Thaumatechnology

## Anger Patch (•)

The Anger Patch is a small patch of a dead man’s skin
grafted to the base of the neck. One inch square, precisely measured, the patch
is wired with twice the number of nerve endings that area of the body usually
has. It’s hooked directly into the bloodstream, too, and it feeds from your
blood all day and all night and it does one thing in return: it hates. The
Anger Patch isn’t just a square of a dead man’s skin, it’s a square of a
vampire’s skin.

Vampires, as Cheiron scientists have observed, exhibit an
instinctual territorial aggression on a scale unprecedented in nature, and with
a little biomedical tinkering, the boys in the back room have figured out how
to harness that.

Benefit: The Anger Patch acts as a kind of automatic
vampire detector. Whenever a character with an Anger Patch becomes aware of a
vampire, the patch writhes and twitches irritably, as though the muscles under
the skin are experiencing a muscle spasm.

The character does not need to be aware the person he’s
seen is a vampire — just catching a glimpse of a pale figure across the club is
sufficient — but the Anger Patch, by virtue of being grafted into the central
nervous system, makes the character instinctively aware of who the vampire is
(or who the vampires are). The sensation lasts about a turn, just long enough
to make it hard to miss.

There are two catches to relying on the Anger Patch: first,
the Patch only works for a given user once for each vampire. Subsequent
meetings don’t trigger the visceral reaction from the patch; Cheiron scientists
haven’t been able to get the sensitivity of the neural connections to the point
where the secondary reactions are detectable to a human host.

Second, the character suffers a -1 penalty on all Social
rolls against vampires. Bloodsuckers just can’t stand him, even if they can’t
quite figure out why.

Although the vampiric version presented here is the most
common Anger Patch, Cheiron Group agents often hear rumors of similar devices
capable of detecting werewolves, zombies, or even stranger beings. If such
Thaumatechnology does exist, it functions identically to the vampire-detecting
version, just focused on a different type of creature.

And if such Thaumatechnology exists, assume that detecting
a monster type different from vampires costs an additional two dots for the
Merit. How such devices are made — and what they’re made of — probably doesn’t
bear thinking about.

## Voice of the Banshee (• or •••)

Mythology is full of wailing creatures whose voices either
lure or unnerve any who hear it (think of the Sirens or Bean Sidhes). Often
these creatures are beautiful from afar, but dreadful to approach and they
often portend death. These terrible creatures may well be rare off-shoots of
the vampire genealogic tree as they’ve been witnessed preying on desire,
breath, or age.

When a field agent came across one of these mysterious
wailing women of legend—washing what looked to be a Cheiron Group issue field
jacket in the Thames—she was quick to tranq it for the fat bonus she knew she
could earn. Shame she was struck by a bus only two days after telling the story
to the man who came by to pick up the carcass and deliver the check. The
Cheiron Group successfully extracted the vocal chords from a rare few of these
specimens and found use for them in the field.

Benefit: The stringy tendons of the vocal chords allow the
recipient to make a high-pitched keen just outside the range of human hearing.
She emits a sub-aural wave of sound that will agitate animals and deafen anyone
using supernaturally enhanced senses.

Cost 1 Willpower

Action: Instant

Dice Pool: Stamina + Expression

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The hunter strains herself trying to
swallow her tongue and force the sound from her throat. She suffers two points
of bashing damage and spends the turn hoarsely retching. Her voice is reduced
to a whisper for approximately 24 hours.

Failure: The hunter can’t muster the will necessary to emit
such sound.

Success: The hunter successfully emits a shrill keening
wail. Animals, vampires and other creatures with heightened senses cannot
concentrate for the racket, suffering a penalty to all actions for as many
turns as the hunter has breath (the hunter can continue uninterrupted for as
many turns as she has dots in Stamina or end the effect prematurely if she so
chooses). In addition, those affected suffer bashing damage equal to the number
of successes gained to active the Endowment.

Normal humans are generally untouched by the effects of
this implant. If the hunter possesses the three-dot version, those affected as
above also suffer the effects of the Depression or Melancholia derangements for
the remainder of the scene.

Exceptional Success: The wail is so damaging that all
objects within ten yards of the hunter suffer one point of Structure damage.

 Weapon of Last Resort (• or ••)

One of the basic survival tips any hunter will give you is
“never go unarmed.” Thanks to an advanced study of vampiric dentition and the
natural weaponry of a variety of monsters, the Cheiron Group has been able to
extend this maxim to any of its agents. Whether it’s an implant of weird,
razor-sharp fingertips of some unearthly metal or jagged fangs ripped from the
maw of a gibbering servitor demon, a Weapon of Last Resort can save an agent’s
life or deflect investigation of a mysterious death (“She was just ripped
apart, like a bear got her or something.”)

As an added benefit, the natural weapons of this Endowment
are easily concealable and can be taken into restricted areas. Benefit: The
hunter gains either a claw attack that allows her to make Brawl attacks that inflict
lethal damage, or a bite attack that inflicts 1(L). If the character opts for
the bite attack, he must successfully grapple first. For two dots, he gains
both attacks.

Special: Characters trying to detect a Weapon of Last
Resort that is not actively being used may make a Wits + Composure roll at a -4
penalty. If the inspecting character has reason to suspect the hunter might
have biological modifications of this sort (for example, he’s seen this
Endowment before or has crossed paths with vampires or the like), the penalty
drops to -2.

