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Psionic 512 of the Somatic Catharsis

—

by

Dale
in

Lore

  • In the early reclamation epochs of Saṃsāra, psionic biomedical engineers struggled with the containment of virulent bio-psychic plagues and sudden nervous system deterioration among deep-trench mining laborers. Traditional medicine could not arrest the rapid degradation of neural tissue caused by subterranean psychic spores. The Sanitarium Artificers designed the Somatic Catharsis—a segmented thumb-ring and dorsal hand-brace fashioned from tarnished bell-bronze, cold-drawn lead solder, and a central shard of fractured smoky obsidian. Functioning as a controlled bio-feedback filter, the ring does not magically purge sickness from the flesh; rather, it uses psionic conductivity to gather, categorize, and compress the avatar’s organic ailments, toxic loads, and neural distress into dense, latent psychic charge. By learning to endure and manipulate the weight of their own bodily decay, the wearer can redirect localized biological suffering away from vital organs, stabilize chronic degeneration, or project the concentrated essence of their own physical torment outward into an aggressor’s nervous system.

Detailed Stats

  • Item Type: Psionic Thumb-Ring & Metacarpal Brace
  • Gear Slot: Ring / Finger Slot (Worn over the thumb, extending a stabilizing lead-soldered bronze tendon across the back of the hand to the wrist)
  • Item Tier: Tier 1
  • Rarity: Common
  • Item Level: 1
  • Armor Check: +0 AC (Offers metabolic and bio-neural isolation rather than physical deflection)
  • Item Resilience: 6
  • Maximum Item Health Points: Avatar maximum hit points plus 6
  • Attunement: Simple attunement (10 minutes spent willfully drawing a drop of one’s own blood onto the porous obsidian fracture while breathing through mild physical discomfort)
  • Weight: 0.5 pounds
  • Physical Description: A heavy, asymmetrical thumb-ring of cast bell-bronze showing a pale, sulfurous patina along its edges. A flexible, jointed bronze rib follows the dorsal tendon of the thumb down to a curved wrist clamp, soldered with soft, grey lead-antimony wire to absorb metabolic tremors. Set into the thumb-loop is an irregular cabochon of fractured smoky obsidian, cloudy with ash-colored needle inclusions. When the wearer experiences illness, pain, or toxin absorption, the smoky fractures within the stone darken to an ink-like opacity, and the bronze rib grows clammy and cold against the skin.

Skills Gained While Openly Worn

  • +1 Medicine or Survival (Temporary skill point)
  • +1 Intimidation or Fortitude (Temporary skill point)

Passive Magics

  • Symptom Partitioning: The brace creates a psionic dampening barrier between the avatar’s nervous system and their vital organs. While suffering from non-lethal poison, natural disease, or physical exhaustion, the avatar ignores the immediate disorienting pain and nausea penalties, functioning with a clear mind even while their physical body visibly exhibits the sickness.
  • Morbidity Intuition: The wearer instinctively senses the presence, severity, and vector of organic illnesses, toxins, and necrotic decay within living creatures or food supplies within 15 feet, feeling a dull sympathetic ache in the thumb joint that sharpens with the severity of the contagion.
  • Cathartic Reservoir: Whenever the avatar takes ongoing poison, acid, or necrotic damage, or succeeds on a saving throw against an affliction, the fractured obsidian stores a single resonance charge (up to a maximum of 3 charges). The stone pulses with a slow, sickly yellow-gray luminescence while holding charges.

Activable Magics

  • Somatic Transference: As an action, the wearer expends 1 resonance charge and makes a melee touch attack or gestures forcefully at a creature within 15 feet. The wearer projects the concentrated physical distress of their own condition into the target’s neural pathways. The target must succeed on a physical resistance check or suffer 1d6 necrotic or poison damage (wearer’s choice based on their endured symptoms) and become sickened or staggered until the end of its next turn. Once used, this property cannot be used again until the avatar completes a short rest.
  • Localized Quarantine: As a bonus action, the wearer adjusts the lead-soldered wrist clamp to constrict the spread of a venom, infection, or necrosis affecting their own body. For 1 hour, the progression of that specific disease or poison is completely halted within the avatar’s system, granting advantage on all subsequent saving throws made to purge the illness. Once used, this property cannot be used again until the avatar completes a long rest.
  • Spiteful Purge: As a reaction when an attacker deals melee damage to the avatar while the ring holds 3 resonance charges, the wearer may detonate the stored bio-psychic miasma. The 3 charges are consumed, releasing a 5-foot burst of foul, feverish psychic feedback. The attacking creature suffers 2d4 psychic damage and is impaired for 1 round as sudden, phantom nausea wracks its gut. Once used, this property cannot be used again until the avatar finishes a long rest.

Tags:

  • psionic, ring-slot, tier-1, common, affliction, disease, poison, bio-feedback, necrosis, obsidian, bronze, lead, transference, symptom-suppression, endurance, toxin-redirection, neural-quarantine, pain-conduit, bio-filter, pathogen-sense, lead-solder, bell-bronze, smoky-obsidian, metacarpal-brace, somatic-feedback, fever-burst

Acquisition Channels, Market Venues, and Commercial Valuation of Psionic 512 of the Somatic Catharsis

