Startouched

Startouched have a particular connection with the universe, and in particular Ship Hearts. Those more powerful are able to utilise their connection with Ship Hearts to rip holes in space - to bring down fire on their enemies, or to twist the world to their advantage. Scions bring down elemental fire and raw power from their Ship Hearts, Voidhearts twist space around them to their advantage, while Bulwarks create powerful shields to protect themselves and their allies.

• Startouched are inherently linked to Ship Hearts, and as such are capable of using that link to power their impressive abilities. Startouched power up their abilities by opening that connection to amass power before unleashing it in the form they prefer. Further nurturing this connection has reportedly presented opportunities to Startouched - as well as being a possible source of destruction.
• Startouched have a base 5 hits.
• Startouched power their abilities using a single empty hand (unless you have abilities that allow otherwise) in a specific gesture throughout and accumulating power for a number of seconds before the ability is ready.
  • For accessibility you may choose to forgo the gesture. However, you must still choose which ability you are charging ahead of time. Where possible, still keep one hand empty and visible, such that others can see you are charging an ability.
• They can only power up one ability at a time in this way.
• Charging up the ability is broken if:
  • The Startouched is subject to DRAIN
  • The hand being used to charge the ability is subject to BREAK
  • The Startouched chooses to stop

• You are capable of manifesting a protective energy barrier of 4 Hits.
• Any damage you take will come off your solar barrier before you lose Hit Points.
• This barrier may be restored with 5 minutes of concentration between encounters.
• This barrier is not restored by healing.

• Once per Mission you may perform an improbable feat when out of combat by loudly proselytising the values of your Mystic Sect or associated Ship Heart.
• Discuss with the GM what feat you would like to perform and they will determine what effect occurs.
• Multiple Startouched can combine their Interventions to achieve greater effects.

• Gain an additional use of Intervention.
• You may perform an Intervention mid-combat. Call TIME FREEZE when this happens, and explain (quickly) to the GM what Intervention you wish to receive.
• You may take Severe Injuries to use additional Interventions during a Mission (once per Severe Injury).

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: Clenched fist held to your side
• You create a wall of force to push your enemies away.
• Call YOU: PUSH against a target within 5m.

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: Hand held overhead
• You create a bolt of force to hurl at an enemy.
• Call YOU: STRIKEDOWN.

• You may spend a hit point of your barrier to call PARRY.

• 10 seconds
• Gesture: hovering hand along length of weapon
• You ignite the air around your weapon.
• Call BURN on your next melee strike.

• 60 seconds
• Gesture: fingers to temple
• You meditate on a course of action and gain a minor bonus from your Ship Heart while you are pursuing that course of action.
• Used during combat, you gain three uses of GAIN X where X is a call you can make from a Startouched ability through gesture alone and unmodified (i.e. not modified to YOU LOT by Overload or at the end of a PULL from Darklance)
• Utility Ability
• Outside of combat you may petition your Ship Heart for a minor bonus at GM discretion, equivalent to gaining a use of a call once per encounter.

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: reaching a hand out (fingertips first) toward the target
• Lightning shoots from your hand and strikes the target.
• Call YOU: ZAP.

• Utility Ability
• Twice per Mission you may connect to your Ship Heart and its power on a deeper level.
• Each time, you may ask your Ship Heart a question relevant to your current Mission. It will give a one sentence answer to the best of its ability.
• The GM will tell you this answer OC and you should then IC roleplay the delivery of this as your character is temporarily used as a vessel for the Ship Heart's answer.
• Guidelines for GMs:
  • Ship Hearts have personalities and interests of their own. If you are comfortable, deliver an answer that would fit this.
  • At minimum, if asked a question relevant to the Mission you are running, provide an answer that will give some hint to the players - maybe of something that may occur in a future encounter. They should always get something.
  • If you are asked a question that is not relevant to the Mission, tell the player that the Ship Heart cannot answer and that they may use this ability again after the next Encounter has passed.

• Twice per encounter you may call MISS for free out of cover.

• If you use two hands while preparing a Startouched Ability that normally only requires one hand, you may make the YOU call as a YOU LOT call.
• e.g. holding both hands together above your head for Concussion Bolt you would call YOU LOT: STRIKEDOWN instead of YOU: STRIKEDOWN.

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: clenched fist in the direction of the target
• You twist space and time to slow down your target.
• Call YOU: SLOW.

