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It Ain’t What You Do…
As characters increase their Ability scores they gain access to certain traits that grant them enhanced performance in certain areas. These traits, which vary in behaviour depending on the linked Attribute, are acquired automatically as the Ability rank increase and can sometimes be exchanged or expanded upon.
Body
- The traits for Body-linked Abilities are called Knacks. They represent a character’s natural inclinations with regards to the use of the Ability.
- Each Ability has at least five knacks.
- Characters automatically gain one knack for each Ability they have at or improve to ranks 4, 7 & 9. Thus characters can have a maximum of three knacks per Ability.
- Knacks are highly situational, providing a bonus (or negating a penalty) for any rolls made with the Ability when the appropriate condition applies.
- It is possible for character to exchange one knack for another, but this process is neither quick nor easy.
Examples: the Bedroom Eyes knack gives the character +1 die bonus to Persuade attempts specifically meant to seduce another character; the 0g Combat knack for Melee reduces the penalties to make attacks in no- or lo-gravity environments by up to 2.
Magic
- The traits for Magic-linked Abilities are called Spells. They are specific methods of manipulating mana that the character has learned to the point that they are almost second nature.
- Spells are more efficient (both in terms of their mana cost and effect strength) than raw magic used to perform the same effect, but they lack flexibility.
- There are three tiers of spells, to which characters can use when their appropriate Ability is at or improved to ranks 4, 7 & 9. When a character gains access to a new tier they learn one spell of that tier for free. Additional spells can be learnt and there is no limit to the number of spells a character can know per tier.
- There are multiple spells per tier for each Ability.
- Some spells have a “Sorcery” version, which is used when a sorcerer enacts that particular spell.
Examples: The Warding tier 2 spell One Way Wall creates a unidirectional barrier in front of the character that can absorb incoming fire (to a total of 10 damage) while not restricting his or his allies ability to return the favour. If enacted by a sorcerer then the barrier has 3 armour and can be twice the size.
Tech
- The traits for Tech-linked Abilties are called Upgrades. They represent the way that a character’s neural suite will adapt and evolve in response to their use of it.
- Each Ability has at least five upgrades.
- Characters gain one upgrade for each Ability they have at or improve to ranks 4, 7 & 9. Because the neural suite enhances itself over time when a character gains a new upgrade for an Ability all existing upgrades increase in strength by one level. Each upgrade therefore has three levels.
- A character’s upgrades grant them access to advanced technology, faster manipulation of devices and specific means of bypassing safeguards (amongst others).
- Characters who have followed the path of the Chimera and have exchanged their Tech Attribute for Nano gain one advantages; all of their upgrades for that Ability stay at the maximum level for their rank instead of just the oldest.
Example: the Spoof upgrade for Code enhances the character’s aptitude at convincing sensor systems to show what the character wishes them to show - Spoof I grants a simple +1 die bonus to such attempts; Spoof II inflicts a 2 die penalty on attempts by the system to notice a failed attempt; Spoof III allows the character to create semi-automonous spoofing routines that can move through the datanets for a period of time.
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Crystal Clear As Mud
One of the so-called outlier races who breathe neither oxygen nor hydrogen, the Warlocks are generally known for being somewhat amoral, extremely self-centred, enigmatic to a fault, and very, very powerful. They herald from the outermost planet of an ancient red dwarf that hovers precariously within the dim halo stars beyond the edge of the Galaxy. Their world, listed as Karys in the Conclave’s libraries, is a wasteland of ice and rock with the merest wisp of a nitrogen/methane atmosphere upon which the Warlocks are the only signs of life - this mystery is but one of many that remain unsolved.
Appearance & Biology
While the particulars may vary between individuals all Warlocks share the same basic shape - an irregular heptagonal prism of smoky crystal between 60 & 80cm tall that comes to a point at the top and bottom. Within the crystal is a pattern of striations that glimmers in a variety of colours -these lines and marks are presumed to be the seat of Warlock consciousness and the colours have been noted to change depending on the Warlock’s apparent mood, but no regular pattern has ever been reported.
Little is known about Warlock biology (for lack of a better word); the crystal that makes them up is exceedingly tough and further reinforced by their magical nature. They are equally at home in atmospheres of any composition, from caustic pressure-cooker worlds to the stormy outer layers of a gas giant, and neither do they appear to require any sustenance beyond the ambient mana field. How, or even if, they reproduce is unknown but their numbers do not seem to have suffered from being scattered across space, and while they do not seem to age their bodies are not invulnerable and Warlocks have been killed, by accident and by design.