  • Methods of Acquisition
    • Commissioned from an apothecary-artificer or sanitarium surgeon specializing in hazardous mining quarantines, toxicological filtration, and neural trauma.
    • Recovered from quarantine lockboxes, abandoned trench hospital wards, or subterranean bio-reclamation vaults left behind by earlier extraction teams.
    • Salvaged from the remains of deep-vein miners, pestilence cultists, or field orderlies who perished while containing psychic spore-outbreaks.
    • Crafted by hand using cast bell-bronze, drawn lead-antimony solder, an inclusion-riddled smoky obsidian shard, and a Tier 1 magic crystal catalyst.
    • Bestowed as a grim reward by plague wardens or municipal sanitarium directors after an avatar successfully isolates a contagion or survives a lethal biological vector without succumbing.
  • Frontier Trench Dispensaries and Reclamation Sick-Houses
    • Commercial Atmosphere: Located at the edges of deep mining shafts, reclamation camps, and penal labor colonies. These utilitarian, clinical spaces smell heavily of sulfur wash, carbolic acid, vinegar-soaked rags, and wet soot. Iron-grated counters separate the attendant from desperate miners, with rows of brown-glass tincture bottles, bone saws, and lead-lined disposal bins cluttering the back shelves.
    • Purchasing Mechanics: Miners and field scouts acquire these braces directly from company surgeons or apothecary trustees. Transactions are tallied in corporate commissary script, standard municipal silver pieces, or raw ore tallies deducted directly from excavation wages. Field medics and quarantine personnel holding municipal licenses receive a 10% operational discount.
    • Selling Mechanics: The resident surgeon inspects the brace by heating the lead solder with a small oil flame to ensure the seams have not cracked from systemic shock, then inspects the smoky obsidian with an eyeglass to verify it has not permanently clouded with toxic residue. Payouts are made in silver coin, medicinal rations, or bundles of antitoxin ampoules.
    • Pricing: Standard retail cost is 130 silver coins (or 13 gold coins). A registered sanitation laborer or licensed field medic at Tier 1 can purchase the item for 117 silver coins. An avatar selling an intact, cleared brace back to a dispensary receives 115 silver coins in direct coin or vital medical supplies.
  • Black-Market Charnel Apothecaries and Under-City Reliquaries
    • Commercial Atmosphere: Hidden within sunken under-crofts, damp drainage cellars, or curtained back rooms behind embalming parlors. The rooms are dimly lit by tallow lamps, with heavy velvet drapes masking the sounds of the upper streets. The air is thick with dried wormwood, rancid tallow, myrrh, and the faint metallic tang of old blood.
    • Purchasing Mechanics: Brokered through discreet parleys with rogue surgeons, undertakers, or forbidden bone-setters. The buyer inspects items arranged on zinc-topped tables over oiled lambskin mats. Payment is settled exclusively in unmarked silver bullion, distilled alchemical poisons, or cut gemstones.
    • Selling Mechanics: The fence evaluates the obsidian cabochon by resting their bare thumb against the cold stone to test for latent residual charges, confirming the item has not suffered an irrecoverable burnout from lethal backlash. Payouts are issued in pouch silver or distilled venom reagents.
    • Pricing: The retail cost in a charnel parlor is 145 silver coins due to illicit sourcing and lack of registry. An avatar selling a brace to an under-city fence receives between 100 and 115 silver coins, depending on the purity of the bell-bronze and the absence of residual taint.

Tactical and Environmental Roleplay Applications of Psionic 512 of the Somatic Catharsis

  • Deep Subterranean Mines, Spore-Choked Shafts, and Toxic Caverns
    • Defensive Roleplay: While delving into forgotten drift-tunnels filled with stagnant sewer gas and drifting fungal spores, the party begins to cough and choke. The avatar adjusts the lead-soldered wrist clamp, triggering Localized Quarantine to arrest the spread of inhaled necrotic spores. Through Symptom Partitioning, the avatar pushes past the searing burn in their chest, keeping a clear head to haul wheezing comrades up the access ladders while intuitively monitoring the air’s toxicity via the thrum in their thumb-joint.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Cornered in a narrow drift by subterranean burrowers or spore-bloated vermin, the avatar deliberately exposes their flesh to a dripping caustic stalactite. As the acid scorches the skin, the fractured obsidian drinks in the trauma, charging the stone with sickly yellow-gray luminescence. The avatar lunges forward with Somatic Transference, slapping a bare hand against the alpha beast’s muzzle, instantly dumping the stored chemical agony directly into the creature’s cranial nerves to leave it thrashing and blinded in the dark.
  • Pestilent Swamps, Festering Marshes, and Stagnant Bogs
    • Defensive Roleplay: Wading chest-deep through leeches, decaying matter, and rotting vegetation, the avatar uses Morbidity Intuition to map out safe paths, steering the party away from stagnant pools teeming with flesh-burrowing flukes and marsh fever. When struck by an amphibious predator’s poisoned stinger, the avatar remains standing; the brace partitions the venom’s violent spasms away from their heart and lungs, allowing them to fight without staggering.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Engaged with a squad of hostile swamp raiders who have poisoned the party’s water skins, the avatar draws upon the accumulated toxic load collected inside the Cathartic Reservoir. Closing the distance, the avatar triggers Spiteful Purge as an enemy spear strikes their flank. The brace detonates in a burst of feverish psionic miasma, projecting the concentrated nausea of swamp rot into the attacker’s gut, sending the raider retching onto the wet moss.
  • Afflicted Slums, Quarantine Camps, and Plague-Ridden City Wards
    • Defensive Roleplay: Entering an under-city district sealed off by iron chains and burning tar pits, the avatar walks among the moaning infected without hesitation. Utilizing Morbidity Intuition, the avatar acts as a triage diagnostician, touching sick children to identify whether an outbreak is biological pestilence or psionic rot. If infected by airborne sputum, the avatar seals their radial clamp to isolate the contagion, maintaining absolute motor control to mix remedies and organize defenses while ordinary wardens collapse.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Trapped in a quarantined alley by brutal municipal enforcers seeking to silence witnesses with heavy truncheons, the avatar turns the city’s misery into a weapon. Taking a blunt blow to the shoulder, the avatar channels the stored resonance of the district’s sickbeds through Somatic Transference. Pointing the lead-ribbed thumb directly at the squad captain, the avatar fires a lance of phantom illness, forcing the captain’s knees to buckle as their stomach convulsively heaves from sudden, phantom enteric fever.
  • Arid Salt Flats, Chemical Wastes, and Sun-Bleached Ruins
    • Defensive Roleplay: Marching through alkali dust wastes where salt encrusts the eyes and desiccating winds crack the lips to bleeding, the avatar uses Symptom Partitioning to dull the agonizing thirst and heat exhaustion that would otherwise break their focus. The avatar continues pacing the march, reading internal metabolic tremors through the lead solder wire to determine precisely when the party must drink before organ failure begins.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Ambushed by predatory dune scavengers wielding serrated blades smeared with venomous desert viper bile, the avatar welcomes a shallow cut across the forearm. The obsidian instantly consumes the venom’s burning sting, maxing out its Cathartic Reservoir. When the scavengers close in for the kill, the avatar triggers Spiteful Purge, releasing a wave of dry, neural agony that wracks the scavengers’ central nervous systems, turning their confident assault into a disoriented, trembling retreat across the dunes.