• Once per encounter you may call PING to DRAIN.

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: reaching into the sky
• You bring down the burning power of the stars onto your foe.
• Call YOU: BURN.

• You may prepare different Startouched Abilities with each hand.

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: flat hand slicing through the air
• You conjure a razor sharp blade from the air around you and hurl it through your enemies.
• Call YOU: BREAK.

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: clawed hand held toward target, twisting
• You cause a cascade of contradictions that physics violently corrects.
• Call YOU: BLAST.
• You may not combine this Ability with Overload

• Once per Mission, you may allow your Ship Heart to possess your physical form.
• Your mind is still your own, but your Ship Heart radiates power from you and controls your movements and power usage.
• Where possible, convey your Ship Heart's personality through roleplaying in your movements and actions (i.e. if it has an 'Evasive' personality, it might be appropriate to use cover more often than your character normally would)
• Immediately HEAL FULL.
• All your Startouched Abilities are prepared twice as fast for the rest of the encounter.

• By making the gesture of holding both your hands above your head, you may activate this ability.
• While active, call GAIN PING DRAIN every 5s.
• You must maintain the gesture while the ability is active.
• You may not prepare other Startouched Abilities while this ability is active.
• You may reactivate it multiple times per encounter, but there is a 60s cooldown between each use.

• Once per Mission, you may activate this ability with a suitably dramatic gesture indicating your ravenous absorption of all light around you.
  • e.g. clawing at the air around you and devouring it.
• You appear to partially transform into a creature of Decay with the following stats:
  • 20 hits
  • Call DRAIN on every melee blow.
  • 3 uses of STRIKEDOWN by melee.
  • 4 uses of BREAK by melee.
• You will revert back to your non-decaying form at the end of this time but will be altered. Talk to the Ref team after this adventure to discuss this.

• By making a gesture with both your hands of tearing a hole in reality, you may activate this ability.
• While active, call MASS STRIKEDOWN every 5 seconds.
• You must maintain the gesture while the ability is active.
• You do not take the effect of this STRIKEDOWN.
• You may not prepare other Startouched Abilities while this ability is active.
• You may reactivate it multiple times per encounter, but there is a 60s cooldown between each use.

• Upon suffering your final Severe Injury, you vanish in a blinding flash of light.
• Your character will survive this Injury, but will undergo changes.
• They will not be playable for the rest of the Mission.
• Speak to the Ref Team about what happens.

• 10 seconds
• Gesture: throwing a lasso
• You spear the enemy with a lance of energy and pull them toward you.
• Call YOU: PULL on a target within 10m.
• You may keep moving after calling PULL by continuing to power this (keeping a hand free and powering up no other abilities).

• 5 seconds
• Gesture: remaining stationary, waving through the air around you
• You blur the light around you to hide yourself.
• Call WARP.
• You may not move, prepare abilities, or make calls, but remain hidden until you choose to reappear or are subject to a YOU LOT or MASS call.

• 5 seconds
• Gesture: pulling upwards from the ground
• You twist the physical world beneath you to your advantage.
• You may gain an additional use of MISS from the cover you are currently in.
• You may only do this once per cover pool.

• Utility Ability
• You have an inherent sense of direction and can always find your way to a destination you have had described to you.
• If you wish to apply this knowledge, talk to the GM and describe how you would like to use your innate ability to help your party.
• This may result in a bonus to an upcoming encounter, or enable progress past difficulties.
• You may also always tell the direction to the nearest Ship Heart within range.

• Requires: Lightlance
• After pulling a target to you using Lightlance you may call BREAK for free by melee on the next strike.
• If you do not call BREAK on that next strike, you lose the use.

• Utility Skill
• You have an uncanny sense for what is physically as it seems.
• You may apply this to see through holographic ruses, or to determine once per an encounter when someone is lying to you.
• When you wish to apply this sense, talk to the GM.

• 5 seconds
• Gesture: two fingers to the forehead
• You reach out supernatural senses into the space around you.
• Call SCAN: MONSTERS.

• Requires: Space Between Space
• You may move while hidden using Space Between Space.
• You are aware of what you perceive while you move.
• You can only come out of Space Between Space by returning to the position where you activated the ability.
• If you are unable to return to the position (due to being broken out by YOU LOT or MASS, or due to the position no longer existing), take a BREAK ALL LIMBS when you reappear.

