By Garry Handelman and Colin Chapman.
The following devices are some of the latest developments of the Buro labs. Special GM permission is required to acquire them.
Looks like an enourmous one edged scimitar, with a grotesquely thick blade. It weighs 25 kg while unplugged, but only 4 kg while plugged in. The hilt is made of ARB (the AI/O optical cable comes out of the bottom), the noncutting side of the blade has tentacled gristle stuck into it, which writhes obscenely while the blade is plugged in, and the metal part of the blade is pitted and holed as if dipped in acid. While unplugged, it is useless as a weapon. While it's plugged in, you fight with it using arcanowave device and it does damage equal to your Magic + 2, it also ignores external armor, and bonuses from hard cover are halved (i.e. hard cover becomes soft cover).
If someone attacks you with a non-signature weapon in melee combat and you successfully parry with a plugged-in hellblade (i.e. they fail to hit you and you are using your arcanowave device for defense), roll an arcanowave device check immediately, with the difficulty being the attacking characters martial arts + Fu, if the roll is a success, the attacking character's weapon is broken.
You may, if you somehow acquire arcanowave and fu schticks, use fu schticks and the hellblade both at once. You may use your Martial Arts instead of your Arcanowave Device to attack when you do this, if you so desire. You cannot get magic weapon schticks for a hellblade, or designate it as a signature weapon.
This looks like a tiny sea anenome rooted into your temple with an ARB base. It does not plug into an Arcanowave device port. This device permits you to "log on" to the "dark side" of the world's chi energy. At will, you can use it to add 4 to your Mnd and all your Mnd based skills for purposes of one check, but each time you do this you gain two mutation points. Bonuses to your charisma may be mitigated if the person you are attempting to charm notices you have a bottom feeder stuck to your head ("so, charming, why are you wearing a hood?"). Called shots against the information uplink are extremely difficult (double difficulty), but if it is hit you may suffer some form of nasty brain damage or immediate mutation (GM discretion).
It also lets you communicate telepathically with demons, abominations and with other people who have information uplinks (demons and abominations without uplinks cannot initiate such communication). You suffer 1 point of mutation for each sequence you remain in communication. If you are in the 2056 juncture, you can mentally log on to the worldwide arcanowave computer network. This mutates you 1 point per sequence, and you can't get much information without an access code.
This looks like a whistle made of ARB (it is), with an AI/O optical cable coming out of it. While unplugged, it is a perfectly functional whistle. If you blow it while it's plugged in (1 shot action), everyone, including you, in a radius equal to the arcanowave device check outcome (difficulty ten) in meters around you suffers four points of impairment for the remainder of the sequence. Arcanowave based effects cannot mitigate this impairment. Abominations and Supernatural Creatures are particularly susceptible, and are affected for a number of sequences equal to the outcome.
Use this doodad with great discretion.
This appears as a piece of red crystal implanted in the body (does not plug into an AI/O port), and surrounded by a ring of ARB. If someone with a Soul Gem is killed, their body instantly disintegrates and their soul is transfered into the Gem. If someone touches the Gem, and they fail a Willpower (6) test, their soul is stuck into the Gem and the inhabitant of the Gem gets their body. The Gem falls to the ground, and presumably the body thief diposes of it. People can willingly fail the willpower test and let themselves be stripped from their body, but they must know what is going on. Someone who succeeds the test doesn't notice anything unusual about the Gem. Once a person succeeds in his/her test against a particular gem, they are immune to that individual Gems effects forever. This new Soul/Body combination has:
Body attributes, Reflex attributes, Arcanowave Schticks, Creature Abilities and type (Human, Transformed Animal or Supernatural Critter) of the old inhabitant or body.
Skill bonuses (skills may need recalculation), Fu powers, Gun and Magic shcticks of the New Inhabitant/ Soul (it may be a little difficult to find lost signature weapons). You get +0 in Arcanowave Device and/or Creature Powers once you have spent any time at all in an appropriately equiped body.
If you are stuck in the body of a transformed animal, you don't get any transformed animal schticks, but can learn them. You can't use any sorcerous abilities unless and until you get into a different body. Souls that have inhabited transformed animals stuck in soul gems can only use transformed animal schticks that are appropriate to a body they are in. It is possible to get really riotous with this doodad and scramble people's souls like nobody's business.
Ghosts, Spectres and other etheral undead souls are immune to these things. It is possible to use Magic (GM discretion; probably Fertility) to put everyone back in the right body, and the original thief back in the Gem.
The Gem is real tough, for obvious reasons, but can be destroyed (again, GM discretion).
This device resembles a large fleshy beetle whose body is a dull, pulsing, veined green sack filled with red streaked goop. It isn't plugged into an AI/O port but is instead placed over the heart where it buries its head and legs into the flesh, anchoring it securely. It then pierces the heart with a long needle like mouthpart.
When activated, by squeezing its neck, it spews the goo directly into the heart releasing a powerful steroid and adrenal stimulant. The effects last a number of sequences equal to the Outcome of an Arcanowave check; Difficulty equals your Con. During this period you receive +2 Bod and Spd modifiers as it boosts your body past its normal limits.
At the end of its effects (and it always runs its full course) you suffer 2 Wound Points for every sequence you were under its effects. This is unmodified by Tgh or armour and represents the vicious wear it afflicts on your body, heart and nervous system. It is possible for a a user to collapse after using it.
It regenerates its fluids over a 30 minute period and requires a successful Arcanowave check, Difficulty 6, to do so.
This device looks like a thick, skeletal ARB glove, crisscrossed with veins, with each finger terminating in a 8" long bone blade. It feels blunt, heavy and useless until plugged into an AI/O port. When plugged in the veins pulse, sending rivulets of red shooting through the claws, which gain a razor edge and extrude a number of barbs. Each claw attack causes Str + 5 damage, ripping out chunks of flesh that require Sorcery, or the Medicine skill of 2056 to treat. In addition it channels the blood of your opponents into you so you heal 2 Wound Points for every 10 points of damage you inflict with it. On the downside you can't hold another weapon or gun in that hand.
This looks like an insectoid grenade with a fleshy 'button' pin. To 'fill' it, you plug it into your AI/O port and make an Arcanowave check; Difficulty 6. The grenade has a resultant Str equal to the Outcome of the check.
When thrown at a foe it erupts just before impact, throwing a multitude of fleshy tendrils around the target, attempting to bind then with a Str as noted above. While bound, the target suffers impairment equal to the difference between his Str and the grenades Str. If the Str difference is 5 or greater in the grenades favour, the target is completely immobilised. Even stronger targets suffer 1 point of Impairment.
The grenades bind their target for a number of sequences equal to the Str difference in the grenades favour, or at least 1 sequence if the target is stronger. Targets may attempt to escape, using an entire sequence, by making a successful Str check against the grenade.
There is a mystic link between the character filling the grenade and the grenade itself; if anyone else attempts to throw a web grenade, it is a dud. The character who buys this schtick starts the game with 6 grenades. Targets may Dodge the grenade as normal.
Last modified: June 27, 1996; please send comments to durrell@innocence.com.