Perception of Activation:

  • User’s Perspective
    • Somatosensory and Thermal Shock: The moment a charge is drawn or released, the jointed bronze tendon along the thumb snaps rigid with a sharp, icy chill. A sensation like freezing brine courses through the radial nerve, accompanied by a heavy, metallic numbness that deadens the natural ache of torn flesh, venom burns, or viral fever.
    • Visceral Partitioning: The avatar experiences a distinct decoupling between physical distress and mental agency. While their stomach may still convulse or their skin may burn with infection, the sensory panic is shunted sideways into the brace. The pain is perceived not as suffering, but as cold, cataloged data—a pressure gauge waiting to be vented.
    • Olfactory and Gustatory Phantasm: A sharp, coppery tang floods the mouth, accompanied by the dry, pungent smell of burning brimstone and vinegar wash, masking the organic stench of bile or gangrenous decay.
    • Auditory Modulation: Ambient sounds drop into a muffled, low-pressure hum, like diving beneath stagnant water, punctuated only by the distinct, dry clicking of the lead solder joints flexing against the thumb knuckle.
  • Observer’s Perspective
    • Mineral and Arcane Luminescence: The fractured, cloudy veins within the smoky obsidian darken to an oily, ink-like black before igniting from within with a sickly, sulfurous yellow-gray luminescence. As charges accumulate, faint, crackling filaments of pale static skitter across the lead solder tracks and bronze framework.
    • Somatic Transmutation: The skin beneath the bronze tendon pales to an ashen, bloodless gray. When the wearer discharges an affliction, their veins briefly trace as black, thread-like lines beneath the skin of the hand before the discharge arcs forward as a shadowy, foul distortion in the air.
    • Postural Stillness: Observers note an eerie, unnatural composure in the user. Despite severe bleeding, coughing, or venomous sweating, the avatar’s hands cease trembling entirely, their eyes locking onto targets with glassy, unblinking clinical focus.
  • Multiple Extra-Sensory Perceptions
    • Pathogenic Cartography: The avatar perceives living systems within range as translucent, rhythmic networks of bio-electric heat. Areas of infection, tissue necrosis, or venomous pooling glow with a sharp, curdled crimson radiance, revealing the precise vector and severity of any biological blight.
    • Somatic Ballistics: Stored biological torment registers in the avatar’s mind as a pressurized fluid weight. The avatar intuitively senses lines of neural vulnerability in surrounding living targets, highlighting where a projected jolt of physical agony would instantly trigger maximum enteric or cranial collapse.
    • Decay Resonance: Rotten matter, stale water, tainted food, and necrotic spores broadcast a distinct, low-frequency psionic vibration that scratches against the back of the avatar’s palate, providing advance warning of spoiled rations or fouled atmospheres.
  • Positives
    • Unflinching Composure: Allows the avatar to maintain complete manual dexterity, aim, and tactical calculation while enduring otherwise debilitating physical agony, nausea, or fever.
    • Offensive Catharsis: Converts the avatar’s own bodily suffering, biological vulnerabilities, and endured hostile attacks into lethal, weaponized feedback without depleting ammunition or supplies.
    • Early Contagion Interception: Functions as an infallible biological diagnostic tool, detecting spoiled supplies, contaminated water, and hidden infections before symptoms manifest.
  • Negatives
    • False Somatic Security: Dampening the perception of pain can mislead the avatar regarding their actual structural limits, risking fatal blood loss or tissue damage if wounds are neglected simply because they no longer hurt.
    • Biological Taint Accumulation: Repeatedly storing and discharging resonance charges leaves the avatar with lingering fatigue, dark circles beneath the eyes, and a lingering, faint smell of sulfur that clings to the skin.
    • Visceral Backlash on Detonation: Releasing stored charges through Spiteful Purge causes a brief, sympathetic muscular spasm in the wearer’s forearm, temporarily deadening grip strength for a split second.

Recipe: Artifice of the Somatic Catharsis Brace

Materials Needed

  • One 6-ounce ingot of high-tin bell-bronze (78% copper, 22% tin) to achieve high acoustic psionic resonance and structural stiffness.
  • One tumbled, high-domed cabochon of fractured smoky obsidian (approximately 18–22 mm in diameter) containing natural needle-like rutile or ash inclusions, with visible internal hairline cleavage planes.
  • Two feet of soft, drawn lead-antimony wire (90% lead, 10% antimony) to serve as dampening solder and neural-shock buffers.
  • One Tier 1 magic crystal catalyst, flat and coin-sized, recovered from an afflicted, venomous, or spore-bearing aberrant creature.
  • Three drops of the artisan’s or wearer’s own freshly drawn blood to calibrate the baseline biological harmonic.
  • One fluid ounce of refined animal tallow mixed with crushed sulfur powder to serve as a low-temperature brazing flux and surface patina agent.
  • One strip of oil-tanned lambskin leather (0.5 inches wide, 6 inches long) to wrap the underside of the wrist clamp and prevent metal pinching.

Tools Required

  • Small jewelry-scale coal brazier and crucible.
  • Light ball-peen silversmithing hammer and miniature steel shaping horn/anvil.
  • Set of hardened steel chisels, jewelers’ saw frames, and fine-cut needle files.
  • Heavy copper soldering iron heated by open coals (avoiding open torch flame to protect the lead).
  • Handheld ring mandrel graduated for thumb measurements.
  • Hardwood hand-former block with carved metacarpal grooves.
  • Glass eyedropper and bone crucible tongs.

Skill Requirements

  • Bronze Casting & Metalsmithing: Skill Level 4 or higher.
  • Lapidary & Mineral Cleavage: Skill Level 4 or higher.
  • Toxicological / Surgical Artifice: Skill Level 4 or higher.
  • Psionic Artifice / Somatic Modulation: Minimum Level 1 in Bio-Feedback Channeling matching the Tier 1 item outcome.

