Transcendence Character Game Mechanics

Transcendence

Generic Starting Notes

Uses the Shrikeian System. Everyone gets some number CP. Tentative number: 75 CP, of which at least 25 must be used for stuff such as Gifts, Fiefdom, Followers, and so on.

Currently need to finish: non-mortal stat bonuses, magic, gifts, advantages, disadvantages.

Stats

Stats go from 1 to 10. I was going to make a "goes to 11" joke but probably not.

Magery: Although heroes generally cannot access world-shattering magics like the gods, many can access these gifts. From enhancement of physical attributes, to controlling flora and fauna, to summoning fireballs or deadly laser beams, magery is a powerful support ability which enhances your character's abilities. Magery is the best stat because it can heavily enhance your ability to perform just about any sort of mundane action.

Finesse: All the physical potential in the world doesn't mean much if you can't effectively apply it to situations. Whereas someone with high physical is a good brawler, the finesse attribute controls the hero's ability to effectively use their physical gifts, or lack thereof. A frail ancient wuxia master with a powersword is still a force to be reckoned with due to his very high Finesse attribute, even if his physical is low. Finesse also covers certain actions which require physical speed but precision and training as well, such as piloting. Finesse is the best stat and you should max it out because it heavily governs how well you can hit targets and how much pain you inflict in ranged combat.

Physical: Physical determines the character's physical and athletic prowess. A high physical character can fell a tree in a single blow, bull through stone walls, outrun cheetahs, and other powerful feats of aspect. Physical is the best stat because having it at a high level prevents you from dying and it lets you move fast and hit hard.

Education: A highly educated hero knows things. Considering that you're going to be adventuring in exotic locales with man-eating squirrels and carnivorous vines and the occasional ancient laser death automaton, being a student of history and the sciences may be useful in varying situations. Education is the best stat because it is critical for maintaining your bendybeam-shooting laser spear, remembering what the antidote was to world-serpent venom, or figuring out a proper prayer to the gods to rescue you from your inevitable fate.

Wits: The ability to think on your feet is also critical for a hero. Wits is useful for improvisational plans and also reaction. Wits is the best stat because it makes your hero less vulnerable to things such as illusion-weaving, allows your hero to react and act far faster mentally, and also is necessary to ensure quickly improvised plans go off without a hitch, which is important as no battleplan survives contact with the enemy.

Charisma: Heroes are heroic because people look up to them. The higher your Charisma, the more people will be willing to hear your epic tale without going "man, that guy/girl was a jerk" at the end. Charisma also affects your effectiveness in leadership, your ability to persuade others to do what you want, and the favor of the gods. Charisma is the best stat because it heavily enhances your leadership and increases your ability to find fame, and a hero must be able to lead by example as well as inspire via his tales.

Specialties

You may also buy Specialties, which are substats giving you additional strengths in one field. Each specialty is bought as per regular stats cost and adds during the appropriate situation. In especially appropriate situations, Specialties may add even more points to the stat. There are also a number of particularly important or common stats that are (almost) always bought as specialties. They are detailed below.

Respect

The respect of those who have heard your tales and your reputation is a critical element of a hero's story. Respect is roughly equivalent to MRW's conspiracy stat, although it's significantly more obvious in nature than Conspiracy is. You're loudly proclaiming how awesome you are, and people are agreeing, rather than using military rank or unofficial connections.

Legend

The legend of a hero spreads far and wide. Legend is bought as any other stat but costs double to purchase every point. What Legend does is give a pool of points which can be spent for various effects, such as rerolls, automatic critical successes, staving off death, and so on. Legend is intertwined with fate, and those who are blessed with legend are also beneficiaries of fate, whose fickle hand more often than not favors them. But the grace of fate is not limitless.

Gifts and Curses

Heroes are assisted via magical gifts as well, such as artifacts, blessings, followers, augmentation, and so on. Gifts can be bought with CP. Gifts give varying bonuses and cool fluff effects. Curses are basically character or other disadvantages, or liabilities such as a looming dark fate or something.

