Knucklebones

Table of Contents
Sub Item 3 (H5)
Primary Item (trait-run-in)

Mag­ic knuck­le­bones implant­ed in the hand con­fer the wield­er ter­rif­ic pow­ers.

Unless stat­ed oth­er­wise, acti­vat­ing a knuck­le­bone takes 1 action, in per­il.

Blood salts

Knuck­le­bones con­sume organ­ic salts from your blood­stream, trans­mut­ing them into ener­gies and chem­i­cal prod­ucts. There exist three cat­e­gories of salt:

com­mon also known as Phos­phates. nat­u­ral­ly plen­ti­ful.
Base­line: 12. ful­ly restored by meals.
trace nat­u­ral­ly present in small quan­ti­ties.
base­line: 6. restored by 3 with each meal. 
tox­ic not nat­u­ral­ly present in any usable quan­ti­ty.
Base­line: 0. not nat­u­ral­ly restored.

When acti­vat­ed, a knuck­le­bone con­sumes quan­ti­ties of salt. If acti­vat­ing a bone caus­es a salt to drop below zero—or wors­ens a deficit—you suf­fer 1 Drained stress.

To gain aware­ness of your blood salts and begin track­ing them, you need lev­el 3 Chem­istry.

Salt hypos

Pre­pared salt solu­tion hypo­der­mics are a valu­able way to restore blood salts, and they are the only reli­able way to stock your blood­stream with tox­ic salts.

Salt hypos are not with­out risk, how­ev­er. If you boost any salt above base­line, it caus­es you 1 Poi­son stress. Using a salt hypo takes two actions, in per­il.

Hypos can be pre­pared with Chem­istry. Raw salts are a require­ment for this. They can be iden­ti­fied in and extract­ed from flo­ra, fau­na, and min­er­als with Herbal­ism, Dis­sec­tion, and Geol­o­gy.

abscission

Remove a nat­ur­al hand-bone and implant a sur­ro­gate.

You need:

  • An hour of time
  • Micro­sur­gi­cal tools, includ­ing a jew­el­ers loupe or micro­scope
  • A pal­mar vice
  • Local anes­thet­ic for the arm

Get -2 for each of the above you lack. Get +2 if you have all 4.

Roll Surgery. Gain 1 Wound stress from the pro­ce­dure. If you suc­ceed, you implant the knuck­le­bone. Some bones may cause an Abscis­sion stress that requires many stitch­es to heal.

If you fail, roll on the sur­gi­cal mishaps table below to deter­mine the out­come.

1–2 Nicked vein. Suc­cess, but wear­er suf­fers 2 Bleed stress.
3–4 Unclean work. Suc­cess, but the wound is infect­ed.
5–6 Slip of the hand. Suc­cess, but an adja­cent fin­ger suf­fers 1 Wound stress.
7–8 Gru­el­ing pro­ce­dure. Suc­cess, but 1d4 addi­tion­al hours are required. Suf­fer 1 Dis­tress.
9–10 Mis­laid nerve. Suc­cess, but when the joint is popped, the wear­er suf­fers 1 Pain stress.
11 Weak­ened flex­or inser­tion. Suc­cess, but the grip is weak­ened. Fin­ger counts as hav­ing been lost for the pur­pose of grip strength (see loss of limb.) 
12 Syn­ovial leak. Suc­cess, but the hand caus­es 1 Pain stress con­stant­ly. 50% chance of failed bone acti­va­tion if it relies on pop­ping. 
13–14 Unsta­ble lig­a­ments. Suc­cess, but the fin­ger has a 2-in-6 chance to be destroyed if oper­at­ed upon in the future.
15 Abort­ed attempt. Implan­ta­tion fails. 2 Bleed stress. 
16 A ter­ri­ble slip. Implan­ta­tion fails. 2 Bleed stress. Joint use­less, flop­py. Fin­ger still alive, but counts as lost and can­not be popped.
17 Unwise venous clamp. Implan­ta­tion fails. Fin­ger devel­ops an aneurism. If oper­at­ed on again, imme­di­ate­ly caus­es 2 Bleed stress.
18 Com­pro­mised per­fu­sion. Suc­cess, but the fin­ger will die of ischemia in two weeks.
19–20+ Ruined dig­it. The fin­ger is lost start­ing at the base of the implan­ta­tion site. 2 Bled stress. 2 Dis­tress.

You can implant knuck­le­bones in a hand that isn’t yours. Should you fail, roll on the mishap table with +2.

You can implant mul­ti­ple bones con­cur­rent­ly. Roll Surgery for each with a -1 per addi­tion­al bone.

Bone rules

Accumulator
| rare| prox­i­mal pha­lange
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (12 stitch­es req.)
Your tox­ic salt base­line becomes 3. You restore tox­ic salts at a rate of 1/meal.

Anodyne
| uncom­mon| prox­i­mal pha­lange| act. cost: 4 trace
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (16 stitch­es req.)
When popped: Imme­di­ate­ly ful­ly heal 1 Pain stress and gain 1 com­fort. Roll hook die (d6) per use to see if you gain tol­er­ance.

Countersign
| uncom­mon| pinky-tip
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (4 stitch­es req.)
Before implan­ta­tion, or as a minor surgery while implant­ed, the bone may be engraved with a sig­na­ture or crest. If brought near a Coun­ter­sign bone with a match­ing engrav­ing, both will warm. A removed Coun­ter­sign bone may be reset with the heat of a can­dle flame.