Crafting Steps

  • Cast and shape the bell-bronze components:
    • Melt the bell-bronze ingot in the crucible over white-hot coals, skimming off surface slag.
    • Pour the molten bronze into a two-part clay mold to form two separate pieces: a thick, asymmetrical thumb-band with an open bezel basket, and a jointed, ribbed dorsal tendon arm contoured to trace the metacarpal bone down to a curved wrist cuff.
    • Allow the bronze to cool slowly in air to retain its rigid, crystalline brittleness.
    • Clean the rough castings using needle files, working the thumb-loop over the ring mandrel until it fits comfortably over the proximal phalanx of the thumb.
  • Seat and secure the fractured obsidian cabochon:
    • Check the smoky obsidian under an eyeglass to ensure internal fractures run perpendicular to the gem’s base, ensuring optimal psionic compression without splitting the stone in half.
    • Place the Tier 1 magic crystal catalyst wafer into the recessed floor of the thumb-band’s bezel basket.
    • Apply a thin paste of tallow and crushed sulfur around the seat, then press the smoky obsidian cabochon down over the catalyst.
    • Carefully burnish the heavy bronze bezel prongs inward using a steel burnisher, locking the stone in place without applying uneven point-pressure to its fractured planes.
  • Assemble the dorsal articulation and lead dampening bridge:
    • Lay the thumb-band and wrist cuff onto the hardwood hand-former, bridging them with the ribbed dorsal tendon piece.
    • Heat the copper soldering iron in the brazier and use the lead-antimony wire to solder the joints between the thumb basket, the tendon rib, and the wrist clamp.
    • Build up thick, rounded beads of lead along the dorsal tendon to act as physical shock absorbers against metabolic tremors and nerve recoil.
    • Run a fine channel of lead solder along the interior of the bronze rib, ensuring the lead will rest in direct contact with the skin above the dorsal vein.
  • Line and finish the chassis:
    • Use pine-pitch glue to affix the oil-tanned lambskin strip to the interior arc of the wrist cuff, leaving the lead contact node exposed at the radial pulse.
    • Brush the bronze exterior with the hot sulfur-tallow paste, producing a dull, greenish-yellow chemical patina along the cast seams.
    • Buff the high edges with fine pumice powder, leaving the recessed textures dark and tarnished.
  • Biological attunement and resonance priming:
    • Warm the completed brace over low coals until the metal reaches skin temperature.
    • Slide the brace onto the intended user’s thumb and wrist, adjusting the lead joints so the brace flexes smoothly with the hand’s natural motion.
    • Using the glass eyedropper, place three drops of the user’s blood directly onto the central cleavage crack of the obsidian cabochon.
    • Instruct the user to draw a slow, deep breath, holding a state of deliberate, focused physical discomfort (such as pressing a needle into a fingertip or inhaling sulfur smoke).
    • Hold the focus until the blood is drawn into the stone’s micro-fractures by capillary action, turning the cloudy needle inclusions dark grey and producing a faint, synchronized metallic click across the lead solder joints.

Dark-Glass Thumb-Iron of Healer Maro Who Did Bottle Rotten Wind of Deep Pit into His Own Bone

These be the broken scratches upon the baked ditch-mud of the third canal-weir of Nun-Zul, which the scribes of the copper-caste did copy sideways, because where the old tongue of the first trench-diggers spake of “the cold marrow that drinketh the black cough,” the scribes did make the mark for “a fat sheep that falleth into a brewer’s vat,” and did write “to make salt of one’s uncle” where the ancient word was “to turn the bile into an arrow of thought.”

In the years before the great roof of the earth was propped with timber, the trench-clans did go down into the lower belly of the world to bring up the yellow coal. In those black holes, the air was not like the air of the hills. It was thick like cold grease, and out of the cracks in the blind stone came a creeping moss of dust that smelled like old graves. Those who did breathe the black pollen found their spit turning green like pond-weed, their skin grew spotted like the back of a river-toad, and their wits did melt into screaming water, so that they struck their brothers with their iron picks and ran into the bottomless crevices where the water was bitter.

Now the overseer of the fifth shaft was a hard man named Bel-Grom, whose chin was hairless from the fire-gas. He said unto the laborers: “He that coughs into his basket will lose his flour-cake, and he that cannot lift the sledge because his knees are loose like wet clay shall be left at the sump-gate for the cave-rats to trim.”

Among the stone-splitters was Maro, a man of quiet steps whose hands were not wide like the hammer-men, but nimble like the makers of nets. He saw how his brother-diggers fell down in the black dust, vomiting their blood upon the shale, while their limbs shook like dry reeds in the flood. The herb-pots of the high physicians did nothing for them, for the poison was not of the earth’s grass, but of the secret rot that sleepeth beneath the ribs of the world.

Maro took from the rubbish of the smelting-pit a piece of ringing bell-bronze, yellow like a dry lemon. With a sharp point of hard flint, he did beat it into a thick band that hugged his right thumb, and from the thumb he drew a crooked rib of bronze over the hairy back of his hand down to his wrist-knuckle. Where the joints did rattle like old bones, he poured the heavy grey grease-lead, which the pipe-smiths use to stop the leak of sour drainings. At the head of the thumb-band, where the marrow-vein riseth up, he seated an unwashed pebble of smoky glass that had been blasted by the gas-fires in the deep drift. It was dark like the fat of a sheep that hath died of the summer fly, full of little grey hair-cracks that wept moisture.

The clay of Nun-Zul saith: “He did bite his own wrist-vein until the black glass did drink the red wetness, and his tongue tasted of hot copper and cold salt.”

On the morrow, a great rumble took the fifth level. The black floor broke open, and the foul gas of the Under-Rot came up like a pillar of yellow lard. The miners dropped their tallow pots. The sickness went into their flesh in a single breath; forty men fell upon their bellies, their bowels turning to water and their teeth chattering so hard that their jaws cracked.

The overseer Bel-Grom cried out from the ladder-foot, for his lungs were full of fire and his knees were turned to butter. “The devil hath bitten my belly!” cried the master. “Who will carry the ledger-box to the sky?”

Maro did not put the vinegar-cloth over his nostrils. He walked into the yellow vapor where the dead lanterns hissed. He turned the grey lead-pin upon his wrist until the bronze tendon pulled tight against his flesh.

