Self-Alteration PowersHome

Shrinking

This is a personal form of Diminution. The hero can temporarily decrease his body's size. The hero's primary and secondary abilities remain unaffected. Even Strength is undiminished, although it is much harder for a shrunken hero to gain enough leverage to perform tasks that would otherwise be simple to perform. For example, consider the act of sharpening a pencil if you are only ladybug-size.

As the hero shrinks, he becomes harder to hit but conversely suffers greater damage if struck. This is handled by the column shift as shown in the table below. The column shift decreases the attacker's chance to hit and increases the damage by an equal shift. For example, a hero with Rm rank is -2CS to hit but suffers +2CS damage if the attack is successful.

The following table details attack modifiers against Shrinking characters:

In practical terms, a Shrinking rank of Shift X, Y, or Z is sufficient to reduce a normal human to the size of a single cell or virus. Either CL1000 or CL3000 will reduce him to atomic scale. CL5000 reduces him to the point at which he can enter microverse worlds. On such worlds, the hero is proportional to his new environment.

There are 3 forms of this power. When the power or the hero is first created, the player must determine which form is involved, using the following subtable.

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1d100

Atomic Collapse: decreases the distance between the body's atoms and subatomic particles, thus decreasing overall size. Mass and strength are unaffected. As density increases, the hero's body could collapse into neutronium (CL3000) or into a black hole (CL5000).

Atomic Reduction: decreases the number of atoms in the hero's body. The lost atoms are either disintegrated (if the shrinkage is permanent) or temporarily removed from the hero's plane of existence and stored "elsewhere" until the hero reverts to his original size. Both mass and strength decrease as the hero shrinks; these ranks remain proportional to the hero's new size. If the hero loses too many atoms (by exceeding SX rank), his remaining structure becomes too simple to sustain his life force. For this reason, a hero with this form cannot voluntarily exceed Un rank. If the limit is passed, the hero's life-force is automatically stored away on the same plane with all the displaced matter that normally forms his body. At SZ rank, the hero's body consists of a single DNA molecule, which then vanishes when the next rank is reached.

Atomic Shrinkage: reduces the size of the hero's atoms, thus reducing overall size and mass. Strength remains proportional to the hero's current size.

Note: This is the only form that enables the hero to reach a microverse.

While this is the most popular form of Shrinking, it has a potentially deadly disadvantage. As the hero's atoms shrink, they can no longer interact with other, normal-size atoms. As a result, the hero cannot breathe, drink, or eat normal-size matter. Fortunately, there is a flat 95% chance (determined at the time this power is first gained) that the power envelops the hero with an aura that temporarily reduces all atoms to be consumed. If the hero lacks this aura, he must have a proportionally sized supply of material for consumption or somehow not need to breathe. If not, the duration for this power is equal to the time the hero can hold his breath. There is an advantage to not possessing this aura in that electrons cannot flow from normal to shrunken matter; hence, the power acts as rank-level Resistance to Electricity.

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The optional power is Diminution.

The nemesis is Enlargement; the specific forms are, in order, Atomic Collapse, Atomic Reduction, and Atomic Shrinkage(see Enlargement).

Range: None.