Character Creation Process and EXP Costs

Summary

This article introduces the general process of character development for Sage Enlightenment games.

Character Creation Process

1 - Players must choose their character Concept, Class, Id, Demeanor and Nature, as well as write down their own information (Character Name, Player, Chronicle). These Terms are explained below:

Chronicle: Name of the campaign
Concept: The essential concept, said in a few words, that would encompass your character's character idea
Class: Representative of the nature of their trained method of approaching fighting and wielding power.
Id: Representing the driving force behind the character's spirit as it pertains to their life philosophy. This also drives their approach to wielding power, and thereby determines the sort of Sage they would become. It is divided into the following:
---> Discovery - The character always seeks out the new, the experimental, and is never satisfied with the rote or conventional. They would always seek out new ways of doing things, even going great lengths to do so.
---> Stability - This character seeks to solidify what already exists, refining techniques and honing skills to a sharp and refined edge. They are strongly focused on taking what is and improving upon it rather than seeking out the new.
---> Mystery - This character seeks to unlock the mystery of what is. Rather than seeking out the new, or honing the conventional, they would rather answer the question of "Why", in order to delve into the very nature of what is, its origins and its purpose.
---> Journey - This character is the embodiment of the journeyman. Never seeking to sit still, they are the person who seeks to embrace the results of all other types, but then seeks to determine their use both practically and productively to improve all. They appreciate the path that one takes towards ones goals in life, and the lessons learned along the way.
Demeanor - The character's outward-facing persona, what they generally show towards others in society and how they present themselves.
Nature - The character's inward-facing persona, how they would act and what they would do if there was no one observing them. This may be shown to appear to those whom they trust.

2 - Once this is done, players must select the attribute categories in the order they seek to prioritize from the main categories (Physical, Social, Mental). Once this is selected, they are given 7/5/3 points to put in the sub-categories of these categories, as shown below:

Physical: Strength (Representing Physical Prowess), Dexterity (Representing swiftness and agility), Stamina (Representing Endurance and Constitution)

Mental: Perception (Representing ones generall ability to percieve their surroundings), Intelligence (Representing the ability to absorb and process information), Wits (Representing the ability to wisely navigate through problems, solve issues, etc)

Social: Charisma (Representing the draw that one has upon others through their character and how they interact), Manipulation (Representing the influence that one has upon others specifically to do their bidding), Appearance (Representing the draw that one has upon others through their appearance)

The player decides which larger categories these points into with bonuses and negatives to particular categories in relation to their racial category, which is simplified as follows:

Hyumaphra (Hyumans) - Hyumans gain a flexible +1 point to the player's category of choice, with a -1 point to a randomized category not including the one given additional points.
Animaphra (Ani-man) - Ani-men gain +2 points in the Physical Attribute category, tied to their animal trait, but lose 1 point in the other two categories
Ao'Maphra (Eldin) - Eldin gain +2 to the Mental Attribute category, tied to their enhanced mental and observational prowess, with a - 1 to the other two categories.
Lacrimaphra (Lacriman) - Lacriman gain a +1 to both Physical and Mental attributes, but a -2 to their social attribute due to their poor perception from the other racial groups
Enigmaphra (Fae) - Fae gain a +1 to their Social attribute and an attribute of choice, with a -2 to the attribute not chosen.

Once the larger category points are determined and the modifiers established, the points are distributed across all sub-categories as desired. Bear in mind that you can add to these points afterword with freebie points. Additionally, be aware that a single point in a category shows an average strength in that attribute or skill, There are only penalties incurred when there are 0 points in any of these stats (Increase in difficulty and complexity by 1 in the associated Ability roll. 3 - After selecting the attribute categories, players can now put points in the Ability categories. They can choose which sets of Abilities to prioritize here as well (Talents, Skills, Knowledges), and are given a set of points (13/9/5) to place in these categories. Unlike Attribute points, these points are not affected by the character's racial makeup, but rather their social background and the culture they were raised in. Consider these factors when selecting the abilities. To summarize what they represent: -Talents-