## Devil’s Eyes (••)

It’s amazing the things they can do with the human eye.
Corneal transplants can repair traumatic damage to the surface of the eye,
neurosurgeons can connect cameras directly into the optic nerve, and laser
surgery can give you perfect 20/20 vision — and the Cheiron Group can give you
the eyes of a demon that see the deepest secrets of a man’s soul.

Transplantation of the entire eyeball is a new field for
Cheiron doctors, and Devil’s Eyes are one of the early prototypes. Before the
implantation, Devil’s Eyes resemble golden, multifaceted orbs, like oversized
insect eyes. Once they’ve been implanted and hooked up to a person’s optic
nerves, they shift their pigmentation and structure, becoming indistinguishable
from the patient’s natural eyes.

No matter how bad the character’s eyes were originally,
Devil’s Eyes give him perfect 20/20 vision. Devil’s Eyes aren’t really “eyes”
in any biological sense; while they are the sensory organs of the creature they
come from, they don’t really perceive the world the way a human’s eyes do.

To allow a person to see through the Devil’s Eyes, a tiny
computerized interface chip must be implanted between the optic nerve and the
Eye themselves. The interface processes the visual information out of the image
perceived by the Eyes, filtering out extraneous data beyond the human visual
range.

The result of this post-processing gives the hunter’s
vision a ? at, artificial look, as though the whole world were a badly
retouched photograph. Benefit: By squeezing her eyes shut and rolling them in a
particular way behind the lids, a character with Devil’s Eyes can temporarily
disengage the interface chip and receive the full, unfiltered spectrum the Eyes
perceive. When active, the Eyes allow the character to perceive the emotional
auras surrounding other individuals. These auras provide insight into the
character’s emotional state, and can even reveal supernatural influences. The
Devil’s Eyes revert to their natural appearance while active.

Action: Instant.

Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The massive rush of information
overwhelms the hunter. For the rest of the scene, she cannot turn the Eyes off
and is treated as though she had ingested a potent (-3 to traits) dose of
hallucinogens.

Failure: The hunter is unable to make sense of the swirling
aura of colors around another character.

Success: For every success rolled, the hunter can clearly
discern one aura color of one individual in her line of sight. She may allocate
her successes however she likes; she might spend all of them on getting a
detailed perception of a single individual’s state of mind, or she might try a
quick read on several characters.

She discerns emotions in order of descending intensity.
Aura signifiers that encompass the entire aura (that is, signifiers that are not
just individual colors) are perceived automatically with at least one success.

Exceptional Success: As ordinary success, but the total
number of successes rolled is applied to all characters in line of sight.

Example: Angeline, infiltrating a cult ceremony in the
Philadelphia sewers, activates her Devil’s Eyes to get a sense of the
congregation’s state of mind. She rolls four successes and allocates two of
them to the priest performing the ritual, with the remaining two allocated to
the two cultists closest to her. The Storyteller informs her that the high
priest’s aura is a muted, hypnotic swirl of bright green and violet, while the
two nearest cultists have gold auras. The two successes for the high priest
show her his obsession and excitement, while the one each for the two cultists
reveals their confusion. In addition, she automatically recognizes the high
priest’s psychotic nature — and, interestingly, the fact that he’s under
supernatural control.

## Ectocrine Gland (••)

When a materialized spirit is forced back into the spirit
world or killed, it sometimes leaves behind a gooey, semi-material fluid that
is referred to as ectoplasm (the same substance sometimes left behind by
ghosts). Even though ectoplasm dissipates quickly in the material realm and is
near impossible to gather samples of, the Cheiron Group has managed to conduct
some experiments with the stuff.

The experiment that eventually led to the creation of the
Ectocrine Gland featured a quick-thinking field agent and a syringe. After
defeating a materialized spirit that had somehow escaped containment and was
wreaking havoc in a graveyard, the agent scooped up some of the ectoplasm left
by the spirit.

Noticing that the ectoplasm was dissipating and not wanting
to miss an opportunity to experiment with the substance, the agent poked some
of it into a syringe and injected himself. Subsequent to his release from the
mental ward, the agent reported that after the injection he had been able to
see non-corporeal ghosts and spirits (those existing in the state of Twilight).

Not long after the results of that experiment had been
filed, a different team of scientists sent a report to the Cheiron head office
that claimed they had detected trace amounts of ectoplasm in the blood stream
of a girl who had been the victim of possession. Seeking a way to verify these
new claims, Cheiron ran a battery of tests on a kidnapped spiritualist.

They discovered that the spiritualist also had trace
amounts of ectoplasm in his blood and, more exciting than that, his body seemed
to manufacture the stuff. Following further months of experimentation along
with trial and error, Cheiron discovered a way to manufacture a gland that
would release ectoplasm into the bodies of their agents. The result? The
Ectocrine Gland.

Benefit: By concentrating, the hunter can activate the
Ectocrine Gland. This allows him to see into Twilight and communicate (though
not physically interact) with non-manifested entities. This effect lasts for
one scene and the gland can produce enough ectoplasm to be used a number of
times each day equal to the Stamina of the hunter.

The things that dwell in Twilight aren’t forced to
communicate with the hunter and the gland doesn’t bestow the ability to
understand any languages beyond those already spoken by the hunter. Drawback:
While the hunter gazes into Twilight it can be difficult to concentrate on
events going on around him.

The concentration required to separate what is “real” from
what is Twilight results in a -2 penalty to all Perception rolls. Additionally,
the presence of ectoplasm in his bloodstream also makes the hunter an easier
target for possession. For an hour after the Ectocrine Gland is activated, the
hunter is penalized -2 dice to resist possession.