History & Culture
Almost nothing is known of Warlock history. From references made to ancient events or long-extinct species it is commonly believed that they are by far the oldest sapient people in the Galaxy, with ages measured in millions of years being bandied about. When questioned directly in full Conclave one Warlock famously stated that they were “much older, but no wiser” than their interrogators and refused to answer any further questions on the matter.
Their culture is, if anything, even more mysterious. The legendary Warlock self-centredness is the only thing most people will ever hear about, which has lead to a number of jokes, and some ill-will. A Warlock will never say, “I will meet you here in three hours,” but rather, “You and this place will come to me in three hours.” A Warlock does not move, instead the Universe moves around them. This might seem laughable, a minor quirk on their part, but those scholars who have taken the time to learn from them, to understand their views and their magic, they say that there might be something in it after all.
Magic
To say that the Warlocks live and breathe magic would not be over-stating the case. Lacking any limbs or recognisable technology, they interact with the world around them purely via magic, creating mana fields of breathtaking precision and delicacy so that they can affect the world around them as readily, if not more so, as those species formed more conventionally.
One oddity about their facility with magic is that any effect to do with movement does not appear to originate with them, as far as Conclave magic and technology can detect, but rather with the world around them. This manifests itself in many ways, but the most visible is the mana field that forms when a Warlock moves - as far as anyone can tell, the field comes from space itself and it pulls the Warlock to where it should be, rather than the more conventional pushing fields used by other species’ magicians. Hence the following joke:
Q: What’s the difference between an egomaniac and a Warlock?
A: Both believe that the Universe revolves around them, but the Warlock might be correct.
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Mad Skillz
Small note: Henceforth instead of “stats and skills” Heaven’s Reach will use the terms “Attributes and Abilities”. Thank you White Wolf.
Following on from a (much) earlier post, each of the three Attributes that a character has is linked to eight Abilities. These Abilities are themselves grouped into thematically-linked pairs. The following is a list of the Abilities linked to each of the “standard” Attributes, those belonging to characters who have taken a Path will be described and detailed another time.
Body
- Athletics (Physical) – climbing, lifting, swimming & running.
- Awareness (Environmental) – knowing what is going on around you.
- Endurance (Physical) – resisting fatigue and/or pain.
- Firefight (Combat) – shooting at people and avoiding getting shot.
- Investigation (Social) – getting other people to give you information.
- Melee (Combat) – hitting other people and avoiding getting hit.
- Persuasion (Social) – getting other people to do what you want.
- Stealth (Environmental) – keeping out of sight.
Magic
- Alchemy (Thaumaturgy) – the art of transmutation; changing the properties of materials.
- Conjuration (Creation) – the art of summoning, calling forth matter and energy.
- Divination (Sensory) – the art of detection, locating items or seeing a future.
- Evocation (Battle) – the art of destruction, fireballs and lightning bolts.
- Glamour (Sensory) – the art of illusion, making things seem like other things.
- Infusion (Thaumaturgy) – the art of enchantment, how to make a magic sword.
- Kinesis (Creation) – the art of movement, from moving coins to teleportation.
- Warding (Battle) – the art of protection, magical shields and defences.
Tech
- Augment (Swarm) – using nanoswarms to enhance your tools and protect yourself.
- Code (Data) – getting machines and other devices to behave in non-standard ways.
- Conn (Vehicle) – operating any vehicle large enough to require a bridge crew.
- Disrupt (Swarm) – using nanoswarms to damage and disadvantage others.
- Fabricate (Engineer) – designing and building objects using a maker.
- Pilot (Vehicle)- operating any single-person or small-crew vehicle.
- Repair (Engineer) – restoring functionality to broken objects.
- Search (Data) – querying the datanets to rapidly locate information.
Experienced role-players will have noticed that there are a number of skills that seem to be missing from this list, specifically skills involving any form of knowledge on the part of the character. This is not accidental. The Abilities above were chosen to represent those things that a citizen of the Conclave is most likely to learn as part of a magical interstellar culture. Personal knowledge and several other types of skill are classed as Hobbies and will be covered later.
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With Apologies to Douglas Adams
The problem of adequate communication between cultures has always bedevilled humanity. It became a thousand times worse once it became necessary to communicate with non-humans, the hydrogen-breathing species and outlier races like the Warlocks or Kneptish.