• Your eyes are filled with uncanny darkness.
• Twice per encounter you may call YOU: EFFECT FRIGHTENED.
• Utility Ability
• Once per Mission, out of combat, you may get a sense from the world around you (OC by asking the GM) what the biggest threat is to your success. The GM must give you some answer.

• Twice per encounter you may call MISS even when not in cover.
• You may then call the call that MISS'd you at target other than the original source.

• 10 seconds
• Gesture: drawing invisible lines between points in space in front of you with your finger
• Call WARP. You have 10s to relocate, after which time you must call WARP again.
• You are not aware of what happens during this time.

• Once Ever Downtime Ability
• You foster a deeper connection with your Ship Heart which grants you additional powers and an insight into its motivations.
• Discuss what sort of pact you're looking for with the Ref Team - you will gain a per encounter ability, and an Agenda from your Ship Heart.

• 30 seconds
• Gesture: slowly drawing your hand down from your head to your feet
• Your physical form only loosely obeys the laws of physics.
• For 10s, you are capable of moving through solid obstacles.
• You can give this ability to another character by making the gesture over them instead. Explain what you are doing while this is going on.

• Once per Mission you may swap the physical encounter space with another location entirely (of the same size).
• Call TIME FREEZE when you do this.
• This may be to bring you physical proximity to another location, or to apply an Environmental Hazard.
• At the end of the encounter, the locations and all matter belonging to them swap again.
• Remember that any sapient beings in your target location will also experience their environment swapping with yours for the length of the encounter.

• Requires: Star Pact
• Once Ever Downtime Ability
• Your Ship Heart manifests for you a powerful item. This will be a weapon, armour, or a shield.
• Discuss with the Ref Team what this item will be and what effect it will have in addition to the default effect.
• Default effect:
  • Melee Weapon - call PING to DRAIN by melee when blocking with this weapon
  • Ranged Weapon - you may charge and fire your weapon while under the effect of DRAIN
  • Armour - you gain 3 uses of PING to DRAIN
  • Shield - call PING to DRAIN that strikes your shield and call PARTY HEAL instead

• 1 minute to prepare a partner, 5 seconds to activate switch
• Gesture: (to prepare) both partners holding hands out toward each other, (to activate) point at your partner and click your fingers at the end of the time
• In advance, select a willing partner and explain this ability to them.
• During the encounter, you may swap places with your partner.
• Call YOU: WARP on your partner and WARP yourself when you do so.
• You must both move to your partner's location, then call WARP to reappear.
• This Ability cannot be modified by Overload nor granted with Meditate or Guidance.

• Once per mission, you may call TIME FREEZE and explain that the rest of the encounter is now taking place within a single second.
• Everyone continues to move and act as normal, but the world outside this encounter space is now moving extremely slowly.
• This effect ends at the end of the Encounter, or when you choose to drop it again by calling another TIME FREEZE (whichever comes first).

• Instant
• Gesture: snap your fingers
• Once per Mission you may call MONSTERS: CURSE
• You may take Severe Injuries to use Starlight Fade additional times during a Mission (once per Severe Injury).
• If successfully used twice on the same Monsters within the same encounter, the full effect of Curse will cause Monsters to slowly fade from existence.
• This Ability cannot be modified by Overload nor granted with Meditate or Guidance.

• By entering a trancelike state in which you cannot speak (though you may hum or make musical tones), you may activate this ability.
• While this ability is active, you may freely call PUSH or PULL once every 5 seconds.
• You must maintain the trance state while the ability is active.
• You may not prepare other Startouched Abilities while this ability is active.
• You may reactivate it multiple times per encounter, but there is a 60s cooldown between each use.

• 20 seconds
• Gesture: both hands twisting the air in front of you
• You twist time around your foes to slow them down and give your allies an advantage.
• Call MONSTERS: SLOW.

• 20 seconds
• Gesture: Drawing a line in the air
• Mark a line on the ground and plant yourself there.
• Gain a pool of three uses of YOU: PUSH against targets within 5m that are advancing on you, provided that you do not move from that spot.

• 10 seconds
• Gesture: Hand outstretched in the direction of your target
• You focus on your connection to a Ship Heart to restore your allies.
• Call HEAL to a target within reach.