## Lover’s Lips (••)

This implant isn’t literally a pair of lips and, in fact,
the Cheiron Group’s official designation for it is “Eros’ Caress.” The truth is
less poetic: “Lover’s Lips” are actually manufactured sacs, resembling nothing
so much as a snake’s venom sacs. They’re made from the latest in synthetic skin
technology, with just a little something extra harvested from what passes for a
vampire’s circulatory system.

The whole thing is filled with a few cc’s of blood — not
necessarily the implantee’s — then implanted under the jaw, right alongside the
salivary gland. When the hunter massages just behind his jaw and below his
ears, the blood, partially transformed by the vampiric tissue, squirts into his
mouth. It tastes vile, but when someone else gets a taste of it, usually
through a kiss, they suddenly become very fond of the hunter.

Benefit: When another character tastes the blood secreted
by this implant, it induces a mild euphoric effect, as though she has taken a
hit of morphine. This euphoric state lasts only for a scene, not the (8 minus
Stamina) hours of a real morphine hit.

She becomes well disposed toward the implanted character,
who gains the benefit of the 9-again rule on Social rolls against her for the
next scene. If a single individual tastes blood from the same character’s
implant more than once in a single month, she becomes mildly addicted to the
taste of the blood.

In addition, her affection for him deepens; he gains a +1
bonus on all Social rolls against the victim as long as she has tasted his
blood within the past month. This bonus is in addition to the 9-again benefit
that lasts for a scene after each taste. An Eros’ Caress implant can only hold
enough blood for a single “dose” at a time.

In order to use the implant again, the hunter must refill
it by injecting a small amount of blood directly into the implant. The blood
can be human (either the hunter’s or someone else’s) or animal, but a
successful injection requires a Dexterity + Medicine roll to hit the implant.

## Berserker Splice (•••)

No one that has had a close encounter with a werewolf can
help but remember the primal fury exhibited by the creatures. Wounds that would
be fatal to a human simply serve to enrage a werewolf and that anger gives them
strength. The scientists of the Cheiron Group have studied both the human looking
remains of werewolves and have performed dissections on still-living specimens
(a trickier proposition) searching for, among other things, a physiological
reason for a werewolf’s rage.

When their data was compiled, the scientists noticed that
every one of the werewolves studied had an enlarged medulla oblongata.
Believing they had found the answer to the riddle, the scientists performed a
transplant on a willing (hey, no one made him sign the waiver) Cheiron field
agent, replacing his human medulla oblongata with one taken from a werewolf.

The results were spectacular, if messy. Upon awakening
after the surgery, the agent attacked anyone he could get his hands on, killing
11 Cheiron employees with his bare fists and teeth before he was subdued. Tapes
of the incident suggested that the subject exhibited increased strength and
fortitude. Later examinations of the body revealed the subject had been shot
nine times before he collapsed.

Despite the mishap, the scientists in charge of the program
were eager to continue with their project and with comparatively minor losses
to the company (only around 50 employees were killed all told) eventually
perfected a stable transplant procedure. Instead of a direct transplant, the
scientists carved off small sections of a werewolf’s medulla oblongata and
spliced them directly into the sensory and motor areas of a subject’s cerebral
cortex.

When stimulated by adrenaline produced during the
fight-or-flight instinct, the splices became active and pumped additional
chemicals into the body that increased natural strength and physical
resiliency. The program was declared a success by the head office and
instructions on the procedure were disseminated throughout the company and its
subsidiaries.

Benefit: Whenever the hunter is in a dangerous situation,
the adrenaline produced by the stress activates the Berserker Splice. For the
remainder of the scene, a hunter with the implant gains two Strength plus an
additional +1 Strength for every point of lethal damage taken (this ignores
normal human Attribute limits) and gains the Iron Stamina ••• Merit whether he
meets the prerequisites or not. (The advantages during a fight are obvious, but
in flight situations remember that the Speed of the character is also increased
by the boost in Strength.)

Drawback: Other than suffering from a ravenous hunger after
the implant is activated, agents with a Berserker Splice also have a tendency
to, well, go berserk. While the Splice is active, each time the agent takes two
or more points of lethal damage from a single attack he must succeed at a
Resolve + Composure roll or fly into a killing rage or cowardly retreat
(player’s choice).

The hunter is unable to tell friend from foe while in the
rage and will attack the closest target if the player chooses a “fight”
response. The berserker rage lasts for a number of turns equal the Stamina
rating of the hunter, after which the splice shuts down and the hunter
collapses from exhaustion (count the hunter as stunned for a number of turns
equal to those spent in the rage).

Cells that have prior warning about this possible “side
effect” can plan accordingly for this eventuality by attempting to stay out of
the line of sight of a hunter with the implant during combat.

## Cortical Adaptation (•••)

Some slashers are driven to kill because of a condition
that affects their brain. In at least three recorded cases, tertiary syphilis
destroyed the moral center of the subject’s brain and caused powerful delusions
that drove the individual to kill. In other cases, large tumors destroy the
subject’s impulse control and punch great holes in her ability to make moral
judgments.

Cheiron’s R&D harvests alien parts of these tumors and
implants the resultant lesions on the surface of a hunter’s brain. Every hunter
reacts differently to having part of a cancerous (and murderous) growth
attached to their brain during extensive and invasive surgery.

In effect, the hunter can “switch on” a part of her
personality that makes her think in the same way as a slasher, giving her an
unparalleled insight into the thoughts of a serial killer.

