PC Basics

The pencil of God has not eraser.

- Haitian Proverb

There are many ways to look at the world, but they boil down to seeing the world as a relationship or a thing. To relate to it, to name the storms and speak to the world in words of power and pleading, to see a little bit of magic in everything, to be part of the world: this was the way of the world, once. Then myths were not myths but real. Stories about things that were. Gods walked the world, then, and there were ages of wonders and miracles that come down to us as children's stories or fables. This was the world once, no matter what historians and their kind do to try and deny it.

And then it ended.

Why it ended isn't known anymore, if it ever was. It's just that one day people woke up and the mystery and magic was gone. The gods had left and magics were few and far between, demanding prices they had never asked before. Something died in people then. The wide-eyed wonder at a new sunrise, The simple joy in just being. The petitioning of gods who now seldom walked the world faded. Something had changed, but it was so profound no one could grasp it.

Eventually, science rose and the world became a thing of measurements and scales, of volumes and algebra, and what wonder there was left died a little more with each passing year as science drove nails of reason into the story of the world, into the legends, into the myths. But nothing in nature is truly dead. Things sleep, or come to light, or sink into deeper darkness. Truths forgotten can become lies or truths or parables of other ages but something of their truth still remains while they linger on in the memories of men and whisper to the deepest parts of mind and soul.

For everyone knows that there are still miracles, and many believe in magic, even if they call it by other names, like chaos theory, quantum mechanics, 1d4+3 for 3 rounds, will, luck and the like. But in our heart of hearts, everyone secretly believes that magic could exist, and perhaps we even hope it does.

Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born

- Matthew Arnold, "Stanzas From The Grande Chartreuse"

It is this hope that has kept magic alive in this age of technology and science and reason, the chains that enslave our spirits and souls (the ones that refuse to admit they exist!). We stand between a world of pseudo-science and a future that is as grim, bleak and logical as an accountants heart, where everything becomes a thing rather than a person and we're saved from the darkness in us by a dull grey cloud men would call utopia.

But is has not come yet, in this time where people are desperately searching for answers to questions they cannot articulate, wearing weariness like a drab cloak, and carrying a pain in our eyes so deep we cannot even admit it exists and trying to speak about the past with voices made mute by our elders. People want magic again, and it's there for the taking if they want and need it badly enough, if they're willing to pay to have it and to use it and understand why they have it. It never went away, it just became a stillness in the heart and, perhaps, the little voice in your head that asks "is this all there is?" as you trudge home from a dead-end job and try to find meaning in your life in a world that seems devoid of it.

Science can give us the how of things, but never the why. We're in an age searching for meaning and magic and the gods are stirring once again after an aeons-long slumber. The mages who never went away are gathering new recruits and preparing to do battle against the gods, to protect a world that mankind makes over one the gods would make in their image.

Only the mages and their allies can stand against the old and hungry gods grasping for power and belief in a world scarred by the former and needing the latter. Only these few guardians can protect the world from a threat it can neither accept nor understand. It's a crappy job, but you have to do it because there is no one else. You're the guardians at the gate and what lurks on the other side still haunts your nightmares.

Species Of The World

starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

- Lucille Clifton, "song at midnight"

The world has many creatures in it, some of them legends, others myths and many others forgotten to the passing of time and ages and the brief memory of man. Some of the more well known options are listed here, along with their powers and limits in the game. All the species presented here are made with the same amount of points (75) as any other and have no additional/special stats, though some of them may have stats above the norm. (This would generally be Strength/ Perception/ Willpower higher than 5 or a combat skill (Defence/ Speed/ Toughness) higher than 15 or a Higher health rating than 4. Some of them will also come with minimum's for certain stats like Killer Instinct.