• 10 seconds
• Gesture: Hold hand flat to chest
• You imbue your barrier with more power.
• You restore 1 hit to your Solar Barrier.

• The first time during an encounter that you lose your last hit from your Solar Barrier due to a melee strike you may reactively call ZAP back at the enemy who caused it to shatter.
• You cannot use this against ranged sources.

• 5 seconds
• Gesture: flick of the wrist
• Call MEND to a target within reach.

• You may call GAIN X where X is an effect you can call from a Startouched ability, provided you have performed the gesture for it for the appropriate length of time.
• The call must be a call you can make through gesture alone and unmodified (i.e. not modified to YOU LOT by Overload or at the end of a PULL from Darklance)
• The target must be within reach.

• Instant
• Gesture: one hand on chest, one hand outstretched toward target
• You sacrifice your own health to heal your ally.
• Take X damage to call HEAL X.
• This damage may be taken on your Solar Barrier.

• Your Solar Barrier increases in strength by 2 hits.

• Your eyes now perpetually glow with a supernatural light.
• You are able to manifest power to embue your weapons with.
• You may select abilities from the Commando Melee/Ranged Weapon Prowess or Finesse abilities and spend 2 points of your Solar Barrier (instead of 2 HP) to use them.
• You may pick this Ability multiple times to pick multiple Abilities from the Commando tree in this way.

• 30 seconds
• Gesture: hand pointing toward you heart, then to an ally, then to your heart, back and forth
• You empower yourself to sap the strength of your enemies to empower your allies.
• For the next 10s, call YOU: HEAL for each damage you inflict in melee or at range (including YOU LOT: PEW).

• 15 seconds
• Gesture: both hands over chest
• You must be uninterrupted during this time.
• Your barrier completely repairs itself, regaining all its hits.

• 5 seconds
• Gesture: wrench a piece of your barrier off and hurl it toward your target
• Your barrier flares out toward your target to devastating effect.
• Take 3 damage to your barrier, then call YOU: BREAK.
• If you do not have 3 hits left in your barrier before this, you cannot use this ability.

• While you have hits in your barrier, gain a use of PING to the last call made at you.
• If you have not yet used this PING and you are hit with a different call, it changes to PING that call instead.
• Once you have used the PING, if you still have hits in your barrier, you then gain a use of PING to the next call made on you and so on.

• When your barrier is struck in melee, you may lose 2 additional hits from your barrier in order to reactively call YOU SLOW.
• You may only do this if you have sufficient hits remaining in your barrier.

• Outside of combat you may grant your Solar Barrier to another character.
• Explain how it works to them (Commandos do not spend hits from the Solar Barrier to use Abilities, it is strictly a shield for them).
• You may use Repairing or Restoring Barrier to call YOU GAIN X BARRIER HITS to maintain the barrier for the grantee.
• You may call YOU EFFECT: LOSE BARRIER to reclaim it at any point.
• You may not use abilities that require you to have a Solar Barrier with hits on yourself while it is granted (such as Reactive Barrier or Solar Flare)
• You may only grant your barrier once per encounter.

• Requires: Solid Barrier
• Your Barrier increases in strength by another 2 hits.
• While your Barrier has hits remaining in it, you may spend 1 hit of it to PING effects that strike it in melee.

• Once per Mission, you may crystalise your Solar Barrier and form an impenetrable orb in which you are safe for later recovery.
• You may not act while in your crystalised form except to end the effect.
• You cannot be harmed except by exceptionally powerful abilities while in your crystalised form.
• You may take Severe Injuries to use Crystallise additional times during a Mission (once per Severe Injury).

• By making the gesture of holding both your arms outstretched, you may activate this ability.
• While active, call YOU: HEAL once every 5s.
• You must maintain the gesture while the ability is active.
• You may not prepare other Startouched Abilities while this ability is active.
• You may reactivate it multiple times per encounter, but there is a 60s cooldown between each use.

• Provided you have hits in your barrier, and a free hand that is not preparing an ability, you may freely call PING to YOU effects except for PEW.

• Utility Ability
• Requires: Granted Barrier
• You may use your Barrier as a mobile structure in a freeform manner.
• Out of combat, discuss with the GM what you would like to achieve with it, and you may use your barrier as a floating disk that can support up to 5 people's weight for that purpose.
• You may apply this in advance for combat use if you so wish, the GM should provide an appropriate buff.