Her thoughts resonate with others of her new kind; she can
use her understanding to read the scene of a murder in ways that no profiler or
investigator can manage. She’s got an intuitive understanding of murder, and it
shows. The real magic behind this Endowment is an inhibitor chip that sits
between the lesion and the hunter’s brain.

The chip does more than let the hunter switch a new mode of
thought on and off: even when emulating a slasher’s mind, the hunter remains in
control. It’s more than a little unsettling for the hunter, seeing herself
thinking in alien ways that suddenly seem so tempting. The chip helps her
retain control. Reports that the inhibitor chip dissolves after three years of
swimming in cerebral fluid are so far unconfirmed — few hunters have lasted
that long with the implant in place.

Benefit: By spending a point of Willpower, the hunter can
think in the same way as a slasher. She gains a three-dice bonus on
Investigation or Empathy rolls regarding serial killers and other murderers.

When “in the zone,” she understands things as a serial
killer does, and her impulse control and moral centers are affected. The
implant remains active until the end of the scene.

A hunter with this implant must choose a ripper Undertaking
for his slasher-self (see Building the Perfect Killer, pg. 87). She chooses two
of that Undertaking’s Skills.

She gains one new Specialty in one of these Undertaking
Skills, and may increase these Skills at a rate of (new dots x2) rather than
(new dots x 3).

Special: Using this implant generates a strong sense of
disassociation — the hunter watches her own thought processes, things that she
knows she is thinking, and doesn’t recognize them at all. The hunter suffers a
-1 penalty to all rolls made to resist Morality degeneration. If the Cortical
Adaption is removed, this effect does not remain. It’s also worth mentioning
that hunters with this implant suffer a high rate of malignant cancers throughout
the body… though, Cheiron doesn’t share this data with its employees, of
course.

## Evil Eye (•••)

The eyes are the windows to the soul, so says the proverb.
Field agents who have seen what vampires can do to a man just by looking him in
the eye believe those words wholeheartedly. The mavericks of the Cheiron Group
thought to prove the expression beyond reasonable doubt, however. Any fool with
a scalpel can pluck the eye from someone’s head, but to lock the soul inside
the eye beforehand? Well, that’s why they get paid the big bucks.

For whatever reason, the method used to extract the eye
while maintaining the inherent abilities of the creature causes the awful
discoloration and unsightliness. They say it’s because the twisted soul of the
creature becomes trapped inside. The surgeons of the Cheiron Group are still
investigating ways to make a more… fashionable version, but so far, efforts
have failed. These sightless milky eyes are able to replicate a vampire’s
ability to sway the minds of others to a limited degree.

Unfortunately, true to name it has proven difficult to look
at conversationally, and is most often politely covered by an eye patch. When
needed, the field agent simply flips up the eye patch to reveal to her
opponents her awful ocular addition.

Benefit: The hunter has replaced one of her eyes with a
bloated and milky abomination; appropriately, she suffers from the One Eye Flaw
and -2 to any Social rolls where the eye is exposed. She may choose one of the
following Dread Powers at one dot: Confuse, Fury, Hypnotize, Sleep or Terrify
(all found pp. 276-283 in Hunter: The Vigil).

Special: The character may purchase additional dots of the
Dread Power chosen, to a maximum of three dots. The cost is new dots x 8 in
experience points. Additional powers cannot be chosen (unless the character
chooses to lose the second eye, which would render her totally blind).

## Optic Thorn (•••)

This implant—which pierces the optic nerve of the left eye,
and only the left eye (sinister is from sinestra, or Latin for “left”)—isn’t a
thorn at all. It’s a tiny bone spur sculpted to look very much like a thorn.
Those who have this implant generally don’t know where it comes from.

If they ask or get an MRI/X-Ray, they’ll see or be told
that this “thorn” was pulled from the photosynthetic flesh of a ?oral- or
fungal-based “reality deviant” (in other words: a fae creature). Patently not
true. The truth is, it’s a bone chip from another hunter. Specifically, a
hunter of the Lucifuge.

For the most part, the higher-ups in the Field Projects
Division don’t differentiate Lucifuge hunters from demons or the
demon-possessed; yes, they seem committed to carrying the Vigil, but they’re
clearly supernatural, and that supernature is carried through the physical
blood. If their blood is monstrous, then so is the rest of their bodies. That
makes them harvest targets.

The bone chip is taken from around the eye socket of the
Lucifuge—chipped away with a chisel, perhaps, with enough material taken so
that one or several thorns can be “whittled” down from the sample. It doesn’t
require the hunter be killed, of course. Bone damage, however, is not pleasant,
nor does it heal easily.

Benefit: The FPD agent is now capable of seeing other
supernaturally-augmented hunters for what they are. This requires no roll and
is considered “always on.” This allows the Cheiron hunter to automatically see
hunters of the Lucifuge. In addition, they can see hunters currently using an
active Relic or those who have imbibed or ingested an Elixir (Ascending Ones).

This does not help the hunter to differentiate between
them—it only identifies them as a supernaturally-augmented hunter. It also
fails to help the agent identify members of VALKYRIE, or any hunter of the AKD
or Ascending Ones not currently using a Relic or Elixir.

## Personal Defense Swarm (•••)

The Cheiron Group’s scientists still aren’t entirely sure
how to explain the function of this implant, and the very nature of where it
comes from remains top secret. Rumor has it that a team in Bucharest (or maybe
Prague, or Vienna, or somewhere else) found some weird little monster that
turned into an ugly little metal statue as soon as they caught it. They say the
boys in the back room figured out what made it fall inert, and how to revive
it.