Early, pre-Conclave, solutions required a sorcerer to cast the appropriate translation matrices. This rapidly proved unworkable since the population of sorcerers has never been very large and each translation matrix only works with a specific pair of languages. Some time later magitechnicians created translator nodes, which were simply worn by those who wished to converse, but were still faced with the problem of the near exponential growth of the number of translation matrices required as the Conclave expanded.
It took just a single mind to formulate the solution to this problem. It took many years of further study to implement her solution, but the pressing nature of the problem (the number of translation matrices necessary for Conclave functions had passed a hundred thousand) meant that the effort was made.
The solution she suggested was simple - rather than translate directly between languages and deal with the ballooning number of matrices this required, why not translate to and from some intermediary language that was specifically designed for that purpose. The creation of this language was anything but simple. It had to be able to accurately and unambiguously convey cultural context & emotional concepts, nuance & slang, to such an extent that when translated to another language the recipient would understand both what the speaker had said but how they had said it. The final language would, the research team soon realised, have to be so rich and so complex that it would be almost impossible to learn, instead its direct application would be limited to Watchers and other such systems.
The completion of this intermediate language was hailed as the most important breakthrough in the history of communications. By general acclimation the junior researcher who proposed it, now a respected professor and contributor to the language, was immortalised by having this language named after her.
Her name was Bathel Bellutisi.
The language is called Babel.
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The Will to Power
Sorcery.
The ultimate expression of the mastery of magic. The purest way to manipulate the fundamental building blocks of the Universe. An incredibly dangerous method of working magic that kills three out of every four who attempt it.
Sorcery.
At the most basic level a sorceror is someone who has managed to unlock and control his sheut, the wellspring of mana in his soul. This description, however, massively undersells the depth of that achievement. The process requires three major steps, the first two of which can take years to complete - the final step takes no more than six seconds.
In order to unlock his sheut the prospective sorceror needs to forge a key. The creation of this key is, by itself, a major feat of magical engineering - it has to be precisely tuned to the would-be sorceror’s soul. The aspirant’s mentor can, and will if they’re any good, give plenty of advice regarding the construction and can test the soundness of the enchantments surrounding it when complete, but only the aspirant himself can decide whether or not he believes it is ready. No test has, as yet, been created to determine whether or not the key will actually work.
The second step usually occurs in a ritual space or with a small audience of the would-be sorceror’s friends, family and mentor. It is now that the aspirant takes up the key and with a single motion thrusts it into the seal of his soul (the heart in humans). If constructed in precisely the correct manner the key will phase out of material reality and go slot straight into his soul, unlocking his wellspring. If not made perfectly then the tip of the key will rupture the aspirant’s heart, usually killing him in a matter of seconds (the advent of medical nanoswarms has made failure at this step somewhat less fatal that it once was, but it still requires fast work on the part of the swarmer). For the student to falter at this point is well-known, it takes a powerful act of will to use the key, much as it’s creation is a major act of skill. Many would-be sorcerors can wait years before finally discovering whether their construction was accurate enough.
The final step occurs once the sheut has been opened. The outrush of mana from the wellspring at this moment is overwhelming, and it must be controlled by the sorceror or it will kill him, his body burning away in a retina-searing blaze of energy, and he must do it in six seconds. This is the moment where all of the training regimens and all of his study comes into play, because the one thing every sorceror willing to talk about the experience agrees on is that the experience itself is impossible to describe in useful or coherent terms. They will use words like “drive”, “push” or “divert” to describe what they did, but these are after-the-fact words, chewed over in late-night hours weeks or years after the six seconds of terror that follow the wellspring being opened.
Should he survive the aspirant is now a sorceror, and his troubles have, really, only just begun.
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Becoming the Dragon
“Dragon” is an old word, found in pre-Conclave records on a hundred worlds, used to describe entities of great personal magical ability, whose very presence would cause local political structures to take note. Sorcerors, clockers, binders and other traditions that have been lost, all were given the appelation “dragon” if their power, or notoriety, reached a certain level.
Modern Dragons are nothing like that.
Immortal and powerful, Dragons are humanoids who have irrevocably joined with an elemental, becoming something more and less than the sum of the two entities. During the process, the becoming as it is called, the elemental bonds with the subject’s sheut, the wellspring, using this vast reservoir of mana as a substitute for the stars that are their normal habitat. The next change is far more traumatic, because the prospective Dragon has to sacrifice a part of his akh to the alien creature, losing a piece of himself forevermore in the exchange.
