Timeless Threats: Time Gem

Introduction

Time Gems first appeared in the hands of the Time Thieves, who used them to commit daring burglaries in the present and past. As the name implies, a Time Gem has the ability to alter time and to some extent space for a user with whom it has bonded.

Appearance

A Time Gem is a glowing amber stone, roughly oval, about 10 cm by 7cm by 5 cm.

Tactics

Time Gem users employ the Time Gem’s power to enhance their own movement and impede the mvement of others. The most powerful abilities of a Gem in that regard are Freeze, Haste, and Slow, Portal may be used to escape as well as travel to the past.

Time Gem User Characters

Extra Dice Needed: standard polyhedral set, esp. percentile.

Referees should first create statistics for the Time Gem User in the Host System.

A Time Gem cannot cross the Void Between Worlds, so each Time Gem User needs statistics for only one Host System unless the Referee assigns different Host Systems to different eras of the same World.

The Time Gem User Sheets

Time Gem User Sheet

• Name: the character’s most commonly used name.
• Faction: currently one of “Thief” of “Guardian”, but other factions in the growing Time War should appear soon …
• Gem Control: a percentile score generated from (3D6×5%). Gem Control does improve over time.

Gem Control determines how easily the user can unlock new powers, use existing ones, and defend against powers opposed to theirs.

To derive Gem Depletion and unlocked powers, roll once on the Gem Depletion table and 1D4+1 times on the Unlocked Powers table, or just pick something.

Gem Depletion

This table indicates the largest die that remains unchecked.

Unlocked Powers

Intuition is always unlocked. Re-roll duplicates.

Special Abilities

Gem Control

A Time Gem User has a Gem Control percentile, reflecting their affinity for the Time Gem. Not everyone can bond with a Time Gem. Timeless cannot, since their paranormal energies are incompatible.

Time Gem Users test their Gem Control in the following cases. As always a roll succeeds when the percentile dice are equal to or below the target value, and fails if the percentile dice are above. In these rules, a Critical Success is a success when the percentile dice show double digits. A Fumble is a failure when the percentile dice show double digits.

Activate an Unlocked Power

Under normal circumstances a Gem User can activate a Time Gem Power with only a few seconds of concentration. When under duress, e.g. in combat, the Gem User must make a Gem Control check to activate it in a single combat round. On a Fumble they cannot get the gem to work for the duration of combat; on a Critical Success they can activate the gem and take another action, over and above the actions given by the specific Gem Power.

React with a Gem Power

If the Gem User has unlocked Freeze, they may invoke it reflexively if surprised. Make a Gem Control Test. In this case a Critical Success or Fumble doesn’t matter, only success or failure.

Unlock a Power

Unlocking a new Time Gem power normally takes 1D10 hours of meditation and a successful Gem Control check. On a Critical Success, they unlock it in less than an hour. On a Fumble, they must wait 2D10 days before trying again.

Gem Operation

A Gem User can only use Powers they have Unlocked. All Gem Users unlock Intuition when they first bond with a Gem.

After every use of the Gem, the Referee makes a Depletion Check by rolling the largest unchecked die on the Gem Sheet. If that die rolls a 1 (or 01), check that die off. If there are no dice left, the Gem is completely Depleted and will no longer work.

Certain uses of the die, marked “Depletion”, always check of the next die, without rolling. These are especially draining powers useful mainly in emergencies.

Powers

These are all known Time Gem powers. Some Gem Users have unlocked others.

Blink

Seemingly disappear then reappear within line of sight of your former position. The new location must be accessible from the old one, e.g. if you appear at the top of a tower, there must be some way to climb up there. Unlike Freeze you aren’t limited by how far you can run in a minute.

Cancel

Cancel or block one use of one other Time Gem within line of sight.

Both users make a Gem Control Test. The one with the higher level of success wins. In a tie the user with the higher number on the dice wins.

Double

A second version of the Gem User appears from the future or an alternate present. Each can act independently, but any injury or condition that affects one affects both, and they share one pool of Hit Points or the equivalent.

Using this power automatically reduces the Depletion Die by one step.