Elemental

Elementals are intelligent representations of air, earth, fire and water. Exactly how one of these elements gains intelligence is unknown, but there are a lot of air elementals and people like to name tornadoes and storms. Very few of them know how they get made, and fewer are willing to speculate about their nature. What is known is that elementals were different, once, until pollution came along. Now, they are unable to survive long outside a host body.
They use the bodies of those who died by their element as hosts but, especially in the case of fire elementals, this is seldom practical. However, their energy does stops the body from deteriorating and there could well be a water elemental with P B Shelley's body wandering the world to this day. Most elementals find that such hosts are useful, but sometimes seek living ones. To do this, the elemental makes a deal with someone who is about to die from their own element. The elemental enters them, saves them, and gets control of that persons body for as long as they want, and at any time they want. The only limitation is that the elemental can't kill the person or allow they to be killed. This is quite useful since most elementals - even getting the memory of their host - sometimes do weird things and think in odd ways.
Well, what if you die? says the cynic. It's simple, really. The elemental will remake your body and apologise. And leave. And owe you a big favour. There are said to be people who host elementals (and no one can host more than one of the types or one at a time of that type) just on that off chance. Most of the time, however, the elemental takes the persons wounds into them and dies instead. After a period of time, the person in question actually gives birth to a new elemental of that type, which tends to be a really unnerving experience.
Limits: Elementals can't abide their contrary element (water/fire, air/earth) and take one damage every round from it.
• Elementals can never, ever kill their hosts nor let them die. This is law.
Stat ChangesStat Changes: None, they're human. When possessed by the elemental, add Elemental (type) (GM can decide on it, or roll 1d10) to the PC as a new skill.
Protection from me: When an elemental is in a person, they can never be harmed by that element at all.
You complete me: The elemental has perfect control over its elemental at all times. They can create more, control existing energy or whatever they like. As their thought processes are different, and they have no limit on using their magic save how much energy the body can spare, they tend to scare mages since elementals really could do a fireball down main street or a tidal wave or new ice sculpture or write someone's name in the clouds.
You are part of me: When an elemental has left, the PC gains some protection over and mastery of that element. (In game terms, they can spend luck and toughness to control the element and protect themselves and others from it.) Someone who has given birth to one gains control just like an elemental.

Human

The normal people, the innocents, those who must be protected, lunch. Depending on one's view of them, humans are either really annoying, just another part of the world or a threat. And, of course, humans are the normal folks. They're everywhere. So why play one? Simply for that reason.
Human PCs can have almost any job and go anywhere without suspicion. Need to make a police officer? Well, you're going to be a human. Or in rather deep trouble when you get shot and get back up a few minutes later unharmed, for example. As well, humans are often marginally sensitive to magic, especially if they've been exposed to lots of weird things.
Limits: None.
Stat Changes: None.

Mage

A mage is a human who was born with magic in them. They have the awesome power to alter probability pretty much at will and to make anything possible occur, within the limits of their magic, training and imagination. While there are spells to extend one's life, most mages use up their life force at a younger age, or die in combat against some creature not from this world. There are very few old mages around.
Limits: Mages can't drive vehicles, simply because mage sight allows them to see things that were, might be, other worlds and the like. It makes concentrating on driving vehicles and the like next to impossible. They're also bound by the laws of magic listed in the magic section.
Stat Changes: None, but they do gain Sight (which allows them to see the past, other worlds, the future, through illusion, sense possibilities opening (magic in use) and the like. They can also lock gazes with someone and see into their soul, but the other person sees into theirs as well.
Lastly, mages must take Magic as their primary (or secondary) skill of importance.

Nissen

Nissen are fairy who secretly inhabit households and help out with chores.
See Also: Human (wife).