Deadlatch
| com­mon| medi­al pha­lange
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (4 stitch­es req.)
Emits a unique mag­net­ic field pat­tern. Spe­cial­ty locks may be keyed to the pat­tern, mak­ing this bone an irreplic­a­ble key. Lock­smithy 6 is required to craft such a lock.

Earnhorn
| uncom­mon| medi­al pha­lange
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (8 stitch­es req.)
The wear­er’s touch is micro­phon­ic. They may hear through shut doors and walls with ease. Dis­ori­ents wear­er while they are lis­ten­ing to the bone. If removed, the Earn­horn bone low­ers Per­cep­tion by 1.

Focus
| uncom­mon| prox­i­mal pha­lange
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (4 stitch­es req.)
No innate func­tion. Syn­er­gizes with Scream­er and Woe bones.

Ictus
| extreme­ly rare| com­plete pinky
Implan­ta­tion: 3 Abscis­sion stress (8 stitch­es required, per)

AKA the magi­cian’s rack. Touch weapon. Requires skin con­tact. Gloves make the dig­it safe. Wear­er is immune to their own touch. In per­il, you need to hit the tar­get with Melee: Hand-to-hand to touch them.

On touch: Tar­get rolls For­ti­tude -3 as if to resist a wound.

  • If they suc­ceed, they suf­fer 4 blud­geon­ing dam­age to the touched body area and roll For­ti­tude to resist the result­ing wound.
  • If they fail, they suf­fer 9 blud­geon­ing dam­age to that body area and suf­fer a death & dis­mem­ber­ment effect. This will kill or dis­able on a neck touch.
The bone con­sumes 3 rare salts imme­di­ate­ly after use and enters a 10 min cooldown peri­od.
Syn­er­gies: Rare Salt­cel­lar in same hand bone reduces cooldown by 5 min­utes.

Mnemonic
| semi-rare| prox­i­mal pha­lange| acti­va­tion cost: 2 tox­ic
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (8 stitch­es req.) While heal­ing, rec­ol­lec­tion does not work.
When popped: Your next 2 min­utes of lived expe­ri­ence are cap­tured as a tem­po­ral pho­to­graph. Exact­ly detailed, includ­ing all sens­es. The mem­o­ry may be viewed in ret­ro­spect up to 3 times before it begins to fade. If the con­tents of the mem­o­ry caused dis­tress, they cause it again when viewed in ret­ro­spect.

Needlestick
| rare| dis­tal pha­lange| acti­va­tion cost: 1 com­mon
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (8 stitch­es req.)
Extends a 2 cm blade of bio­log­i­cal steel at super­son­ic veloc­i­ty. 1 P/S dam­age. If extend­ed as part of an attack, it deals 1d4+2 P dam­age but can­not inflict a wound worse than sever­i­ty 1.
Syn­er­gies: Adja­cent Germ bone or Ven­efi­cious bone. Deliv­ers a dose of the bac­te­ria or poi­son cre­at­ed with­in.

Potentiator
| semi-rare| inter­me­di­ate pha­lange
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (8 stitch­es req.)
AKA Gal­van­ic bone. Gath­ers elec­tri­cal charge. Low­ers trace salt base­line by 1. Poten­ti­ates Anode bones.

Saltcellar
| com­mon| prox­i­mal pha­lange Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (8 stitch­es req.)
AKA Reser­voir bone. Stores either com­mon, trace, or tox­ic salts, increas­ing their base­line by 8, 4, or 2 cor­re­spond­ing­ly. Tox­ic salts held in a salt­cel­lar bone do not poi­son the wear­er.

Signet
| com­mon| thumb-tip Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (4 stitch­es req.)
AKA Touch­mark bone. Alters the thumbprint. It becomes a cal­lus with 2 mm ridges resem­bling a seal or crest. Can be pro­grammed with a new crest before implan­ta­tion. This requires it be paint­ed with lead oxide paste over a sten­cil and rest­ed for a week.

Woe
| uncom­mon| metacarpal| acti­va­tion cost: 1 common/bone
Implan­ta­tion: 1 Abscis­sion stress (8 stitch­es req.)
When acti­vat­ed, emits a microwave beam. If mul­ti­ple bones of woe are present in 1 hand, they acti­vate simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Up to 8 can be acti­vat­ed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Per acti­vat­ed quan­ti­ty of bones, a tar­get with­in range burns (per inten­si­ty die) a num­ber of times equal to twice the bones acti­vat­ed (see matrix below.)

If you have more than 4 bones of woe between both hands, you can mod­u­late the beam. Choose either a wide or tight band­width and refer to the cor­re­spond­ing range and inten­si­ty changes below. You can split a wide burn area between mul­ti­ple tar­gets in range.

You can acti­vate bones of woe once per per­il round.

woe bones burn die inten­si­ty burn areas range in meters
1 1d6 2 touch
2 1d6 4 1 m
3 1d4 6 2 m
4 1d4 8 4 m
5 1d4 10 (wide) 8 (tight) 4 m (wide) 6 m (tight)
6 1d4 12 (wide) 10 (tight) 6 m (wide) 8 m (tight)
7 1d4 14 (wide) 12 (tight) 8 m (wide) 10 m (tight)
8 1d4 16 (wide) 14 (tight) 10 m (wide) 12 m (tight)

Syn­er­gies: Focus bones pro­vide +1 burn area and +2 range per Focus bone implant­ed adja­cent a Woe bone.