The clay-scroll of Nun-Zul recordeth the great turning: “The frost did walk up his arm like a spider. His skin did become as the hide of an unwashed turnip, but his brain-pan sat upon his neck like a dry stone in a puddle. The black cough did come into his ribs, yet it did not bite his meat; the bronze band did pull the sour heat away from his liver, and did shut it into the belly of the cloudy glass.”

Maro knelt among the sick men. When he touched their hot foreheads, his thumb-ring clicked like a beetle in the roof-thatch. The yellow mist went out of their throats, not into the air, but along the leaden wire of his brace. With every gasping miner he pulled from the drift, the dark stone upon his thumb did grow more heavy and black, until the veins inside the smoky glass glowed with the sick light of rotten birch-wood in a ditch.

Now, as they reached the lift-shaft, three cave-monsters—great, blind, hairless things that swim in the dung of the low tunnels—did smell the meat of the living men. Their mouths were round like baskets of spikes, and their hide was tough as boiled leather. The overseer Bel-Grom wept upon the rubble, unable to crawl, for the foul air had taken the strength from his loins.

“Throw them the lame boys!” spake Bel-Grom through his teeth. “Let the worms eat the broken so the strong may climb the rope!”

Maro stood upon the bottom rung of the iron ladder. His skin was pale like tallow, his breath came slow like a winter pond, but his hand was steady as an altar-stone. The great lead-bead along his tendon was cold as winter mud. He pointed his right thumb straight into the maw of the greatest cave-worm as it lunged across the stones.

The tablet of the ditch-weir saith: “He did open the flood-sluice of his own torment. He did not give them a blow of the copper hammer, nor the bite of the lead sling-stone. He gave them the vomit and the fever that had been gathered from forty men’s chests.”

A foul, grey vapor that had no heat shot from the dark glass. It hit the blind worm between its breathing-holes. Instantly, the beast’s pale belly swelled like a bladder in the embers. Its black tongue rotted out of its maw in a puddle of curdled water; its joints went loose like unstrung hide-nets, and it fell upon the shale, twisting and spitting black bile until its liver burst with the gathered sickness of the trench. The other two monsters smelled the sudden rot upon their brother, took fright at the stench of human plague, and crawled away into the dark crevices.

Maro lifted the overseer upon his shoulder like a sack of barley. He carried the sick men up the long ladder into the noon-light, one by one, until the pit was empty.

When the high physicians looked upon Maro in the sun, they marveled, for his lungs were clean and his head was bright, though his skin smelled of brimstone and his thumb-ring was so cold that the summer grass froze white beneath his resting hand. When Bel-Grom would have given him three bags of copper coin and a chain of cowrie shells, Maro laid the bronze thumb-brace upon the counting-table, saying: “Keep thy copper, overseer; for he who hath learned to hold the rot of forty men inside his knuckle hath no pocket that gold can sweeten.”

And the tablet of Nun-Zul saith the brace was left upon the lintel of the pit-hospital, that whenever the black wind blew from the shaft, a man might bind his hand with the lead-wire and walk into the plague-fog without fear, carrying the cure in his right thumb and the sickness as a spear against the dark.

Moral of the story: He who fleeth from his own suffering will find it pursueth him to the grave; but he who hath the belly to swallow his own pain and bind it with patient cunning can forge a shield from his infirmity, and turn the very bile that would rot his heart into a rod to break his foes.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

Maro’s Somatic Loop

  • Description: A tarnished bell-bronze thumb ring joined by a lead-soldered rib to a wrist cuff, housing a fractured smoky obsidian stone. Built to contain somatic trauma, it filters and compresses physiological distress, allowing an investigator to resist toxic contamination and project sickness outward.
  • Equipment Category: Psionic Apparatus / Bio-Neural Shunt
  • Sanity Loss: 0 (Direct exposure to stored supernatural blight or alien rot may still provoke standard SAN checks).
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): When suffering from natural poison, physical disease, or minor exposure to toxic gas, the investigator ignores penalty dice associated with pain, nausea, or dizziness. The physical damage or progress of the ailment continues in the background, but mental clarity and motor control remain unhindered.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): Grants a bonus die to First Aid, Medicine, or Science (Biology/Pharmacy) rolls when diagnosing biological contagions, determining toxin vectors, or identifying spoiled foodstuffs within 5 yards.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever the investigator successfully passes a CON test against poison or disease, or takes continuous damage from necrotic, chemical, or toxic sources, the stone stores 1 resonance charge (up to a maximum of 3 charges).
  • Somatic Transference (Active): The investigator expends 1 charge and makes an unarmed Fighting (Brawl) maneuver or points directly at a target within 5 yards. The investigator expends 2 Magic Points. The target must succeed on an Extreme CON roll or suffer 1d6 damage (toxic or necrotic) and gain a penalty die on all physical action rolls for 1 round due to violent nausea. Usable once per scene.
  • Localized Quarantine (Active): By spending 1 Magic Point and tightening the leaded cuff as an action, the investigator halts the bodily progression of an active poison or illness for 1 hour, gaining a bonus die on the next CON roll made to overcome the condition. Usable once per day.
  • Spiteful Purge (Active): When struck by a melee attack while holding 3 charges, the investigator can spend 3 Magic Points as a reaction to discharge the stone. The attacker must make a Hard CON roll, taking 2d4 damage on a failure (or half on a success) and becoming staggered until the end of their next turn.

Blades in the Dark

Cathartic Shunt-Ring

  • Description: A heavy bronze thumb brace soldered with soft lead along the metacarpal tendon, holding a cracked piece of volcanic glass. It bottles the body’s sickness and pain to discharge against foes.
  • Item Load: 1 Load (Worn on the hand and wrist).
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): You may ignore the penalty of Level 1 or Level 2 Harm caused by disease, poison, or physical exhaustion until the current score or downtime ends. The Harm remains marked on your sheet, but does not reduce your dice pools or effect levels while operating.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): You gain +1 Effect when using Tinker or Doctor to diagnose sickness, detect toxic substances in food or air, or handle biological contamination.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): When you resist a physical consequence involving poison, pestilence, or rot, or suffer physical harm from an environmental hazard, tick 1 segment on your 3-segment Cathartic Clock.
  • Somatic Transference: Spend 1 Stress and clear 1 segment of your Cathartic Clock to make an aggressive close-range action (such as Skirmish) against a target. On a standard success, you inflict Level 2 Harm (Violent Convulsions) in addition to your standard effect by dumping your biological distress into their nerves.
  • Localized Quarantine: Spend 1 Stress to immediately stabilize an active toxic or infectious condition affecting you, preventing it from worsening for the remainder of the score.
  • Spiteful Purge: When your Cathartic Clock is completely full (3 segments) and you suffer Harm from a melee strike, you may clear the clock and take 1 Stress to unleash a wave of foul psychic miasma. All immediate enemies in close range are impaired by choking, phantom nausea (reduce their threat level or effect by 1 step for the next exchange).

