microwave Gun
Cost: 10 Gadget, 5 Production
Type: Weapon
As vampires fed on blood, one of Mandelson's most impressive weapons designs was intended to boil that blood within their bodies, disabling them. He found out to his dismay that it could also be used against humans as well with similar horrifying effects-but unlike vampires they generally would be killed, not disabled. Mandelson destroyed the only prototype and burned his notes, but in recent years some students in the Progressive camp have taken the base concept and built a weapon that does similar.

TSA-343 Tempo
Cost: 4 Gadget, 1 Production
Type: Equipment (Single-Use)
Invented by an ex-SAS student of the Mysterium, Tempo is a slow-motion drug that is two parts amphetamines, two parts unidentifiable organic matter, and six parts condensed Ether. Whatever it is, it warps time and space, allowing the user to act faster for a short period of time. However, the intense and horrific side effects prevent prolonged usage, and effectively disable the user after the combat high.

Plasma Grenade
Cost: 1 Gadget, 1 Production
Type: Single-Use
The Plasma Grenade was invented in late 2002, by a brilliant but unfocused Academy student who had a propensity for playing videogames. The ability to devastate small buildings with a single grenade was not unappreciated. The seemingly superfluous ability to "stick" these grenades onto random targets was, seeing as it is fairly superfluous considering the power of such grenades.

EM-14A Thunderhead
Cost: 8 Gadget, 12 Production
Type: Weapon
The EM-14A is a feat of engineering, using a oft-ignored corollary to the Antigravity Belt to reduce the recoil of its ten spinning barrels. Firing 10mm full-size ammunition, the weapon is roughly equivalent to a vehicle machine gun-but due to its design and advanced components it masses a "mere" ten kilograms. With a 200 round drum magazine, it still runs through its ammunition supply in less than 2 seconds at maximum fire rate, but honestly if you need that you're probably screwed already. Nevertheless a blessing to the Null Mysterium, it and subtle aren't even on speaking terms.