Boons

Heroes are generally granted boons, such as magical artifacts or something or other. This is generally then used for various random goodies like artifacts or tiger-men familiars or cybernetics which provide meaningful enhancement to someone semi-divine or the like.

Enhancement

Many heroes invest heavily in augmentation, but there are some who take it further. Whether done by fleshcrafting, master-forged augmentation, or divine blessing, enhancement adds "free" specialties and occasionally attribute bonuses to a person. Enhancement is cumulative-each level of increasing enhancement has the advantages given for the previous level. To buy an Enhancement level, you need to also have bought the previous levels of enhancement as well.

Trivial Enhancement (1 CP): Minor enhancement involves a cybernetic eye or two. A minor enhancement gives an additional specialty. These specialties must make sense. Alternatively, a specialty can be traded in for having some article of equipment always available, such as an energy pistol or a multitool.

Minor Enhancement (4 CP): Minor enhancement adds +1 to any attribute except Magery. Minor Enhancement might be a cyberarm, a hardened skeleton, connective tissue reinforcement, artificial muscle grafts, an implanted computer network, or so on.

Moderate Enhancement (5 CP): Significant enhancement adds an additional +1 to any attribute but Magery and an additional specialty or implanted gadget. Someone with moderate enhancement may have multiple cyberlimbs with a reinforced skeleton to anchor them, a complete skeletal replacement, extensively interwoven their cerebral cortex with nano-bred auxiliary neural nets, replaced their muscles with powerful smart polymer, or other gross alterations of their form.

Extensive Enhancement (10 CP): Some wish to become more a product of mind and knowledge than of nature. Extensive enhancement is the alteration or augmentation of the vast majority of the body, and adds another +1 to any attribute, and an additional two specialties or implanted gadgets.

Artifact

Artifact weapons and gear are generally equivalent to the finest a mortal smith can make, and then given additional bonus powers. All artifacts share one power-they are generally indestructible outside of concerted effort and cannot be taken away easily. Artifacts should be as a rule of thumb, personal equipment. Artifact vehicles and whatnot do exist but have a significantly higher cost to purchase. Artifact costs are not cumulative-a moderate artifact does not require one to pay the cost to purchase a minor artifact as well. A Scion may have multiple artifacts.

Minor Artifact (1 CP): A minor artifact is a regular item with one power, such as increased accuracy, improved damage, enhanced beauty, or such. As a rule of thumb, a minor artifact gives a free specialty in any attribute or magery field while using it beyond its equipment bonus.

Moderate Artifact (3 CP): A moderate artifact has greater powers. A moderate artifact gives either 2 free specialties, or increases an attribute by 1 while used. Alternatively, it may have a single magical power instead.

Powerful Artifact (5 CP): A powerful artifact can 2 attribute dots (specialties can exchange with attribute dots at a 2:1 ratio). A powerful artifact may also trade attribute dots for magical powers.

Legendary Artifact (10 CP): A legendary artifact generally gives up to 4 powers, which can be attribute dots, magical effects, or specialties.

Relic (15 CP): A relic is an incredible artifact which gives a base of 6 attribute dots, which can be exchanged for specialties or magical powers. Relics are as much part of the character's legend as their deeds are, and a relic user must have at a legend of at least 3, which is halved (rounded down) without possession of the artifact.

Fiefdom

Your fiefdom is the amount of stuff you actually rule over. This is also used for your rating to see what kinds of cool things you have.

Fiefdom Size

Nothing (0 CP): You own a patch of dirt in the ground if at that. At most, you have a mansion or plantation, with a handful (two or three dozen at most) of servants and an armed guard or two.

Small Town (1 CP): You rule over a small town on a planet somewhere as a local governor with at most a thousand souls. You have some degree of tax revenues and in times of need can raise a local militia of poorly-trained mooks with limited equipment perhaps a hundred strong. An alternative would be a platoon of trained soldiers loyal to you.

Large Town (3 CP): You rule over a large town on a planet somewhere. It has a population around ten thousand, with its own police force in the hundreds and a local militia of poorly-trained reservists, and makes a sizable amount of tax revenue. Alternatively, a more martial character may invest in a company (~150-200 men) of trained soldiers with heavy weapons and a handful of vehicles, or a patrol craft with a crew of a dozen and cramped quarters.