Alertness - Represents the characters ability to sense their surroundings as it pertains to their 7 senses (including Balance and Internal Body sense)
Athletics - Represents the characters athletic ability to navigate or interact with their environment.
Energy Sensitivity - Represents their Passive ability to sense the energy levels in their environment. Other abilities and spheres represent their Active ability to do so.
Grits - Represents their ability to shrug off or brace against harm bodily, exert themselves in a purely physical manner, or withstand harsh environments
Empathy - Represents the character's ability to sense the emotions of and empathize with others.
Evasiveness - Represents the character's ability to nimbly avoid damage or react to surprises.
Diplomacy - Represents the character's ability to influence others to work with them through negotiation.
Intimidation - Represents the character's ability to influence others to work with them through overbearing presence or threat of force.
Leadership - Represents the character's ability to inspire others to follow their directives
Streetwise - Represents the character's ability to blend in with a crowd, talk with the underbelly of society, and learn information 'through the grapevine'.
Subterfuge - Represents the character's ability to bluff, mislead, and otherwise perform underhanded actions without notice.

-Skills-

Crafts - Represents the character's ability to work with their hands in order to create something, from cooking to plumbing to basket-weaving.
Handle - Represents the character's ability to handle any mode of transportation, be they animal or machine.
Etiquette - Represents the character's ability to present themselves correctly in social situations and thereby impress people.
Martial Arts - Represents the character's ability to fight with melee weapons or with their body.
Concentration - Represents the character's ability to concentrate their internal energies, even in the midst of battle.
Ranged Arts - Represents the character's ability to fight with ranged weapons, as well as determine the accuracy of their ranged attacks.
Performance - Represents the character's ability to perform for an audience. This takes their innate skills and allows them to perform without stage fright, as well as to invoke emotion and convey powerful and influential messages through their medium of choice.
Stealth - Represents the character's ability to sneak and hide without being seen.
Survival - Represents the character's ability to survive in a familiar environment, with all that that entails
Technology - Represents the character's ability to repair or put together technological items
Specialization - Represents the character's skill at a specific specialization that may not involve crafting, handling or performing. This can range from things such as medical care, scribing, translating, or merchantry.

-Knowledges-

Academics - Represents the character's knowledge of the liberal arts (such as, but not limited to, anthropology, history, music, philosophy, literature, or the other 'soft' sciences)
Interfacing - Represents the character's ability to interface with databases containing information, including but not limited to interfacing with computers or computer-like technologies and hacking/its equivalents.
Cosmology - Represents the character's knowledge of the cosmos and all the bodies within it, as well as the nature and flow of time, and the signs and seasons of the years.
Enigmas - Represents the character's knowledge of and the ability to solve puzzles and riddles of all kinds, as well as ascertain elaborate wards and traps and find solutions to such.
Wraithology - Represents the character's knowledge of wraiths, their permutations as unnatural beings in the natural world, their effects on their environment, and the phenomenon and dangers of Wraithborne
Investigation - Represents the character's skill at finding clues to determine the truth of an unknown matter, as well s their overall forensic knowledge.
Law - Represents the character's knowledge of the local, national, and even international law.
Dark Arts - Represents the character's knowledge of the nature of Majyk, regardless of whether they have dabbled in wielding it or not.
Linguistics - Represents the characters knowledge of common to esoteric languages
Nature - Represents the character's knowledge of the natural world, as well as the creatures within it, and their benefit to mankind in regards to healing and natural resources
Science - Represents the hard sciences, as well as the designated field of medicine to convert natural ingredients into medicines.

4 - After selecting your abilities, players then add elements to their character's Background, with 7 points to apply to any of the background elements aside from Aspect. These are related to their background circumstances, and also must include 4 things:

Aspect - If not chosen already, the player must choose the Aspectral power set which their character aligns with most prominently. The remaining elements of character creation in some way depend upon that. Also, use this opportunity to write down the Celestial Cores associated with this ability.

Celestial Imprint - The nature of power in the Celestial Universe is such that the power that flows through one's body not only gives the categories known as racial distinctions, but also unique passive abilities all their own. This passive Celestial Imprint can be honed to grant varying abilities depending on how much time is invested in doing so. This is also heavily dependent on the player's choice of their character's Aspectral power choice.

Aural Pull - Even as the Celestial Imprint works through the overflow of the character's stored internal energy so to does the energy released linger, coalescing as an aura surrounding the body. This Aura pulls on the Ambient energy surrounding the character, refilling their reserves of energy as well as contributing to how much ambient energy they can use to enhance their power. Aural Pull practically determines how much from the player's Ambience pool can be drawn at once to reduce the difficulty of any action requiring power.

Elemental Alignment - This determines not only the nature of one's Aural Pull, but also determines what circumstances add to the Ambience pool for the playable character, such as soaking up heat from within the earth.