Then they melted it down into little ball bearings, coated
the pieces with hypoallergenic aluminum, and jabbed them into hunters’ arms.
The tiny metal spheres are embedded in the subcutaneous tissue of the forearm.
A small valve, similar to the one some dialysis patients use, is implanted near
the base of the palm.

After the hunter comes out of recovery, he’s given a small,
black satchel that contains five syringes of an extremely diluted solution of a
substance rumored to be wrung from the organs of unnaturally animated corpses.
Whatever that substance is, those little ball bearings feed on it. For lack of
a better word, they hatch. When the hunter opens that valve in his wrist, a
swarm of tiny, angry insects come boiling out and attack whatever the hunter’s
mad at. The bugs look like little yellow jackets — except for the fact that
each one has the exact same human face.

Benefit: Activating requires only a drop from the
prodigious syringe, and it takes a while for the hunter to run dry. Assume each
syringe is good for five activations (for a total of 25 activations per
satchel). Cheiron will resupply syringes, but it can take up to two weeks (less
for those with Status 3 or more in the conspiracy). The swarm of
insect-creatures spawned by this implant has a rudimentary connection to their
host’s neurological systems.

While they cannot be communicated with or controlled
directly, they recognize their host’s feelings of anger and hostility, and will
attack targets that trigger those emotions. (It’s best to be careful with this.
One story making the Cheiron rounds tells of a hunter who found out his partner
was having an affair with his wife. Their cell faced off against some shambling
thing made of tatters and rags and grief given form, and our cuckolded lover
let loose his PDS — which promptly killed the hell out of his cheating partner
while the monster mopped up the rest of the cell.)

The swarm only retains this connection while it is inert
and implanted in the host; thus, it’s wisest to wait until a fight begins to
activate this Endowment.

The swarm attacks creatures in order of the intensity of
the aggression they provoke in the host, and focuses its attack on one enemy at
a time until its target is dead or driven off. The swarm never strays more than
10 yards from its host. The swarm has a radius of four yards (see the sidebar
on this page) and inflicts bashing damage.

It moves at a Speed of 10. The swarm remains active for 10
turns, then immediately returns to its host and squeezes back into the valve
before falling inert again. If the swarm is unable to return to its host, it
returns to its inert state and falls to the ground. Provided at least three
quarters of the ball bearings can be recovered, they can be reimplanted with no
roll (simply plug the bearings back into the shunt).

Should the swarm take damage sufficient to reduce it to
less than one yard in radius, the remaining insects flee back to their host.
Cheiron Group doctors insist that once the swarm goes inert, it falls
completely lifeless, but that doesn’t explain the fact that the things can
repopulate themselves. It takes one full day of remaining inert (i.e., the
hunter does not activate this Merit) to increase a depleted swarm’s size by one
yard radius. The swarm can be activated at less than full size, if desired.

## Quick-Step (•••)

The Cheiron Group expects nothing less than success from
its field agents. The Group’s continued research success relies on monsters
being brought in alive (well, intact, at any rate) for study and harvest. But
science is a pragmatic study, and the Cheiron board of directors knows that
sometimes

C you just have to get the hell away and live to fight
again. To that end, they developed the Quick-Step. Half-manufactured,
half-grown from the ligaments of swiftly running monsters (werewolves, some
vampires, certain demonic entities), Quick-Steps give even an ordinary man the
ability to shatter Olympic records. It might even be enough to let him get away
from the things in the shadows.

Benefit: A character with a Quick-Step implant gets a +3
bonus to his Speed. This bonus stacks with the bonus from Fleet of Foot, if
applicable. In addition, the hunter gains the benefit of the 9-again rule on
any Athletics rolls related to moving quickly, such as foot chases. Finally, if
the character runs (moving double his Speed in a single turn), he may retain
his Defense against firearms attacks.

Special: Using the Quick-Step quickly fatigues the
character. Every turn in which he uses the 9-again benefit on Athletics rolls
or moves more than his Speed counts as three hours without rest. Apply this
fatigue at the end of the current scene, and only roll Stamina + Resolve to
stay awake once.

For example, if a hunter has been awake for 12 hours, then
engages in a six-turn foot chase during which he gains the 9-again rule on
Stamina + Athletics rolls, he is treated as though he has been awake for 30
hours. He must roll Stamina + Resolve at a -1 penalty or immediately fall
asleep, and he suffers a -1 penalty to all dice pools until he sleeps for nine
hours. The character may choose not to gain the 9-again rule on his actions if
he wishes to avoid the fatigue.

## Agonizer (••••)

Witches power their magic with energies from worlds beyond
our own, and warlocks marshal powers that no sane man can fully comprehend.
They’re not the only ones in tune with otherworldly power. Sometimes, magic
isn’t the only thing to cross between worlds. Impressive magical acts
occasionally bring unearthly creatures into being. While the range of creatures
that crawl between the cracks of the world is vast, Cheiron agents recovered a
number of unearthly creatures that feast on magical power.

They’ve found enough that R&D believe they have to come
from somewhere, but nobody’s quite sure where. Some appear very similar,
suggesting that they’re not created ex nihlio but are instead fauna of some
alien Realm. One such beast turns humans into thaumovores — magic-eaters.

On its own the creature is no bigger than a cockroach, but
it soon chooses a human host and burrows in through the base of the throat.
Working through the host’s body, it soon attaches itself to its target’s brain.
Once it’s there, the bug spins new nerve fibers out through the host’s body.