Small City (5 CP): You rule over either a small city or a region consisting of several towns. The population which swears allegiance to you or a puppet of yours consists of almost a hundred thousand people, and can support a professional military force of a few hundred men as well as the militias you could previously levy. As an alternative, a character may have a battalion of soldiers, with organic armor and some avatar support, or a single light ship such as a frigate.

Large City (10 CP): You either control a large and prosperous city approaching the 1 million mark population-wise, or a large region with dozens of towns which add up to a similar level of prosperity. Such a fiefdom can support a professional military force of a thousand men with a handful of heavier weapons such as avatars, a temporary militia tens of thousands strong, and has sufficient tax revenue for any purpose you desire. An alternative would be to have a light combatant and a few patrol craft, or a single medium combatant such as a cruiser.

Metropolis (15 CP): you rule over a metropolis of millions which can support military or paramilitary forces in the thousands, or a sizable chunk of a continent with multiple cities. As an alternative, you can have a small fleet of mixed light and medium ships or a single heavy ship such as a battleship or avatar carrier.

Province (25 CP): As a provincial ruler, you rule an entire continent of a planet-around ten million souls, and can levy a professional military force of tens of thousands of men. In times of dire emergency, at the cost of economic destabilization, you can levy a militia of a million men or more, but only for brief periods of time. Your province likely has a handful of orbital defense ships it can use, although most will be "coastal" craft, small and lightly armed to deter raiders and space monsters. An alternative martial equivalence would be an entire carrier or battleship strike group, a single heavy combatant escorted by several medium and light warships.

Planet (35 CP): You have a fiefdom consisting of an entire planet which you govern. Even though the planet may be unimportant, a planet is truly enormous. In terms of men and materiel you can access, you have the tax revenues of a hundred million, a PDF consisting of a hundred thousands men with moderate quality equipment or a smaller force with better equipment, and have access to a sizable trading fleet plus a small system defense fleet of patrol craft and a few frigates. As an alternative, more martial form of fiefdom, you can have an entire naval group with multiple heavy combatants, plus integrated marines consisting of tens of thousands of soldiers.

Followers

Followers are the non-heroic hangers on a character has to access for worship, favors, and whatnot. Followers are guys you use for less adventurery tasks like helping you to conquer a planet or digging for ruins or stuff. You can, in fact, buy multiple follower groups. Unlike the guys gained from Fiefdom, Followers are less vulnerable to ignominious deaths and have their own Legend to some extent, even if it is an extension of yours.

Where your fiefdom is how you access the extras you need to occupy a planet full of barbarians and conquer their cities, your followers are the fanatically dedicated which you use for operations you cannot personally attend but need trusted hands, or bodyguard you, or so forth. A fiefdom does turn out elite soldiers to some extent but they have more duties than running around at your beck and call or charging into the middle of almost certain death to retrieve a crystal skull you want.

Number

None (0 CP): You do your heroing alone save for the PCs. It's nice not having attachments, isn't it?

Companion (1 CP): You have one named NPC buddy who you can play yourself.

Attendants (3 CP): You have your own NPC adventuring band of 2 to 5 extra followers.

Bodyguard (5 CP): You have roughly a dozen to two dozen followers at your beck and call.

Escort (10 CP): You have an escort trailing you of approximately a hundred men.

Household Knights (15 CP): You have hundreds of fanatically dedicated followers ready to answer your beck and call.

Praetorian Guard (20 CP): You have a small army of followers, a thousand strong. With enough invested in their skill and ability, these men and women can take on entire cities-and will, if you ask them to.

Quality

Quality of followers makes them more or less capable overall. This is a cost multiplier to your number of followers that determines how good/bad your dudes are. Note that these stats are given as final, i.e. after-points-are-spent, attributes and generally doesn't apply to magery.

Extras (half cost): Extras are green soldiers, green scholars, and so on. Extras average 2 in all primary attributes save their area of expertise, where they possess a 3. Extras have perhaps one specialty in a relevant area (like Education (Medicine) or Finesse (Rifles)).