The other potential Backgrounds represent elements from the following categories or beyond:

Allies - How many allies or connections the character has, who and where they are
Contacts - Sources of information as well as their trustworthiness
Destiny - A mark of expectation that drives the player character forward
Vision - The character is marked by, or even plagued by, portents which may or may not be signs of the future
Influence - The societal influence the character holds
Library - The character has access to a large collection of information, especially as it pertains to the metaphysical
Resources - The character has access to wealth and other resources available through said wealth
Catalym - The character has an item or set of items bound exclusively to their own resonance
Node - The character is in possession of or connected to an item or location that serves as a nexus from which they can draw Ambient Energy regularly.

5 - Next, players do their final touches, setting their Intonation and Capacitance, Willpower, Ambiance, Paradigm, Spheres and Cores, Class Category to their default. -Intonation and Capacitance-

Intonation represents a character's ability to effectively manifest their power into the wider world. All characters have 1 point in this pool by default, with the maximum they can get through "freebie points" (more on that later) being 3. Capacitance adjusts this maximum amount, as well as other factors.
Capacitance represents the character's dichotomy between the strength of their power (denoted as Depth) and their control over their power (Breadth). Greater Depth of power generally does not coincide with greater Breadth, and vice versa. As such, these elements modify the player's default Intonation.
The scale of Capacitance goes as follows: 1 (Adept), 2 (Talented), 3 (Balanced), 4 (Strong), 5(Great One), 5*(Savant)
Characters with Balanced capacitance are the default, and therefore fall under the default rules.
Characters who are Talented have their cap of beginning Intonation at 2, with a bonus to all spheres they are able to put points in at the beginning by 1 after being chosen. This +1 cannot go past the initial cap of 3 for all spheres before freebie points.
Characters who are Strong Gain a +1 to their Class Category of choice by default, but have 1 less point to put towards their spheres of choice.
Characters who are Adept are rare, but can perform feats of power with extreme intricacy, but have difficulty controlling large amounts of the elements. This gives them a +2 to all spheres they have access to after the initial allocation of sphere points, and this goes past the cap before freebie points, but cannot raise their Intonation beyond 1 with freebie points.
Characters who are Great Ones are even rarer than Adepts, and have the ability to manipulate large amounts of elemental power but require extensive training to gain control. This gives them a -2 to the points allocated towards Spheres before freebie points, but a +1 to their class sphere points and a +1 to their default Intonation points (increasing it to 2).
Characters who are Savants are exceedingly rare, far more than Great Ones or Adepts, with strange limitations on their breadth of power but much greater control and nearly equal strength to that of a typical Great One. They gain a +1 to all spheres they have access to (can go past cap), + 1 to initial class category points, and +1 to default Intonaton, but they are capped at 2 intonation (cannot be increased through freebie points), must use double the use of Ambience and Willpower, and players must negotiate with the Storyteller to determine the limitation or stipulation that conditions their greater control over their powers.
Players can choose to be Balance, Talented or Strong but must roll 2d10 if they want the chance to be Adepts/Great Ones/Savants. Each dice represents one of the two factors (Breadth/ Depth). If both are low (3 or less) then one is re-rolled. If both are High (8 or more) then they are also re-rolled.
As Player's wield their power in various ways, Capacitance adjusts their base difficulty and complexity of various actions based on whether it requires Breadth or Depth of power.
-->Additional points towards Breadth (Skilled, Adept) reduces the complexity of all Forms by 1 per point towards Breadth (Max of -2 if Adept) but increases the difficulty of elemental manipulation requiring control of large amounts of elemental forces/materials by the same amount.
-->Additional points towards Depth (Strong, Great One) reduces the difficulty of all attemps at elemental manipulations requiring large amounts of elemental force/material (up to -2 if Great One), with an increase in difficulty to all forms they are not trained in by an equal amount, and a +1 in complexity to all abilities they are trained in regardless of points.
-->Savants are a special case in that, so long as the abilities they attempt to do correspond with their strict limitation on the manifestation of their power, their penalties are reduced by 1 (No increase in complexity for trained forms, +1 against untrained forms). If not, doing so has an increase in complexity and difficulty of +3.

- Willpower- Willpower is a resource representing the player's force of will, and can be used in the following scenarios.