These fibers act as an antenna, picking up on ambient
magical fields and sucking them dry. The host starts acting odd, researching
weird places and occult sites at the bug’s insistence.

Even then, parasites that Cheiron don’t recover die out.
There isn’t much magical energy just lying around. The Cheiron Group aren’t
monsters. They don’t expect their field operatives to give up any part of their
brain in the name of killing witches. That would be wrong. The biotech guys
came up with a better idea. They trim the nerve-antennas and attach them to
four half-inch metal spikes, then implant the bug on the outside of the
hunter’s right arm.

Each spike lies flat just under the hunter’s right palm.
Flexing her wrist just so makes the spikes spring out. When they do, the area
of palm between them turns the color of old blood. A hunter has to keep her
Agonizer happy. She can walk through an area suffused with magical energy, and
the residual nerve-antenna might pick up enough magic to sate the bug. More
often, she has to stick the spikes into a witch’s skin.

The Agonizer then eats the magic out of her victim’s soul,
crippling the victim with pain as it does so. If she doesn’t keep her Agonizer
happy, the hunter knows just how her victims feel.

Benefit: The Agonizer eats magic. There’s no other way to
put it. It can either draw magic out of areas steeped in magic, which usually
keeps it happy for a week, or it must feed on the Source stored within a witch.
Attacking with the Agonizer requires the hunter to touch her target: Dexterity
+ Brawl - target’s Defense.

The bug doesn’t deal damage normally. Instead, every
success on the attack roll drains one point of Source. If the target doesn’t
have enough Source, extra successes are lost. For every point of Source
consumed, the target suffers a -1 penalty due to crippling pain (to a maximum
of -5). This penalty lasts until the end of the scene. If used on a target that
does not have any reserves of Source, the Agonizer has no effect.

Special: The Agonizer must consume one point of Source per
week, either from a witch or from a magical area. The hunter suffers a
cumulative -1 penalty on all rolls per day once the week is over (to a maximum
of -5). Feeding the Agonizer instantly removes this penalty.

Example: Oscar’s had a bad week. His Agonizer ran dry on
Monday, and by Wednesday night he’s in intense pain. Fortunately, his cell has
got a lead on a witch. The others distract her while Jack plunges his barbed
palm into her back. He gets lucky, rolling two successes even with his -3 modifier.
The witch loses her two points of Source, and suffers a -2 modifier on all
rolls until the end of the scene. Oscar stops suffering the -3 modifier
immediately.

## Plasmic Caul (••••)

Some ghosts are… different. Cheiron has yet to identify
exactly why they’re different, but what they do know is that they tend to be:
a) more powerful; b) without a human identity (while possessing an identity
that is more archetypal than anything); and c) able to forge some kind of
symbiotic bond with a human.

Cheiron also recognizes that these things can be “killed,”
in a manner of speaking, and destroying them seems to leave behind a physical
artifact—some displacement of matter, perhaps, or some object manifestation of
ectoplasmic residue. The artifact might be a sliver of wood, an ivory horn, a
bezoar stone, even a set of gold teeth. Many even have faces (or parts of
faces) imprinted into them, as if pushing through from “the other side.”

The fine doctors of the Field Projects Division have
learned how to break these objects apart and implant a “seed” of the original
object into the thalamus of one of their Thaumatech endowed hunters. In theory,
it should be a huge benefit for Cheiron employees. In theory… Benefit: This is
all a little new to the doctors. The problem is, they don’t really know what
the final end result of the implantation process will be.

Two things are certain: one, it offers the hunter the
ability to see ghosts that are concealed in the state of Twilight, and two, it
grants them +1 dice on any roll made regarding a ghost (communication,
exorcism, attack, etc.). Beyond that, the results are… unpredictable. The
hunter gains a secondary effect by spending a point of Willpower (and the
effect lasts for the remainder of one scene).

An ectoplasmic caul forms over the hunter’s face, and the
caul reacts to the world in specific ways, manifesting specific effects.
Players should choose one effect below from the following list (though, if the
Endowment is installed during the story, the player is encouraged to allow the
Storyteller to determine the ability, instead):

-Blood: Those within ten feet
of the hunter suffer stigmata bleeding (hands, side, forehead). This causes
either one point of Willpower loss to all of them, or two points of bashing
damage (the player chooses).

-Dirt: The caul leaks runny
mud and clods of clay that smell of the grave. In one turn, it covers the
hunter’s body for the most part—and offers two dots of armor against incoming
bashing and lethal attacks.

-Emotion: Whatever the hunter
is feeling at that moment, so is everybody else near to him (within 50 feet).
They possess the exact same emotion. They gain +3 Empathy on all rolls made on
one another.

-Fire: The hunter is protected
from all fire damage for the remainder of the scene.

-Howl: The caul is capable of
emitting a screeching primal howl—the hunter must roll Strength + Presence.
Successes gained on the roll equal a penalty to Perception for all who hear the
howl (excepting the hunter herself). In addition, it does one point of bashing
damage to them, as well.

-Hush: A zone of silence
surrounds the hunter in a space equal to a radius of five feet around her. Any
Stealth rolls based on sound within this space gain +5 dice, as do any attempts
to surprise within this zone.

-Sight: The hunter is capable
of seeing things in ways nobody else likely will; any success on a sight-based
Perception roll is considered an exceptional success.

-Static: The hunter emits a
static discharge from the caul. Any electronic objects within five feet of his
face cease to work for 24 hours.

-Water: The hunter can hold his
breath underwater for one full scene.