Veterans (normal cost): Veterans are high-quality examples of their trade. Veteran soldiers, scholars, and physicians all know the tricks the newbies don't, and are generally of much higher quality. Veterans average 3 in all their primary attributes, with a single 4 in one area and a handful of specialties related to their field.

Elites (two times cost): Your dudes are pretty hardcore. They can give mortal adventurers pause and cut through their lessers like a scythe through wheat. (average stats 4 with plenty of specialties, a 5 in one area)

Lesser heroes (five times cost): Lesser heroes are often supernaturally blessed, more machine than man, or otherwise enhanced to the point where they can hold their own. Their average stats are 5 with one 6 in their focus, and they have a broad spread of specialties.

Greater heroes (ten times cost): Greater heroes are essentially equivalent to the PCs in every way, with only slight inferiority. A greater hero is generally built via CP rather than being arbitrarily assigned rough attributes. It is not expected for anyone to have more than handful of them.

Merits

Divine Fire (5 CP): The spark of godhood burns slowly in you. Eventually, you may be elevated to demigodhood... or perhaps even godhood. A heroic mortal with this ability has no Magery limit.

Vengeance Oath (5 CP): You have sworn vengeance against a group of people, and this oath has become a driving cause. Against your hated foe, you gain +1 to Finesse and Physical for the purposes of combat. You also hate them a lot and wish to associate yourself with them as little as possible, except when this association involves you swording them in the face, or setting them up for swordings to the face.

Golden Child (5 CP): Someone with influence is looking out for you. Whether it's a famous writer, a god or goddess, or just your cult of personality run amok in a good way, you can essentially do no wrong. You get more than your share of the credit for anything good you participate in, and you get photoshopped out of anything potentially embarrassing.

Immortal (5 or 15 CP): Those who are immortal are incapable of dying, save for one special weakness. Not even the raw fury of an angry god can faze you. The weakness should be defined at character creation. At 5 CP, the weakness is something relatively common (incendiary weapons, disease, bullets, your head not being invulnerable), while at 15 CP the weakness is fairly obscure and nearly impossible to arrange without being aware of it. At this rating, the GM is allowed to veto any weakness that is insufficiently interesting.

Divine Shield (10 CP): Some patron of yours is powerful enough to deflect even the anger of the gods. You can go breaking their toys and stymieing their plans and they can't act against you... directly. Indirectly though? That's more than fair game. Furthermore, this does not make you invulnerable to divine intervention-acts of sufficient horror value (Deicide, genocide of a favored peoples, so on) can void this protection.

Underworld's Chosen (10 CP): Although not capable of avoiding death, an administrator of the underworld looks upon you with some level of fondness for you. This makes safe travel through Underworld Gates much easier, and allows you to do the same for allies, though not without some negotiation and possibly some favors exchanged.

Races and Callings

Transcendence Races and Callings

Blessings

The relation between heroes and gods is a simple one. Most heroes dedicate their victories to a god or goddess, who in turn rewards them with tangible rewards (artifacts, enhancements, followers), or intangible ones, such as these blessings.

A hero creates the blessing lain upon him via choosing any two of the following categories that create the god's purview or something that would likely fall under their purview. Alternatively, a hero may renounce questing for the divine and choose to follow their own path, becoming an apostate.

Apostasy

Apostates acknowledge the existence of the divine but do not follow it. Their path, a more flexible one than the ones followed via those who spend their time in prayer, is one of self-improvement and self-will.

Apostates gain +1 to any two separate attributes.

Love

The gods and goddesses of love and lust generally grant their followers great beauty and charisma.

This blessing grants +1 Charisma and +1 Charisma (Overwhelming Beauty)

Health

Gods and goddesses of health and fertility provide great physical strength and hardiness to their followers, as well as part of their knowledge. Ironically, the blessings of death gods and goddesses are often similar giving corpselike toughness and knowledge of the underworld.

This blessing grants +1 Physical and +1 Education (Medicine). A death god or goddess grants +1 Physical and +1 Education (The Underworld).

Knowledge

Those gods and goddesses who specialize in the discovery and keeping of knowledge give their blessings to the finest scholars, making them far wiser and better-learned.