Revenant

"Don't hurt that doggy." The little girl changes, something dangerous about her, something cold and terrifying. You feel like someone just walked over your grave, and then it clicks. She smells .. like one, but ... not ... something .. else. The eyes, empty and desolate, showing you a terrible nothingness. For a moment you see your death reflected there, then "Jenny! What have I told you about that!" and a hand jerks her away and you see a monther taking away her daughter and it's looks normal and you're normal again, things are normal again. But you leave the dog alone.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the revenant. Dead humans who have been brought back from across the veil by the need of another, they are memories clothed in a semblance of flesh. Unable to eat or feel pain save from wood, they conceal their nature behind a facade of humanity and strive to find a way to hold to their life or end it. More than one revenant has slain the one whose need awakened them, or killed that person simply by returning to them. However, many of them never do know whose need brought them back and are forced to walk the world until their memory of themself fades and they become little more than mindless golems or commit suicide and perhaps doom their soul on the other side of the veil.
Limits: Revenants can't eat, drink, or sleep. Their bodies don't bleed and don't really exist - wound damage is healed as if it never occurred, except for damage from wood. (In which case the wound heals - i.e. leaves no mark - but damage is still dealt and the revenant can be slain by it.)
• Wood damages a revenant as a normal weapon, starting as Toughness damage. They heal all damage at the rate of one point an hour, beginning with the most severe wounds.
• Every month a revenant lives they must have a will power check of 10 or lose memories of who they were, and consequently who they are. Dim memories are lost first, but add up since the memories of childhood are the foundations of who we are. Remove them and things get ugly.
Stat Changes: Not a blessed thing. They're human. Well, they were.
Aura Of Death: A revenant can reveal it's true nature at will, any time. It is impossible not be affected by it and only those with a willpower of 5 or higher can approach a revenant when they reveal their nature. All beings must make a willpower 10 check or want to get the hell out of it's way. Even if the effect is directed on someone else, death has just entered the area in a very non-abstract sense.
I'm Dead, idiot. You can't hurt me: Revenants heal damage from wood at the rate of one an hour, starting with the most severe wound and working down. No wounds leave physical scars on their bodies since their bodies are mostly shells, sort of like flesh as jello. All other wounds heal instantly as if they never happened.
Touch Of Death: If someone wants to die, a revenant can draw up their nature, reach out, and touch then and kill them instantly. This must be the person's choice, not a coercion by magic, vampire, deity or the like.
Undead: Revenants are the real undead. There bodies are just memory clothed in flesh and they feel little pain save from wood and are very difficult to hurt or kill as a result.

Spirit Folk (hu hsien)

The spirit folk are said to have originated in China but no one is sure how long ago or what they really are. Some legends claim that they learn how to alter their shape as they get older, eventually becoming celestial foxes. Some stories make them evil, or amoral, or wantonly sexual. Some even claim they are Chinese fairies.
The truth tends to be a bit more prosaic, at least according to the few such spirits who reveal their nature to others. As far as they know, the fox spirits don't know their own origin. They exist, and have kin, and sometimes children - but who made them or how they originally came to be has been lost to time. Some more modern spirits, noticing their ability to survive in almost any climate, believe them to be aliens, or some foxes genetically engineered by aliens. The older ones consider that rather insulting.
Very few spirit folk congregate together and they seldom develop lasting attachments to mortals unless they marry them, which they tend to do surprisingly often. They also tend to aid mages a lot against the loa and other god-like incursions into the world, claiming it is an old favour, but they don't seem to recall who the favour is owed to. Most of them have no problem getting their human form hurt since the visible effects of wounds vanish during the change to and from that form but very few will risk getting their fox shape harmed. They live until slain for the most part.
Limits: If in a hurry to change, spirit folk tend to become human and still have their tail. To avoid this, they must spent at least 5 minutes changing.
• Spirit folk have trouble maintaining their human shape in the presence of dogs and have to make a willpower check (10) to avoid changing back into fox shape. Weres in general also cause this, but with a difficulty of 5.
• Unlike weres, spirit folk cannot regenerate, though changing shape does heal the results of damage to their human form.
Stat Changes: None to actual stats.
Flesh of spirits: Spirit folk can live in the air, water, land and quite possibly space. While they do need to breath, they're able to breath water and even vacuum.
Fox In The Hen-house: Perhaps the source of their kinship to ghosts, fox spirits can pass through solid matter and even magical barriers while the moon is shining.
Raise the Nine Tails: A very few spirit foxes are nine-tailed: that is, actually immortal. That is, they cannot be slain by any known agency and return from death after a sleep which varies depending on how dangerous the wound, but rarely lasts more than a week. Regular spirit folk are said to live in the prime of their life until slain.
Shift Shape: All spirit folk can become a beautiful and seductive woman or a handsome, scholarly, charming man. Their human form is "set" and can't be changed (get older, alter the sex of it etc.) but sometimes doesn't work right, especially if the fox is in a hurry and they forget to change their tail.
Spirit Drain: Spirit folk have the ability to drain energy from humans just by being intimate with them, perhaps making them the source of most incubi and succubi myths. This energy drain takes times (at least a week) and kills the human in question. Whether they must do this or if it works on other supernaturals isn't known.
Take Shape: Some rare spirit folk can take the shape of a human simply by eating them (and hiding the body, of course).
We're Not Were, But ...: Fox spirits heal twice as fast as humans. They have no known weakness to silver or wood or anything else but thier human form seldom ever changes. If you cut it's arm off, the fox could become fox, change back, and he human form have two arms again. Changes to their fox shape show up to a lesser degree on the human one (a lost leg would be a profound limp, for example).

