Venture City

Animal Control

You can walk with the animals, talk with the animals, and fight with the animals on your side.

Basic Animal Control: Choose one favored type of animal. You may communicate with favored animals of this type as if they were human NPCs, although their understanding of the world is limited. In addition, you gain a +2 bonus to Rapport when asking an animal of that type to do something for you.

“Type” is an intentionally broad category. It doesn’t necessarily line up with a taxonomic category, but rather how useful the animal is and how often you’ll see it. Only multicellular animals can be controlled; bacteria are too simple to order around. Some types of animals you might control include fish, birds, insects, rodents, and dogs.

Enhancements

Master Animal Control: You can be very convincing when talking with your animal friends. Gain an additional +2 bonus to Rapport when asking an animal to do something for you.

Zoological Polyglot: You may speak to any animal as if it were a human NPC. However, your bonus to Rapport only applies to your favored type of animal.

Animal Telepathy: You can communicate with animals of your favored type telepathically. In addition, you are aware when animals of that type are around you, even if you can’t see or otherwise sense them.

Common Power Synergies

Super Abilities: You can speak for animals and, in return, they have trained you, pushing you to the upper limits of human ability. You have Super Agility, Super Strength, Super Toughness, or Super Senses.

Influence: Humans are, after all, just another type of animal, albeit ones who are a little more complex to control.

Drawbacks

  • Your animal friends don’t just like you, they love you, and want to be around you all the time. You have an Unwanted Menagerie at all times.
  • Your connection to the minds of animals works both ways: their psyches rub off on you, and you need to contend with Overwhelming Animal Instincts.
  • You have control over an animal with certain environmental needs—say fish, or hawks—which means your powers are Not Useful Indoors.

Collateral Damage Effects

Come to Me!: No matter where you are, the animals around you can hear your call and will come running to your side, even if they need to break down doors or walls to get there. You can summon a large group of your favored animal to your zone as an action.

Direct Control: If you can touch an animal of your favored type, you can possess it. Your body turns to smoke and pours into the animal, and you gain an aspect with the same name as the animal. This may frighten or unnerve the people who saw you disappear, or you might cause damage by maneuvering an unfamiliar body. The effect lasts until you end it or at the end of the scene. When the effect ends, you return to your original body and lose the animal aspect.