Automatically succeed at a specified action (if this is a multi-stage action multiple points may need to be used)
Overturn a botched roll after it is rolled (considered a reactive action)
Causes the reduction of the effectiveness of mental illusion or compulsion Majyk.
Ignore all health penalties up to incapacitation for 1 turn.

Willpower starts off at 5 for all players, but can be temporarily reduced by social or physical circumstances such as humiliation or torture. Permanent loss of willpower only occurs when a great deal of mental damage has occurred, and takes a great amount of effort to regain. Willpower is naturally regained at a rate of 1 per good night's sleep, and max current willpower is regained after achieving a grand goal. Willpower is also regained for heroic achievements, acting upon their Nature in the world in a way of achieving self-expression/self-actualization, or once per story, drawing upon their sense of Destiny (Rolling Destiny vs difficulty 8) - Ambiance- Ambiance represents the ambient energy the character has around them at all times, and all players start off with an amount equal to their Aural Pull. This resource pool only increases based on the environmental circumstances around the player (influenced by their Elemental Alignment) as well as their Aural Pull. If their current Ambiance is lower than their Aural Pull, they slowly increase their Ambiance in high energy areas regardless of elemental alignment by 1 per hour up to their Aural Pull amount. Once in circumstances where their elemental alignment would feed into their Ambient energy, they must roll their Elemental alignment to see if it is strong enough to feed into their Ambiance Pool, and then roll Aural Pull to determine what amount of Ambient energy they gain while in the area. Ambiance is then used for the following:

Each point of Ambience spent reduces the difficulty of any power-based action down to a minimum of 3. Up to the amount of points in the player character's Aural Pull can be used in one turn at one time.
The player's Ambience can be used to develop a Thread and bind it. While this still requires the resources, players can use points of Ambience to create skills without expending EXP points, provided they have 5 or more points, as it costs 5 points to create a skills + 1 for every additional level of complexity with the skill beyond 3.
The player's current Ambiance + Aural Pull+ Intonation Roll is used to roll to determine the potency of a counter-effect of an enemy seeking to attack their body directly from with with their Aspectral power.
By making use of the Ambience Pool, players can help their allies by expending some of their Ambience pool to achieve Harmonia with them. By expending a point of Ambience, they can harmonize their resonance with another giving them further strength to perform the action they're attempting to do. This also requires additional points in the Universal Sphere.
For Fae only, the ambiance pool converts into a visible and tangible shell around the body known as a Fae Shell. This shell is treated as armor for the purposes of adding to soak and can be activated at will, providing additional soak dice at a rate of 1 dice per two points on top of any armor they have and allowing them to fly for the duration. They also can only access their Celestial Imprint ability by activating their Fae Shell. However, any damage to the Fae Shell depletes the player's Ambience pool by 1 per distinct attack, and when fully depleted in this way, the Fae shell is destroyed and all benefits (including flight) lost for 10 minutes and leaving them temporarily dazed that turn. The Fae shell naturally restores itself by an amount based on their Aural pull role at a difficulty of 10-1 per point in their Celestial Imprint ability.

Forsaken

Wraiths {Overview}

Void Sphere

Foci

-Paradigm- A character's Paradigm represents the method by which they interact with the world, and the elemental spheres they have access to, both how and why. For the purposes of gameplay, they function as follows:

Proximus : Limits the number of elemental spheres one has access to based on the Celestient sphere beyond the Proximus element. Every point in the Celestial sphere = an additional sphere you can wield through your main element.
Unilis : Increases the ease of use of your abilities derived from the single elemental sphere you wield. Additional points in the Celestial sphere harden your defenses against your chosen element and its effects, as well as using other elements through Foci to work in tandem with your main element (especially foci of your elemental alignment)
Flexilis : Similar to Unilis in increasing your ease of usage. Instead of elemental defense, you are instead hardened both against the status effects of your element as well as your elemental alignment through advancement in the Celestial Sphere. Before choosing your element, you have access to all elements through the celestial sphere, but run the risk of serious health complications.
Multiplex: Increases the flexibility of the combined usage of both elemental spheres at once with points in the Celestial Sphere. Also allows usage of elemental alignment where applicable in combined usage.
Derivatis/Stricturis : Increases the potency of all elements used in the phenomenon recreation, as well as the flexibility of the elements involved (to a reduced extent compared to Proximus) as it pertains to Stricturis.