Freeze

Freeze time for everyone but you for one minute or one full combat. You can touch and steal inanimate objects you can physically lift, but living creatures remain frozen in place, unaware of what’s going on unless they’re Timeless or similar creatures.

Haste

The target can take double the actions every turn for ten combat rounds. The Referee may assess bonuses due to moving so fast.

Heal

Accelerate the healing process of yourself or someone you touch, so that they experience a day’s worth of natural healing in a few seconds. Can stabilize dying subjects. Ineffective against subjects who cannot heal naturally.

Each extra day requires a further use of the Gem, and a Failure on the Gem Control check means that Heal will no longer be effective on this subject. A Fumble rewinds the subject back to their former state.

Intuition

Predict whether a course of action will end well or badly, or a little of both. This power does not factor in the actions of Timeless or other beings who live partly outside of time.

Leap

Accelerate for a regular move in a microsecond, ignoring all obstacles including pits and trapped floors. May also be used to attain vertical height, but only up to one’s regular move before one begins falling.

Moment

The Gem User rolls a die and saves the number. Later, when the Gem User or someone else rolls the same type of die, the Gem User can substitute the number they saved.

This power requires two uses of the Time Gem, one to save a value and one to use it.

Pause

You or a being you touch ceases all motion and thought for a period of time decided when you use this power, not longer than a year and a day. While in this state the being cannot be harmed by any force, and does not to breathe, eat, sleep. When the stasis ends the subject is exactly the same as they were when stasis began, with no direct knowledge of what happened.

Portal

The Gem User creates a tunnel between two times and places. The Gem User must have either visited this place (and time) before or possess a relic from this exact time and place. The tunnel will stay open for a maximum time of one minute, but the Gem User can elect to close it sooner. The tunnel will not collapse on someone or something; everything ends up on one side or the other. (50/50 chance if the Referee cannot decide.)

This power carries a significant risk of Paradox if someone changes something significant in the past.

React

Act first in a single combat round. This pre-empts initiative order and similar mechanics. If two Gem Users use this power, the winner is the one who would have gone earlier naturally.

Retake

The Gem User rerolls a die roll made in the last second. They must keep the second roll. If activated before a die roll, the Gem User may roll twice and keep the more advantages roll.

The Gem User may activate Retake as a reaction, to change someone else’s roll.

Slow

The target can take only one turn for every two combat rounds, or half the usually number of actions per combat round, for 10 rounds. The Referee may also assess penalties for moving at half speed.

Undo

Up to 1 minute (10-12 combat rounds) of play can be undone, and play resumes at the point where the rewind stopped. Timeless and other sensitive beings will know that time has been rewound, and can take different actions from the last version.

This power carries a slight risk of Paradox if information or items from the last iteration of this time segment.

View

Touch an inanimate object and know its entire history. This yields sight and sound images only. View will not reveal all an object’s paranormal abilities; it only reveals abilities used in its past and their consequences.

Backlash

Using a Time Gem in public triggers Backlash, as time travel is generally thought impossible. Time Thieves, being naturally secretive, seldom run into this problem, but someone encountering a Time Gem for the first time may want to make a “splash”.

Paradox

Paradox poses a greater risk than Backlash, since creating a temporal Paradox progresses in the following stages.

1. At first, everything seems fine. They killed Hitler (or another world’s equivalent). Time to party, yeah?

2. If the paradox is not corrected in the moment, discrepancies will crop up as soon as the responsible parties return to their time. History books will be vastly different, others upstream will start confusing old and new history. Their world will began fading away, replaced by a new one as they go.

3. Then the clock-roaches come, eating elements of the “old” timeline and terrorizing some of the populace. Two futures battle for supremacy, and only one of them survives.

4. Someone, not necessarily the responsible party, must return to the past and fix the paradox, but Time proves harder to break than mend. Multiple instances of the same travelers only worsens the problem, especially when some of them succumb to memories of the new timeline. Only Timeless seem to be able to keep memories of multiple timelines straight.

5. In the end, if nothing is done, the new future takes hold, everyone form the old future has been quietly disappeared, and consensus reality becomes even stronger.