Damage TypeHealing Rate
Toughness (1-15)Normal (all per scene)
Easy Damage (4)2 per nights sleep.
Medium Damage (4)2 per week.
Hard Damage (4)1 per week.
Mortal Damage (4)1 every two weeks.

Vampire

Vampires are .... well, that's a good question. In fact, it's such a good question that no one has answered it. Some claim vampires are the result of some god tinkering with the world, aliens, made by aliens, a virus, the result of a spell and the like. The truth remains shrouded in the myths and legends about vampires, and the myth-maker and myth-destroyer that is the bane of all things not entirely of this world: Hollywood.
For one thing, vampires aren't undead. The ritual that makes someone a vampire seems to vary from vampire to vampire but involves a symbolic death (and sometimes a trance so deep it seems to be death) and a transformation of the person into a vampire. Vampires can also have vampire (and human) children from time to time. Oh, yes, and the stuff about water and churches? Blame fools afraid of what they don't understand for those myths.
What vampires are is hunters. They do drink blood (though what they really require is life energy, and most vampires only learn to get that through blood) but drinking their blood only makes someone a vampire if the vampire wants them to be one. As hunters, they are dangerous and humans seem to be their best prey for whatever reason, or at least the easiest. Blame the US government for genetically making them. Well, maybe not. It could be nature trying to wipe out humanity. Or another reason or reasons that may never be known.
Vampires can live a very long time and are, in theory, immortal. Most of them also have very good memories and can pass for human most of the time, if they try. In fact, the ones who are old and have survived are very good at that and often very dangerous for they play their own games and have their own plots that can be planned for decades or centuries. To try to stop such an intricate plot is difficult, at best, but to succeed is to bring down the wrath of a vampire on you and yours. Most people just try and leave them alone.
Limits: Vampires take one damage for every minute they spend in sunlight (toughness, then easy, then all the way to mortal, at which point they combust) and avoid it like a plague if they can.
• As well, vampires must drink blood (or absorb life/vital energy in some other way - some vampires might drain life force, others could take away laughter or feed on music if they were really strange, but blood is the easiest source to use).
• All other limits are myth, unless the GM decrees otherwise, or the vampire in question believes in them or has been made to believe in them.
Stat Changes: Vampires can have a willpower as high as 10 and must have it at 3 as a minimum.
Aura: Vampires can draw their true nature around them and become dangerous and cold, making someone feel like a mouse that just discovered that big mouse over yonder is really a cat.
Blur Minds: Vampires tend to be stronger than the average person, but are actually not faster. They fake it by blurring the time sense of others, a special form of probability manipulation that, if it is more than an illusionary effect, would scare mages. For it to work, the vampire makes a willpower check (Willpower + 1d10) verses the same for whoever they are trying to trick. (If it's a group of people, pick the best one in it or use the number of people as the check.) If it succeeds, they basically get a free round to act, moving - to others - to quickly it seems preternatural.
Dominate Mind: As above, but it works on one person at a game as a willpower check and is basically a clash of egos. It can be used on groups as a suggestion or emphasised threat using the same formula as Blue minds.
Other vampire powers are said to include changing shape, flying and the like. How much of them is truth and how much the result of that bastard Stoker's story and how much Hollywood myth-making is anyone's guess.