Those Dragons who give up their ib, their passions and emotions, are known as the Heartless. They form a majority of the known Dragons in Conclave space, with over half of those who follow this Path taking this option. Once they have become their lives are ruled by pure rationality and logic; while they can remember their emotional selves, they can no longer even conceive those modes of behaviour. The Heartless are also those Dragons most inclined towards the excesses of their kind, their passionless selves having little ability to restrain the alien urges that occasionally burst free.
The Nameless are those Dragons who sacrificed their ren, their memories of self and life. They emerge from the becoming with no identity, their minds swept clean of who they once were. Most prospective Nameless leave messages for themselves upon awakening after the bonding is complete, to prepare them at least a little for the world outside. There is, however, no compulsion upon the would-be Dragon to be entirely honest in this message. The Nameless represent roughly a third of their number, and are known to be far less prone to sudden violent outbursts than their Heartless Cousins.
The minority group of Dragons are those who allow the elemental to consume their ba, the accumulated knowledge of their lives. Known as the Graceless, these Dragons emerge from their becoming having to relearn how to do everything. Unable to walk, speak or even feed themselves they must reacquire those skills before they can return to Conclave society. This intensely frustrating process can last between one and two years, the new Dragon able to remember that he could do these things but unable to connect that memory to the processes involved. The Graceless, while being few in number, are also those Dragons who are least likely to succumb to the rages of their kind.
There are those who question the emotional and mental stability of a humanoid willing to undergo such a fundamental change, but the Conclave strongly supports the right to self-determination of its members, even if that determination is to destroy the self. The motives of the elementals who agree to the bonding are, despite much research into the matter, utterly inscrutable.
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The Joy of Stats
All human (and mostly-human) characters have three Stats that rate basic ability in certain key areas (ie: they provide the number of dice rolled in tests): Body, Magic and Tech, and each stat is linked to a number of Skills (fodder for a later post).
Characters who decide to follow one of the transformative Paths (or who have already done so at character generation) do not, however, have this exact trio of stats. To emphasis the effects that such a dramatic change has upon the character one of the stats is swapped for another (depending on the Path taken):
- Characters that have bonded with an elemental and become Dragons replace their Magic stat with one labelled Fire.
- A character who has followed the path of the Hydra loses her Tech stat and uses Nano instead.
- Ka-bot characters, having left their bodies behind for a technomagical construct swap their Body stat for Shell.
- Having unleased the power of their wellspring sorcerors no longer have a Magic stat, instead they use Sorcery.
Non-humanoid characters use entirely different sets of stats to describe their basic abilities within the context of their species, for example; Singers use the stats Avatar, Melody and Rhythm.
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A Small Note on Gender
While for the human and human-like races gender dimorphism is the rule there are other species for whom the standard concepts of gender are irrelevant or inapplicable, such as the Singers and the Warlocks. For these entities this text will use the Spivak pronouns:
Subjective: He, She, E
Objective: Him, Her, Em
Possessive adjective: His, Her, Eir
Possessive pronoun: His, Hers, Eirs
Reflexive: Himself, Herself, Eirself
The It* set of pronouns is used only to describe objects, rather than self-aware entities.
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Anatomy of the Soul
The human soul is described by those who study such things as a “self-organising multi-phasic mana field”. It contains all of a person’s memories and feelings, their hopes and dreams, and it dissipates into the generalised mana field of the Universe a few minutes after death. For some people this was not enough.
Research into the nature and structure of the soul was always difficult, but through the perseverence of a few dedicated people its internal construction was revealed. After all the data had been collated and interpreted the soul was found to comprise three parts, the akh (person), the ka (life force), and the sheut (wellspring). With this information came the knowledge that a soul could, with the correct equipment and proper enchantments, be caught in a precisely constructed vessel. Now immortality beckoned and there were many that answered.
But their understanding of the soul’s structure was imperfect, and a great proportion of those who transited from their mortal shells to imperishable vessels were not as they had been in life. Very soon it was found that the sheut was almost impossible to capture - the wellspring, the source of the greater magical energies that the strongest sorcerors could call upon, did not transfer easily into a vessel. After much further research it was determined that the akh had three components of its own, that could not be detected seperately but that could be damaged within (or escape from) the akh during the process of capture. These were the ren (memory), the ib (emotion) and the ba (knowledge), and the lack of any one of these had a great effect on the soul and the person.
It was this knowledge and the improvements in the transition process that it led to that resulted in the creation of the first modern ka-bots. In an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences it also led to the birth of an entirely new breed of human, the elementally-empowered Dragons, and their effect on both the Conclave and wider galactic society has yet to be fully grasped.