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

Ring of Somatic Catharsis

  • Item Type: Wondrous Item (Ring), Common
  • Attunement: Requires attunement
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): While you are poisoned, exhausted (levels 1–2), or suffering from a non-magical disease, you ignore the disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks normally imposed by these conditions. The conditions themselves remain active within your body until cured.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): You gain a +1 bonus to Wisdom (Medicine) and Wisdom (Survival) checks made to identify toxins, diagnose diseases, or assess spoiled rations. You can sense the presence of active contagions and venoms within 15 feet of you.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever you succeed on a saving throw against being poisoned or diseased, or whenever you take poison, acid, or necrotic damage, the ring gains 1 resonance charge (maximum 3 charges). The ring loses all stored charges at the end of a long rest.
  • Somatic Transference: As an action, you expend 1 charge to target a creature within 15 feet of you. The target must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or take 1d6 necrotic damage and become poisoned until the end of its next turn. Once you use this property, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
  • Localized Quarantine: As a bonus action, you adjust the ring’s lead brace to isolate a biological threat inside you. For 1 hour, the progression of one disease or poison currently affecting you is paused, and you have advantage on the next saving throw you make against it. Once you use this property, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
  • Spiteful Purge: When a creature within 5 feet hits you with a melee attack while the ring has 3 charges, you can use your reaction to expend all 3 charges. The attacker takes 2d4 psychic damage and must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or have its speed reduced to 0 until the end of its turn as sudden nausea overwhelms it. Once you use this property, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.

Knave (2nd Edition)

Maro’s Charnel Ring

  • Description: A crude thumb ring of weathered bell-bronze anchored by a lead solder strip to an iron-hinged wrist clamp. Its fractured smoky obsidian gem grows dark and clammy as it draws poison and rot from the user’s blood.
  • Item Slots: 1 Gear Slot (Worn on the thumb and wrist)
  • Durability: 3 Quality / Usage dots
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): The wearer ignores penalties from sickness, non-lethal poison, and hunger-based exhaustion. Wounds and infections still fester, but the mind and sword-arm remain steady.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): The wearer automatically detects rotting food, stagnant water, and poisonous miasmas within 20 feet, and receives advantage on Wisdom checks to identify illnesses or treat wounds.
  • Cathartic Charges: Whenever the wearer passes a Constitution save against poison, rot, or gas, or takes direct damage from caustic bile or venom, place a token on the ring (up to 3 tokens).
  • Somatic Transference (Active): Once per encounter as an action, spend 1 token to touch or point at an enemy within 10 feet. The target must succeed on a Constitution save or take 1d6 direct damage from sudden fever and miss its next movement.
  • Localized Quarantine (Active): Once per day, adjust the lead ribbing to freeze the progression of a wound-rot or venom for 1 hour. This grants advantage on the subsequent Constitution check made to cure or purge it.
  • Spiteful Purge (Reaction): When struck by a melee blow while holding 3 tokens, the wearer can expend all 3 tokens and mark 1 Quality dot on the ring to release a 5-foot blast of psychic bilious shock. The attacker must make a Constitution save or collapse to its knees, helpless for 1 round. If the ring’s Quality drops to 0, the obsidian splits in two, releasing its stored rot into the wearer (who takes 1d8 poison damage).

Fate Core

Cathartic Shunt-Loop

  • Aspects:
    • Function Aspect: Lead-Soldered Bio-Resonance Shunt
    • Flaw Aspect: Haunted by Stored Physical Torment
  • Stunts:
    • Symptom Partitioning: When suffering from physical consequences related to poison, disease, or extreme fatigue, you do not suffer penalties to your active skill ratings, though opponents may still invoke those consequences against you as normal.
    • Morbidity Intuition: Gain a +2 bonus to Notice or Lore when diagnosing biological pathogens, identifying toxic vectors in rations or terrain, or assessing tissue decay.
    • Cathartic Reservoir: Whenever you successfully defend against a physical attack involving poison, acid, or biological rot, or when you check a physical stress box due to a toxic hazard, place a boost called Latent Affliction Charge on this item (up to a maximum of 3 charges).
    • Somatic Transference: Spend 1 Latent Affliction Charge and invoke it for an attack action using Fight or Shoot against a target in your zone. On a tie or success, in addition to dealing shifts of stress, you inflict the situation aspect Wracking Phantom Nausea on the target with one free invoke.
    • Localized Quarantine: Once per session, spend 1 Fate Point to immediately freeze the escalation of a poison- or disease-based consequence for the rest of the scene, granting you a +2 bonus on your subsequent recovery roll.
    • Spiteful Purge: When struck for physical stress by a melee attack while holding 3 Latent Affliction Charges, you may clear all 3 charges as a reaction to unleash a psychic miasma. The attacker takes 2 shifts of mental stress and gains the Disoriented and Retching aspect until the end of their next turn.