A character's Paradigm is tied directly to their Aspect. -Spheres and Cores- The Spheres of the Elements represent a character's knowledge and control over the elements tied to their Aspectral Power. As such, the spheres they have access to are strongly dictated to them by their powers. The players are given 5 points initially to apply to spheres of choice. However, the following rules always apply:

All characters have access to the Celestial Sphere and MUST put at least 1 point into it in order to be able to control their powers at all. A person who has power in other spheres but not the Celestial Sphere is a dangerous anomaly, both to themselves and others, doubly so if they have great Depth of power Capacitance.
The initial combination of freebie points and bonuses cannot allow a player character to exceed 5 spheres upon initial creation. Any point beyond 5 spheres requires intense additional training and/or experience in order to make a breakthrough.
A character's Aspectral Cores represent usage of their spheres to be able to manipulate the elements in their particular ways. While these Core abilities can be activated without meeting the prerequisites, doing so increases the difficulty of wielding their powers in that way.

A character's Cores are tied to their Aspect, and must be written down as reference for any Thread abilities to be used in future. -Class Categories- Lastly, the player must select a set of class categories associated with their class, as listed from below. These represent specializations in the nature of how they wield their power, as well as providing bonuses in said power.

Auxiliary - Auxiliary classes are classes which in one way or another provide supportive buffs to themselves and/or their allies, as well as protective shields, healing, and any other supportive element, which all fall under the umbrella of the category Boons. They can also provide indirect damage through these methods, such as explosive shields and damaging auras.
Control - Control classes are classes which focus on debuffing the enemy and providing crowd control and disruptive elements, all placed under the category of Banes. Instead of doing direct damage, control classes tend to deal damage over time effects such as poisons or bleed effects while performing their disruptive roles.
Agility - Agility classes are classes which focus on high single target damage, and which tend to focus on speedily picking them off with focused attacks then with attacking larger groups of enemies. Defensively, they also use their skills to avoid taking damage rather than defend against large attacks.
Skirmish - Skirmish classes are classes which focus on high damage and moderate defense. They tend to deal strong attacks and counterattacks, and prefer to be in the fray of battle, using a combination of personal resilience and well-timed counterattacks and shields to avoid damage.
Bulwark - Bulwark classes are classes which focus on high defenses and moderate damage, steadily dealing damage while being able to absorb a lot more. Bulwark classes tend to push through the damage enemies deal to dish out their own rather than avoiding it.
Ordynence - Ordynence classes are classes which focus on dealing damage to large groups of enemies. They tend to deal a large amount of damage or spread the effects of their damage over a large area, resulting in a plethora of devastating effects. They also use their abilities for mass disruption and tend to employ trickery in order to avoid taking damage.

Class categories points are never increased by exp or freebie points as shown below, but are given due to players overcoming trials and tribulations, as well as achieving their goals. 6 - Finally players spend 15 Freebie points to improve their stats at the following rate:

Attribute - 5 Points per dot
Ability - 2 Points Per dot
Sphere - 7 points Per dot (max 5)
Background - 1 per dot (max 3)
Intonation - 4 per dot (Max dependent upon Capacitance)
Willpower - 1 per dot
Initial Ambience - 1 per 4 Dots

EXP Costs

Instead of 'leveling up' players are given EXP which they can collect and put towards advancing one or more areas of their character's stat sheet. The cost of increasing these points with EXP goes as follows:

Untrained New Ability - Requires Teacher, Time, and 3 Points of EXP
New Elemental Sphere (Proximus only) - Requires Teacher, Time, and 10 points of EXP
Non-Celestial Sphere - EXP = Desired Sphere level x7 up to 5. Requires Trials per upgrade, then Desired Sphere level x(7-1 per point past 5)
Celestial Sphere - EXP = Desired Sphere level x8 up to 5. Then follows the same rules as non celestial spheres (except it is 8-1). Trial covers the advancement of all spheres.
Max Willpower - EXP = Desired number of willpower. Willpower is refreshed when this is done.
Ability - Desired Rating x2
Attribute - Desired Rating x4
Intonation - Desired Rating x 7, follows the same rules as Spheres past 6
Background - Desired Rating x6, x7 if it is Celestial Imprint or Aural Pull
Weave Thread - 2x(1 per point in complexity)
New Pattern - 5x(1 per Thread infused in the pattern)
Learn Aspectral Form not under your class category - Teacher + 4x(1 per point in complexity)
Mastering Thread - Use Thread Skill 5 times, 3x(1 per point in complexity)

Character Creation Process and EXP Costs

Summary

Character Creation Process

EXP Costs

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