Experimental Abilities

As characters explore, they may encounter Abilities that fall out of their Class. These will be detailed on this page, as well as how to access them.

All Experimental Abilities cost 1 XP to purchase as with regular Abilities, unless otherwise specified.

Any of:

• Suffer the CURSE effect from a Decaying creature three or more times.
• Have the CURSE effect of a Decaying creature that causes you to call DRAIN trigger by being knocked unconscious.
• Take a Severe Injury from a Decaying creature.

• Some aspect of Decay that has burrowed deep inside of you. Excising this will be difficult (and a method is not yet known), but through experimentation you are able to tap into the corrosive and detrimental power that Decay can provide its puppets.
• Abilities in the Ouroboros tree are powered by surrendering parts of your body over to the Decay attempting to seize your body for itself for the duration of the Encounter. When a part of your body is given over (e.g., your arm), you should roleplay with that limb actively attempting to impede or attack you. If it has a weapon, for instance, it will attempt to hit you with it. If not, it may smack you in the face or attempt to wrestle your other limbs. This effect will wear off at the end of the encounter you trigger it within.
• Each ability purchased will increase the amount of your body that is given over - each time you trigger any Ouroboros ability, all the affected area will turn against you. You may only sacrifice each area of your body once.
• You may choose to purchase Ouroboros abilities during an Encounter if your character has spare XP.
• Amputation of the affected area will not help, the Decay will simply move somewhere else within you.
• If you give over more than half of your body to the Decay within yourself your mind will become destroyed by the Decay and you will become an unplayable Puppet of Decay - assume the stats of a Lesser Dominator if this occurs during an Encounter.

• When you activate this ability, for the rest of the Encounter, you may call PING to any effect that strikes your melee weapon.
• Purchase Sacrifice: You must sacrifice one hand to the Decay within yourself to purchase this ability.

• When you activate this ability, you gain a pool of 3 uses of BREAK for the rest of the encounter. These are lost if unused.
• Purchase Sacrifice: You must sacrifice control of your upper arm to the Decay within yourself to purchase this ability.

• When you activate this ability, you may choose to call PING to PUSH or PULL while you are walking slowly. This effect does not apply if you are stationary or running.
• Purchase Sacrifice: You must sacrifice control of your speech to the Decay within yourself to purchase this ability.
  • Decay has no intent or advice to speak, it will turn your expressions gutteral, grinding, and screeching.

• When you are knocked unconscious, you may choose to sacrifice further elements of your body to the Decay within yourself in order to get back up on half your body hits. These sacrifices are as permanent as any other.
• Valid locations:
  • Hand (either one)
  • Upper Arm (either one)
  • Foot (either one)
  • Leg (either one)
  • Chest (your organs are against you - you will feel nauseous and short of breath)
  • Mouth (Decay controls your words - either to speak or to prevent you from doing so)
    • Decay has no intent or advice to speak, it will turn your expressions gutteral, grinding, and screeching.
  • Eyes + Ears (both) (you are blinded but do not close your eyes)

Any of:

• Be granted permissions from the control panel of a Gateway found within a Pentagonal Ruin. These are single use.
• ???

• You have become aware on a level of how to control and interface with the ancient mechanisms that survive in the Pentagonal Ruins that have been found in the Keter Borderlands.
• In particular, you are aware of how to operate their Gateways and how to direct the Guardians of their Crypts. In particular, you know that a Gateway connected to multiple other Gateways can be used by anyone to travel between them, there is no requirement to reconfigure, and that these connections are inherently bidirectional.
• Where roleplay is required, you should roleplay becoming aware of pathways in the world and the air around you, and drawing connections between them.
• When you gain access to this tree you gain the Initialise Gateway and Direct Crypt Guardians abilities for free.

• You become aware of how to activate a dormant Pentagonal Gateway so that it can be used to transport between itself and the Gateway it is currently connected to.
• With 10s of roleplay at a Gateway you may interface in order to perform one of the following operations:
  • Synchronise - the Gateway becomes aware of and connected to any Gateway that you are aware of and it is not. You become aware of the location of any connected Gateway that this Gateway knows of that you do not.
  • Delete - you may remove the knowledge of one Gateway from this Gateway. It is no longer connected to it.
  • Initialise - a dormant Gateway becomes active and reconnects to any Gateway it is aware of.

• With 10s of uninterrupted roleplay you may call YOU: PUSH or YOU: PULL on a Crypt Guardian (Strike and Support Rollers only)

• You may use the privileges given to you by the Gateway to temporarily open a small hole in space.
• Once per Encounter you may call WARP and then reposition yourself within 10s, calling WARP again when you reappear.

• You may expand your PUSH and PULL calls on Crypt Guardians to all inhabitants of Pentagonal Crypts beyond just Strike and Support Rollers.

• Utility Ability
• You gain the Reprogram ability specifically for Crypt Guardians (of any variety).

• Once Ever Downtime Ability
• Once ever you may open your mind to the pathways and workings of the Pentagonal Civilisation, becoming aware of their workings and how to copy their work.
• This will set you down the course of a Retirement Linear, the details of which will only be apparent to you if you choose to accept it.
• Contact the GMs if you activate this Ability.