Numenera & Cypher System

Somatic Catharsis Thumb-Brace

  • Level: 2
  • Form: Weathered bell-bronze thumb ring with a lead-soldered metacarpal bridge connected to a wrist clamp, featuring a cracked smoky obsidian node.
  • Wearable Artifact: Depletion: 1 in 1d10 (checked upon triggering Somatic Transference, Localized Quarantine, or Spiteful Purge).
  • Inherent Benefit: The wearer eases (by one step) all tasks related to diagnosing illnesses, identifying natural poisons, and resisting movement penalties caused by physical exhaustion or nausea.
  • Effect:
    • Symptom Partitioning: The wearer does not suffer impaired or debilitated penalties caused by biological toxins, natural sicknesses, or non-lethal fatigue, retaining full manual and mental control while the underlying condition runs its course.
    • Morbidity Intuition: The wearer instinctively senses diseases, spoiled food, and biological venom within immediate range.
    • Cathartic Reservoir: Whenever the wearer takes damage from poison, acid, or necrotic sources, or successfully resists an organic hazard, the obsidian stores a resonance charge (up to 3 charges).
    • Somatic Transference: Spend 1 charge and 1 point from your Speed Pool as an action to target a foe within short range. The task is eased by one step. On a success, the target suffers 3 points of ambient damage that ignores Armor, and its physical tasks are hindered by one step for 1 round due to violent visceral spasms. Check for depletion.
    • Localized Quarantine: Spend 1 point from your Might Pool as an action to arrest an internal infection or toxin. Its negative progression halts for 1 hour, and your next task to purge it is eased by two steps. Check for depletion.
    • Spiteful Purge: When struck by a melee attack while storing 3 charges, spend 2 points from your Intellect Pool as an immediate reaction to vent the charges. The attacking foe suffers 4 points of Intellect damage from neural trauma and is dazed for 1 round. Check for depletion.

Pathfinder (Second Edition)

Thumb-Ring of Somatic Catharsis

  • Item Level: Item 1
  • Traits: Uncommon, Necromancy, Primal, Psionic
  • Usage: Worn, ring (thumb and wrist)
  • Bulk: —
  • Investment: Requires investment
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): While you have the sickened or fatigued condition from a non-magical disease, poison, or natural environment hazard, you reduce the penalty to your checks and DCs from those conditions by 1 (to a minimum of 0). The conditions remain active on your character.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): You gain a +1 item bonus to Medicine checks to Treat Disease, Treat Poison, or Recall Knowledge regarding biological toxins, and you can sense active pathogens and virulent venoms within 15 feet.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever you succeed on a Fortitude saving throw against a disease, poison, or rot effect, or take acid, poison, or void damage from an ongoing effect, the ring gains 1 resonance charge (maximum 3 charges). All stored charges dissipate after an 8-hour rest.
  • Somatic Transference (Activate):
    • Frequency: Once per hour
    • Action: 2 Actions (concentrate, manipulate, mental, void)
    • Cost: 1 resonance charge
    • Effect: You project the physical distress of your body at a creature within 15 feet. The target must attempt a DC 15 Fortitude save.
      • Critical Success: The target is unaffected.
      • Success: The target takes 1d6 void damage.
      • Failure: The target takes 1d6 void damage and becomes sickened 1.
      • Critical Failure: The target takes 2d6 void damage and becomes sickened 2.
  • Localized Quarantine (Activate):
    • Frequency: Once per day
    • Action: 1 Action (concentrate, primal)
    • Effect: You adjust the lead-soldered wrist clamp to halt the spread of an active poison or non-magical disease inside your body. The condition does not progress or stage up for 1 hour, and you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your next Fortitude save to end the affliction.
  • Spiteful Purge (Activate):
    • Frequency: Once per day
    • Action: Reaction (mental, primal)
    • Trigger: An adjacent creature hits you with a melee Strike while the ring holds 3 charges.
    • Effect: You discharge the collected somatic trauma into the attacker’s nervous system, consuming all 3 charges. The attacker takes 2d4 mental damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or become clumsy 1 and stupefied 1 until the end of its next turn.

Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition)

Somatic Catharsis Thumb-Brace

  • Classification: Arcane Device / Psionic Shunt
  • Encumbrance: 0.5 lb. (Worn on the thumb and wrist)
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): The wearer ignores the first point of Wound or Fatigue penalties caused by poisons, natural sickness, or extreme environmental exhaustion.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): The wearer receives a +1 bonus to Healing and Notice rolls made to diagnose diseases, identify toxins, or detect tainted provisions within 3 inches (6 yards).
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever the wearer successfully makes a Vigor roll against poison or disease, or suffers direct damage from an acid or toxic hazard, the brace stores 1 charge token (up to a maximum of 3).
  • Somatic Transference (Action): The wearer spends 1 charge token and makes a Smarts or Athletics (throwing) roll against a target within 3 inches (6 yards). On a success, the target takes 2d4 non-lethal damage and becomes Distracted from sudden violent nausea; on a raise, the target is also Vulnerable.
  • Localized Quarantine (Action): Once per day, the wearer adjusts the lead collar with an action and rolls Vigor. With success, the progression of an active poison or illness is arrested for 1 hour, granting a free reroll on the subsequent Vigor roll to recover.
  • Spiteful Purge (Reaction): When struck by a melee attack while holding 3 charge tokens, the wearer spends an immediate reaction to clear all 3 tokens and vent the stored biological trauma. The attacker must make a Vigor roll at -2 or become Shaken and drop whatever they are holding due to involuntary muscular spasms.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

Somatic Catharsis Shunt-Ring

  • Classification: Sensory/Neural Augmentation Rig (Ring and Wrist Mount)
  • Availability: 2 (Legal)
  • Cost: 2,600 nuyen
  • Capacity: [1] (Cast bell-bronze thumb band with lead solder rib and fractured smoky obsidian node)
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): When suffering from non-lethal physical toxins, natural pathogens, or physical fatigue, the runner ignores up to 1 point of injury or distraction dice pool modifiers. The biological damage continues along its standard track, but the runner maintains mental clarity and manual steadiness.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): The runner receives a +1 dice pool bonus on Biotech or Perception tests made to diagnose biological toxins, analyze vector transmission, or detect contaminated rations and air within 5 meters.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever the runner succeeds on a Body or Toxin Resistance test, or suffers continuous damage from chemical, acid, or necrotic sources, the ring stores 1 resonance charge (maximum of 3 charges).
  • Somatic Transference (Minor Action): The runner spends 1 charge and 1 point of Edge to target an enemy within 5 meters. The runner makes an opposed Biotech + Willpower vs. Body + Willpower test. On a net hit, the target suffers 2 boxes of Stun damage and gains the Dazed condition for 1 combat round due to violent phantom nausea.
  • Localized Quarantine (Minor Action): The runner spends 1 point of Edge and manually shifts the leaded wrist collar to isolate an active systemic infection or venom. For 1 hour, the condition cannot worsen or inflict additional damage, granting a +2 dice pool bonus on the next Toxin Resistance test to clear it.
  • Spiteful Purge (Reaction): When struck by a melee attack while holding 3 charges, the runner spends an immediate Reaction and clears all 3 charges. The attacking foe must make an immediate Body + Willpower test (Threshold 2) or suffer 3 boxes of Stun damage and suffer a -2 dice pool penalty on their next action due to sudden visceral spasms.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Somatic Catharsis Thumb-Brace