-Wind: A sharp, cold,
inconsistent wind whips around the hunter, carrying with it all manner of
debris. It adds two to the hunter’s Defense for the scene.

## Regenerative Nodule (••••)

As good as the Cheiron Group’s doctors are, they aren’t
even close to the recuperative abilities of some of the monsters they track
down. Werewolves in particular are obscenely fast healers — so fast, in fact,
that sometimes their bodies overcompensate and form little cysts that Cheiron
Group medics have termed “regenerative nodules.”

As far as the wolves know, they’re harmless, but Cheiron
got hold of a few through some very questionable means, and now the boys in the
back room have figured out how to harness the things’ potential and turn it
loose on the human body. A Regenerative Nodule looks like a rubbery lump of
scar tissue the size of a golf ball. Before they put it in you, Cheiron
scientists put a little plastic shunt into the core of the nodule — a tricky
proposition since the incision heals over almost instantly.

When it’s sewn into the lining of your gut, it’s almost
invisible, even though you can still feel the lump. Give that lump a press, and
the shunt puckers open and dumps into your system pure…well, whatever the hell
makes werewolves heal so fast. Benefit: In addition to pressing on the lump of
the implant, the character must spend a Willpower point to activate the Nodule.

Once activated, the nodule heals the character’s injuries
at a terrifying rate: one point of bashing damage heals every turn, while one
lethal wound disappears every 15 minutes. This healing is reflexive, and the
accelerated healing rate lasts until all bashing and lethal wounds have been
healed.

Once the character’s Health boxes are entirely free of
bashing or lethal wounds, the Regenerative Nodule is completely spent. It falls
inert and cannot be activated again for one week.

The Regenerative Nodule has no affect on aggravated damage.
Special: Werewolves draw the energy to heal themselves from some as-yet-unknown
metaphysical source. Ordinary people, lacking such a source, must fuel the
regeneration with their own bodies. Every point of bashing damage the Nodule
heals counts as one day without food. Every lethal wound healed counts as one
day without food or water.

If the character suffers damage from this deprivation, the
Regenerative Nodule does not (and cannot) heal it, and still shuts down after
all wounds not inflicted by deprivation are healed. Many hunters, while
healing, eat voraciously to try to stave off damage from deprivation. Doing so
necessitates the hunter gorge on food and liquid constantly (doing nothing else
during the healing time) and without interruption.

## Twitcher (••••)

It looks harmless enough — like a little stick bug made out
of wires and protein sacs filled with a pink goo. It wriggles a little bit when
disturbed, even before it’s implanted. When they stick it in the base of your
spine, it curls around your spinal column and nests there, pumping pure nervous
energy into you.

When your life is in danger, it twitches, massaging your
spinal cord and ramping your reflexes up to a terrifying degree. That’s almost
worth the nightmares, and the crushing sense of paranoia that comes along with
them.

Benefit: A character with a Twitcher implant uses the
higher of his Wits or Dexterity to determine his Defense, instead of the lower
of the two. When surprised, or attacked by an unseen foe, the hunter uses the
lower of his Dexterity or Wits as Defense, even though a normal person would be
denied Defense completely. The Twitcher has no effect on Firearms attacks
except at point blank range.

Special: Each night when a character with a Twitcher
implant goes to sleep, he must roll Resolve + Composure versus the implant’s
dot rating (4 dice). If the character earns more successes, he sleeps
peacefully and regains a point of Willpower as normal.

If the implant gets more successes, his sleep is wracked
with nightmares of being endlessly hunted, always a hair’s breadth away from
death. These nightmares prevent the hunter from regaining a point of Willpower
from restful sleep. In addition, any time the character is surprised in combat,
he must succeed on a Morality roll or develop a temporary Suspicion derangement
that lasts for the rest of the scene.

If the character already has this derangement, it
temporarily becomes a Phobia instead.

## Vitriol Pump (••••)

A Vitriol Pump is similar to the external insulin pump that
some diabetics use. It is a small, plastic device, about the size of a deck of
cards, worn on an underarm harness with a tube leading into the hunter’s side.
When necessary, the hunter pushes a button on a remote control (usually worn on
the belt or wrist) and releases a cocktail of low-grade sedatives, saline
solution, and a tiny amount of vitriol into her bloodstream.

The vitriolic mixture grants the hunter access to past
successes. Also, it allows her to activate muscle memory, which is related to a
moment when she acted correctly, to take over a current endeavor.

From the hunter’s perspective, she experiences the sensory
memory of that past success, along with a flood of memories that aren’t hers.
These memories belong to the Promethean whose vitriol runs through the hunter’s
veins.

Benefit: When activated, the Vitriol Pump allows the player
to add three successes to a roll, drawing on memories of when the character did
something similar, and did it flawlessly. Because of this, the Vitriol Pump can
only help with Skill rolls that have a physical component and a rating of three
dots or more. (Usually these rolls related to Physical Skills, but there are
some exceptions to this.)

If the target roll fails, the Vitriol Pump’s successes have
no effect; the Pump cannot turn a failure into a success. A Vitriol Pump holds
enough liquid for three doses before it needs to be refilled; this takes at
least a week to allow for shipping and remixing the cocktail.

## Banality Worm (•••••)

There are dimensions beyond this world that we perceive
with our limited five senses. The Cheiron Group knows this, even if it doesn’t
entirely understand the how and why of such places. Sometimes, though, things
leak through from those other worlds, and Cheiron agents find them. The
resulting experiments are very...enlightening.