Those so blessed gain +1 Education and +1 Education (any specialty).

Nature

Those gods of the sun, the storm, and other natural phenomena often grant raw power to those who are worthy of their blessings, the power to manipulate the fundamental building blocks of nature herself, as well as the knowledge to do so effectively.

This blessing grants +1 Magery and +1 Education (chosen science specialty)

Trickster

Trickster-gods are capricious, but even they give their favors to some. Those who are blessed in such a fashion are generally quick-witted and clever.

This blessing grants +1 Wits and +1 Education (Security).

War

The battlefield is an odd place for worship, but one well-suited for gods of this purview. Their blessing makes supreme warriors out of men, giving them uncanny skill with blade and gun, as well as incredible physical toughness.

The blessing of a war-god grants +1 Finesse and +1 Physical (Toughness).

Magic

Everyone who has Magery can access magic. Magic is bought in a handful of categories. These categories are purchased up to the maximum, which is limited by the character's Magery. A character possesses levels in these fields equal to twice his magery score.

Magical specialties can be bought in a path (i.e. "Prophecy" for The Crone or "Death Rays" for The Sun) at half cost.

Countermagic

Countermagic is the natural defense against magic. Legend provides some protection against magical power, and against enlightened sorcerers or other such mortals with limited magics, antimagic charms provide sufficient defense. Against the magics of a malicious spirit or scion, though, countermagic is necessary.

Any magical field may countermagic against the same field at full rating or against any other field at half its rating (rounded down). The Singularity countermagics against all fields at full rating.

Path

The Maiden

The Maiden's purviews are fertility and the mind. Adepts of the path of the Maiden can control plant and animal life, cure diseases or spread them, cause living matter to heal or rot, read and influence minds, and alter the genetic code of others for good or ill. Masters of the Maiden can create entirely new life or new consciousness ex nihilo, control hordes of animals, control or shatter minds, or modify scores of living beings at once.

The Crone

The Crone's purviews are time and fate. Those Initiated into the path of the Crone are capable of seeing events which will happen soon, lay minor blessings or curses of good and bad fortune on others, and seeing what actions are significant and what are not. Those who are Adepts of the Crone can age foes or material into dust, alter time to move faster, alter the course of fate to some extent, and see more than one single strand of possibility. The Masters of the Crone may stop time itself, imprison others in stasis fields, and alter the fates of heroes or nations.

The Sun

The purview of The Sun is energy and purity. Those who have taken their first steps on the path of the Sun may burn away imperfections such as disease or cancer, and have an instinctive and powerful understanding of the energies coursing around them, energies which they can redirect, reduce, or enhance. Adepts of The Sun are capable of enhancing themselves or others by burning away imperfection, scorching their foes with rays of devastating light or firestorms or other such acts of devastation, and generating enough energy to recharge military equipment without need of tools. Masters of The Sun may annihilate towns under prolonged bombardment, create incredible force shields capable of resisting the weapons of an Avatar, and turn themselves into divine beings without flaw.

The Forge

The purview of the Forge is technology and earth. Adepts walking the path of the Forge can forge artifice, repair technology with but a touch-or enhance it, understand any technology, and consume platoons of men in pools of quicksand or roast them via suddenly-formed steam vents. Masters of the Forge are masters of fire and machine, capable of transforming themselves into colossi, warping or destroying any artifice with a thought, summoning mighty earthquakes or volcanoes, and forging weapons full-fledged gods would be proud to wield.

The Veil

The Veil's purviews are death and distance. Initiates of the Veil can see the dead and measure distances to a Adepts of the Veil can compress distances, teleport short distances, endure unbelievable punishment, commune with the dead, and other such tasks. Masters of The Veil are capable of slaying with a mere gaze, may take single steps that bound lightyears, can twist distance and space like taffy, and bringing the dead back to life.

The Singularity

The Singularity's purview is countermagic. Those who study the Null Purview and walk this path learn how to disrupt the weavings of others rather than altering reality via the godhead. Although not as impressive as the other schools, the ability to shatter or counteract the magic of others is critical.