  • Item Level: Level 1
  • Price: 375 credits
  • Usage: Worn, ring and wrist
  • Bulk: L
  • Attunement: Requires investment
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): While you have the sickened or fatigued condition from biological toxins, diseases, or environmental hazards, reduce the penalty imposed on your checks and DCs by 1 (to a minimum of 0). The conditions remain active until properly treated.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): You gain a +1 item bonus to Medicine checks to Treat Poison, Treat Disease, or identify alien pathogens, and you can sense virulent biological contagions and venoms within 15 feet.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever you succeed on a Fortitude saving throw against a poison, biological rot, or disease effect, or take ongoing acid or poison damage, the brace stores 1 resonance charge (maximum 3 charges). All stored charges dissipate after an 8-hour rest.
  • Somatic Transference (Activate):
    • Frequency: Once per hour
    • Action: Two Actions (concentrate, manipulate, mental)
    • Cost: 1 resonance charge
    • Effect: You direct stored bodily trauma into a target within 15 feet. The target must attempt a DC 15 Fortitude save.
      • Success: The target takes 1d6 void damage.
      • Failure: The target takes 1d6 void damage and becomes sickened 1.
      • Critical Failure: The target takes 2d6 void damage and becomes sickened 2.
  • Localized Quarantine (Activate):
    • Frequency: Once per day
    • Action: Single Action (concentrate, manipulate)
    • Effect: You adjust the lead-soldered wrist clamp to arrest an internal contagion. The targeted poison or disease cannot progress for 1 hour, and you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your next Fortitude save to purge it.
  • Spiteful Purge (Activate):
    • Frequency: Once per day
    • Action: Reaction (concentrate, mental)
    • Trigger: An adjacent creature hits you with a melee Strike while the brace holds 3 charges.
    • Effect: You discharge the collected somatic trauma into the attacker, consuming all 3 charges. The attacker takes 2d4 mental damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or become clumsy 1 until the end of its next turn.

Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Edition)

Bio-Feedback Catharsis Loop

  • Item Classification: Psionic Bio-Feedback Rig / Metabolic Siphon
  • Tech Level: TL 10
  • Mass: 0.25 kg
  • Skill Requirement: Psionics (Bio-Psionics or Telepathy) 0 or Medic 1 to deliberately vent or channel charges; acts as a passive filter for untrained wearers.
  • Base Cost: Cr 7,500
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): The wearer ignores DM-1 penalties caused by physical exhaustion, airborne toxins, or biological infections. Bodily degradation continues, but physical coordination and mental focus remain unaffected.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): The wearer gains DM+1 on all Medic, Science (life science), or Survival checks to diagnose diseases, analyze bio-hazards, or locate non-potable water and contaminated provisions within 5 meters.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever the wearer passes an END check against toxins, infections, or hazardous atmospheres, or sustains physical damage from acid or biological decay, the obsidian core stores 1 charge token (up to a maximum of 3).
  • Somatic Transference: As an action, the wearer expends 1 Psi point (or 1 charge token) and targets a creature within 5 meters. The target must make an END check (10+). On a failure, the target suffers 1d6 damage directly to its END characteristic and suffers DM-1 on all physical checks for 1 round as violent abdominal spasms take hold.
  • Localized Quarantine: As an action, the wearer expends 1 Psi point and adjusts the lead cuff to lock down an internal infection. The progression of an active poison or illness is suspended for 1 hour, providing DM+2 on the subsequent END check made to recover.
  • Spiteful Purge (Reaction): When struck in close combat while holding 3 charge tokens, the wearer spends an immediate reaction to vent all 3 charges. The attacker must make an immediate END check (8+); failure results in 2d6 Stun damage and the loss of their next Minor Action due to blinding, phantom nausea.

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay (Wrath & Glory)

Cathartic Mortification Ring

  • Value: Tier 1 (Common)
  • Keywords: IMPERIUM, ADEPTUS ASTARTES, ADEPTUS MECHANICUS, SANCTIONED PSYKER, MEDITAE
  • Rarity: Uncommon
  • Slot: Ring / Hand (Worn on the thumb and metacarpus)
  • Symptom Partitioning (Passive): The wearer ignores the first point of penalties from the Poisoned or Exhausted conditions. The condition remains active in the wearer’s system, but the mind and aim remain steady.
  • Morbidity Intuition (Passive): The wearer gains +1 bonus die to Medicae (Int) and Survival (Wil) tests made to identify toxins, assess xenos contagions, or locate contaminated rations and water within 5 meters.
  • Cathartic Reservoir (Passive): Whenever the wearer passes a Toughness test against poison, disease, or biological warp-taint, or takes continuous damage from acid or toxic sources, the obsidian nodule gains 1 charge token (maximum 3 tokens).
  • Somatic Transference (Action): The wearer expends 1 charge token and spends an Action to project their biological agony at an enemy within 5 meters. The target must make a Toughness test (DN 3). On a failure, the target takes 1d6 + 2 Mortal Wounds and suffers the Hindered condition for 1 round due to violent visceral spasms.
  • Localized Quarantine (Action): Once per day as an Action, the wearer adjusts the lead-soldered cuff, spending 1 Wrath to isolate an infection or poison. The affliction is halted for 1 hour, granting +2 bonus dice on the next Toughness test made to purge the pathogen.
  • Spiteful Purge (Reaction): Once per combat encounter, when hit by an enemy melee attack while holding 3 charge tokens, the wearer may spend an immediate Reaction and clear all 3 tokens. The attacking enemy suffers 2d4 Shock and must pass a Toughness test (DN 3) or be Staggered until the end of its next turn.