The Banality Worm is one such creature, crawled through a
rift in the wall between this world and another. As near as anyone can tell,
the realm this pale, greasy little creature came from is the very antithesis of
this one, a realm of pure, absolute nothing.

And in this world, it hates the supernatural even more than
the most fanatic of hunters. Hatred of magic seems to be embedded into its very
being; sorceries of all sorts tend to dissolve when directed at the Worm. It
didn’t take long to realize that if you stitch the Banality Worm into someone’s
chest cavity, magic directed at the host would unravel, too. A Banality Worm is
implanted in an extremely risky procedure directly under the host’s heart.

Once implanted, the creature nestles up to the warm,
pulsating organ and suckles on it, feeding off the host’s blood supply. Every
so often, it curls around the heart and squeezes. Benefit: The host of a
Banality Worm gains an extraordinary resistance to supernatural effects. Any
time a supernatural effect targets him (including the Relic, Benediction and
Castigation Endowments), the effect’s originator subtracts the host’s Resolve
from her dice pool.

If the power is already resisted by Resolve, she subtracts
double the host’s Resolve. Special: Something about having a cold, alien
parasite from a realm of pure nihilism cozied up to his heart skews the host’s
moral perceptions a bit. Whenever he makes a degeneration roll, the host rolls
one less die.

## Hand of Glory (•••••)

Limb transplant technology has come a long way in the last
40 years. It used to be the best you could hope for was a plastic model, like a
mannequin’s hand. Nowadays, provided you’re willing to go on a cocktail of
immunosuppressants for the rest of your life, they can actually hack the hand
off a cadaver and attach it to you almost as good as new. The Cheiron Group has
been at the forefront of limb-replacement research for two decades, and with
the aid of Thaumatechnology had recorded successes five years before mainstream
medical technology.

Then the boys in the back room got hold of a peculiar
little relic a field team brought back from a raid on a demon worshiping cult
in southern France: a pickled human hand, severed at the wrist, with each finger
a tiny candle. When the candle was lit, anyone who saw its light was transfixed,
unable to move or speak.

In one of those serendipitous moments that make the world
go round, the scientists of the Cheiron Group saw a way to kill two birds with
one proverbial stone. A Hand of Glory must be affixed to the stump of a human
being’s arm. Occult tradition dictates that it must be a left hand specifically,
but Cheiron Group surgeons have had equal success in transplanting either hand.
What is important is that the hand come from a hanged man or woman and be at
least partially pickled in a solution of bizarre alchemical reagents.

By all rights, it should be impossible to graft such
thoroughly necrotized flesh onto a living being without massive infection and
death, but something in the nature of the Thaumatechnology allows the grafted
limb to function normally. It’s always a few degrees cooler than the rest of
the body, and the skin is perpetually wrinkled as though it has soaked in a
bath, but it is otherwise indistinguishable from a normal hand.

Benefit: Apart from restoring the use of an amputated hand,
the Hand of Glory bestows upon its owner the mesmeric power of the folkloric
corpse-candle. The hunter must light the ends of the Hand’s fingers (he takes
no damage from this, and the fire doesn’t consume his flesh) to activate it.
The resultant flames are preternaturally steady and unwavering, and cannot be
put out save by be being doused in milk.

Anyone who sees the flames of the Hand of Glory risks being
rendered immobile and insensate as long as the flames remain visible. While the
candles burn, the character suffers a -2 penalty to any rolls related to manual
dexterity using that hand. The flames are too small to inflict damage or be
used as a weapon, but they can ignite flammable objects like paper or fabric.
Dice Pool: Presence + Composure vs. Resolve.

The Hand’s owner rolls once and compares his result to the
result of all witnesses. Each time a new group of witnesses sees the Hand, the
owner rolls once and compares his result to all of the witnesses’.

Action: Contested.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The Hand of Glory’s power is turned on
its owner. He is mesmerized (see “Success” for details) until someone forcibly
breaks his line of sight to the Hand.

Failure: Any character in line of sight who earns more
successes on the contested action is unaffected by the Hand of Glory.

Success: Any character (including the hunter’s allies) in
line of sight who rolls fewer successes than the hunter is rendered immobile
and can do nothing save stare, transfixed, at the Hand of Glory.

The hunter may move, speak, or take actions freely without
breaking the spell, as long as the flames are kept in the victim’s line of
sight. Remember that the victim is completely immobile and cannot turn to
follow the Hand of Glory. In order to be affected, the victim must see the
flames themselves, not just the light from them. If the victim is attacked, or
threatened with attack, the spell is immediately broken.

A victim normally only rolls against an individual Hand of
Glory once per scene. If the initial resistance roll succeeds, or if the spell
is broken, that character is immune to the Hand’s effects for the remainder of
the scene. The Hand’s owner may spend a point of Willpower to affect a given
character more than once in the same scene (one Willpower is required per
successive attempt per person).

Mesmerized characters have no memory of events that
transpire in their presence while mesmerized. They do recall the character with
the Hand of Glory being the last thing they saw before blacking out. The Hand’s
owner may spend Willpower to erase even this trace of his presence: for every
affected character he wishes to forget having seen him, he may spend a point of
Willpower when the effect is broken to wipe his presence from their minds.

Provided he leaves their line of sight immediately, they
will retain no recollection of him at all. This is an exception to the rule
that a character may only spend one Willpower per turn. Photographs or video
recordings do not convey the Hand’s effects to viewers, but live video feeds
such as security cameras do.

Exceptional Success: As a success, but all affected
characters automatically forget the hunter without need for Willpower
expenditure.