POLARITY GAUNTLETS
Designed eons ago by pre-Decepticon laborers in the
depths of the Cybertronian quarries and foundries,
Polarity Gauntlets are powerful, handheld devices
capable of manipulating magnetic fields. The original
concept was to give a single proficient worker the ability
to move mountains of alloy, bend raw construction
materials, and save hundreds of thousands in quarterly
physical labor costs.
Like with so many things in Cybertronian life, the
Decepticons later found new and sordid ways to use
TRANSFORMERS ROLEPLAYING GAME – POLARITY GAUNTLETS
these unexpectedly powerful devices as weapons against
the agents of the Primes, the upper class of Cybertron’s
elite, and of course, the Autobots. With the ability
to erect gigantic metal buildings or tear them down,
Polarity Gauntlets put the actual strength of magnetism
and physics into their wielders’ hands. Barricades could
be pulled together or yanked apart with the wave of a
gauntleted hand, enemies sent sprawling or smashing
into one another, and even pull oneself across the
landscape on invisible ropes of magnetic force! When
one gauntlet-wielding bot can potentially yank one of the
arm-component bots off a titanic Combiner, the
battlegrounds of the civil war can literally
be changed with the wave of a hand.
The few Polarity Gauntlets that were
made were used for both good and
for ill, trading hands like the scoring
cube in the game of the same name.
This left much of Cybertron’s lower
and middle levels in a strange
paradox of being built up and
torn down simultaneously. The
artifacts grew in reputation to the
point where field commanders
and managing officers of both
sides looked at the swaths of
destruction they had left and
universally determined them
too powerful and dangerous to
be a regular asset of war. The
locatable Polarity Gauntlets
were stolen away by a circle
of like-minded agents, hurled
into a stasis vault, and soon
forgotten to the annals of time.
Until the exodus to Earth… when at least one of the
ancient artifacts was discovered in the wreckage of a
wayward cargo pod. Once Megatron’s minions and
Optimus Prime’s comrades were made aware that a
Polarity Gauntlet was on the table again, things were sure
to become complicated once more.
Using a Polarity
Gauntlet
A Polarity Gauntlet is a powerful device that must be
wielded properly to tap into its considerable abilities.
Once the GM has made one of these artifacts available to
the characters, it requires a successful DIF 16 Technology
(Cybertronian) Skill Test to equip it properly to one of
the character’s empty External Hardpoints. Once properly
equipped, a Cybertronian with a Polarity Gauntlet must
abide by the following rules: Cybertronian
• Activating the Polarity Gauntlet requires the
expenditure of 1 Energon Point or 1 Story Point for a Artifacts?
Scene.
Cybertron and its many colonies are very
• While the Polarity Gauntlet is active, the user is treated
old. In the eons of time that has passed
as being three times as heavy as they are for Lift/Carry/
Shove calculations. for this mechanoid civilization, there have
• While the Polarity Gauntlet is active, the user gains
been countless technological leaps and
3 on all Brawn skill tests used to manipulate metallic breakthroughs, but every so often there
targets and can do so at a range of up to 30 feet. is one that stands up and apart from the
• While the Polarity Gauntlet is active, the user can rest. These amazing and seldom repeatable
use magnetic brachiation to effectively have an Aerial instances in super-science become famous—
Movement value of 35 feet, but not at an altitude or infamous—and ascend to the concept of
greater than 30 feet from the nearest metallic (or being some kind of unique relic or artifact.
naturally ferrous) surface or large object.
• While the Polarity Gauntlet is active, the user’s arm is
Cybertronian artifacts are armor,
wrapped in an electromagnetic field that increases their weapons, or pieces of equipment with an
Toughness Defense by +2 against attacks the user is Availability that falls beyond “Theoretical”
aware of. in all instances, but that characters can get
Additionally, the character with an activated Polarity their hands on through the use of Perks,
Gauntlet can perform the two following attacks: narrative arc elements, or potential rewards
for mission successes.
• Magnetic Lash (Technology): Range 15ft (2
Electromagnetic Damage and target is moved 2d4 × 5ft
in chosen direction and made Prone); Traits: Anti-Tank
• Magnetic Surge (Technology): Range 20 ft/40 ft (2 Blunt
Damage Blast: 10ft radius); Alternate Effect: Maneuver • The ancient robots known as Quintessons love
(3); Traits: Anti-Tank manipulating the people of Cybertron, and they are at it
again. The rumor mill has revealed one of their number
is auctioning off a working Polarity Gauntlet in neutral
Plot Hooks space, and the bots who come with the best bid can
acquire it. The winning bid, however, will not just be a
Just knowing that a Polarity Gauntlet is on Earth stack of Energon cubes or powerful armaments, as this
can be enough to cause a significant stir among all Quintesson trades far more in favors and promises.
Cybertronians, regardless of faction. The following are • Shockwave has gotten ahold of a Polarity Gauntlet and
interesting ways to introduce and use the existence is racing to the nearest spacebridge facility to return to
of these powerful artifacts in your own Transformers Cybertron and wield it against the Autobots. Perceptor
Roleplaying Game campaigns. has rigged up a prototype magnetism-nullification
• A team of Earthling mining geologists have discovered a safety field generator that should protect a small strike
Polarity Gauntlet and are dangerously close to figuring team from the gauntlet’s effects. Hopefully the device
out how to use the powerful device at their latest will function long enough to either take possession
extraction site. Without a Spark-bearing wielder to help of the artifact or ensure it no longer functions for the
focus these energies, the Earthlings could accidentally Decepticons.
set off a ferro-tectonic cascade that could rip the
countryside apart!
• The primary recycling and repurposing foundry on
planet Junkion has been all but shut down by one of
their more “free-thinking” line workers who recently
discovered a semi-functional Polarity Gauntlet in a
wreckage haul. After repairing it fully, the newfound
power has gone to the scavenger’s head, and she is
holding the facility’s productivity hostage. It is time
for a team of Autobots to go and hopefully negotiate
the forfeiture of the item while keeping it from the
impending Decepticon strike team!

TRANSFORMERS ROLEPLAYING GAME – POLARITY GAUNTLETS