Were

Either humans who can become animals or animals who can become human, weres are a strange people gifted with the power to alter their shapes. They are hard to kill and are said to protect animals from those who would want to kill them but little else is known about were society, or indeed how you raise someone who can become an animal up among humans. Most weres display an innate caution and naivete that is both dangerous and endearing. Weres tend to be trustworthy and loyal but if angered they react quickly and brutally.
Weres can live as long as five hundred years according to some stories and heal from wounds that would kill any other being. Perhaps the only way to kill one is with silver, or deprive it of moonlight, food and water. They can become animals pretty much at will and even take a half-man, half-animal form popularised by Hollywood films, but it's harder and not natural for them. Weres in that shape tend to get confused by the human and animal parts of them conflicting and have caused most of the crimes attributed to weres over the years.
Most weres tended to be common animals in various regions but with migration and humans being everywhere in the world only the predators - and the more common prey - have survived. For obvious reasons, mostly due to a certain Colonel from Kentucky, were chickens don't exist any more.
Limits: Weres need moonlight to survive. Why is anyone's guess. Deprived of it for an extended period of time (over a month or two) they begin to pine away like animals trapped in a zoo. It is also partially the reason weres seem to heal so quickly. Whether depriving them of moonlight can actually kill one isn't known, since they still feel it enough to change during the full moon even if they can't see it.
• Weres must change during a full moon, but can will themselves back to human if they are not in moonlight and if there Were skill is higher than 5. Even weres with 10 must change for at least half an hour during the night of a full moon.
• Silver hurts weres, a lot. They heal from it at a rate listed under stats changes.
Stat Changes: Weres are simply stronger and faster than most humans. Weres can have a strength as high as 10 (it must be at least 3) and need to have a Killer Instinct of 3 at least.
Aura: Weres have an aura of wildness and danger about them when they reveal their true nature. To humans, it's like finding out that kind old Grandma Beavis is smiling at you because she just poisoned you, or is holding a shotgun on one hand. The smell is always around them and animals tend to submit to weres normally and cower from them if the were is angry. This applies to all animals in most situations, but a hungry enough animal will ignore it.
Shape Change: Weres can change from human to animal or vice versa at will (but must during a full moon, as noted above). This tends to wreak havoc on clothing. They can also partially change (claws) or become a half-man, half-animal form but have less control over themselves and their nature in this form.
Senses: Even when human, weres have a superior sense of smell and sight and can track others easily. They can also communicate with animals of their kind any time, by sound, smell and scent. (Mind you, seeing someone growl and whine to a dog would be a trifle disconcerting.)
Healing: Weres heal very, very fast. They can even regenerate lost limbs and, some say, if they aren't killed by silver and left in moonlight they can heal any wound.

Normal Healing RateSilver Damage Healing Rate
Toughness (1-15)Normal (All in one Scene)1 per minutes
Easy Damage (4)All in one scene1 per hour
Medium Damage (4)1 per minute1 per day
Hard Damage (4)1 per hour1 per week
Mortal Damage (4)1 per day3 the next full moon
 
     

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