The attributes are Beauty, Build, Hearing, Height, Newoen, and Sight. Attributes cannot be changed with training, although Build and Beauty can be changed with Experience.
Beauty (4d6) measures how pleasing the character appears physically. Beauty modifies reaction rolls only the first couple of times the character meets someone. After that it’s all Charisma and actions.
Beauty can act as a bonus or penalty depending on the circumstances. The non-player character in love with FireBlade might resent a handsome hero, but will feel no jealousy towards an ugly one.
A character with high Beauty will often charm, similar to the Charisma charm. Charming generally only works on the opposite sex. The Charm Roll is half the character’s Beauty. Standard Performance Time for Charm is 12 minutes. The target is allowed a saving throw vs. Willpower, with a bonus of Beauty (Sphere). If the saving throw is failed, additional saving throws can be made later: Subtract half the target’s Newoen from 0, and look this up on the Action Chart, from Result to Sphere, for the number of months (30 days). Each time an additional save is attempted, add 1 to this number. An average person (14 Newoen, -7 on the Chart) will make a second save after 3 days (.10 times 30 days). Their next save will be about 4 days later (.13 times 30), and their next 5 and a half days after that (.18 times 30).
Q from the Action Roll can be applied in three ways. It can reduce Performance Time (as normal--3 points reduce time by half). The Charmer can apply a penalty to the target’s saving throw (a penalty of 3 per Q point applied), or the Charmer can move the save progression up 1 point on the Result side.
Characters with low Beauty may horrify others. The Horror Roll is the negative of the Horror’s Beauty. Targets are allowed a save vs. their willpower, with a penalty equal to Beauty (Sphere). The Weirdness Bonus modifies this save as well. A horrified character will be inactive (paralyzed by disgust, possibly even retching--Editor’s option, depending on the circumstances) at least 1d6 segments. Q points from the Horror roll can increase this: look up the Q points applied on the Sphere Chart, and the result is the additional d6 segments. Q can instead apply a penalty to the target’s saving: a penalty of 3 to all targets, per Q point applied.
Each time a save vs. horrification is successful, add 2 to the character’s Weirdness Bonus. Each time a save vs. horrification is unsuccessful, subtract 1 from the Weirdness Bonus.
Targets of a Charm or a Horrify attempt may have a bonus of up to Willpower on the saving throw, depending on the situation.
|
An Example of Horrification Seraph and the Nightgaunt Cerest-Ranon, Seraph, and Gremlin come across a Nightgaunt with a Beauty of -4. The Editor rolls 1 for the Horror Roll. Cerest-Ranon’s Beauty is 16 and her Willpower is 72. Her save is vs. 62. Seraph has a Beauty of 31 and Willpower of 80. He saves vs. 68. Gremlin’s Beauty is 6 and her Willpower is 60, so she saves vs. 54. Half of the Q (round up) of 1 is applied as a penalty to his Willpower, so each has a penalty of 6. Half of the Q (round down) is applied to the time paralyzed, so that’s an extra 1d6 segments, for 2d6. Cerest-Ranon’s player rolls 45, so she’s not horrified. Seraph’s player rolls 78, so he is. Gremlin’s player rolls 9, so she isn’t. The Editor rolls 9 on 2d6 for Seraph, so Seraph is paralyzed with horror for 9 segments. |
If Beauty is less than 0, see Terror, using the negative of the Beauty for the number of Terror Points.
Once a character has successfully saved against a specific person’s or thing’s Beauty charm, horrify, or terrify power, that character is immune to further attempts by that person or thing, barring significant changes in Beauty. Both Horror and Charm may be used against multiple targets at added cost: There is a penalty to the Action Pool equal to the number of targets. (Terror occurs automatically, and is not under control of the player, barring a paper bag.)
If the character’s Beauty is greater than 20 or less than -20, it may be used to Charm or Horrify involuntarily. Roll less than or equal to Beauty minus 20 on d100. If successful, the character makes an involuntary Charm/Horror roll. The player may still control how excess Q is used.
Build (4d6) measures the character’s body size. Female characters have 10 added to their build, and males have 11 added to build.
Hearing (4d6) measures a character’s ability to hear. To determine if a character can hear something, add the strength at which it was said (a person can talk at a strength up to the character’s own strength, but normal speaking is at a strength of from 2 to 3) to the character’s hearing score, and subtract the distance, in meters (Sphere Chart), the source is from the listener. The character must roll less than or equal to this on 2d10. If a character gains the power, Hearing Power, divide the true distance something is from the character by the power for the distance it seems to the character. The Hearing Power can reduce the penalties for being unable to see. This table corresponds hearing powers to: a multiplier for the penalty for being unable to see.
Hearing Power Multiply Penalty By:
10-20 5/6
20-40 4/6
40-80 3/6
80-160 2/6
160 and up 1/6
Round the penalty to the most negative.
Characters can have different kinds of hearing, such as Microwave, Ultrasonic, and Radio Frequencies. Normally, the original Hearing Score is used for each type, but players have the option of re-rolling hearing for each type of hearing.
Height is the character’s height in meters.
Newoen measures the metaphysical side and the character of the character. It determines how well a character can evade magical and psychic attacks. High newoen characters can discern good from evil.
Newoen can never be changed, through training or otherwise. If newoen changes, the character is, literally, a new person.
Animals have a newoen of 1 to 3. Plants and most unliving objects have a newoen of 0.
Sight measures the character’s sight ability. If a character with below average sight wears glasses or contact lenses, average the character’s sight with for the character’s apparent sight while wearing the glasses/contacts. For example, a 5 sight character wearing glasses would have a 10 sight--5 +14, divided by 2, is 10. Round up.
The player must roll 2d10 less than or equal to Sight, in order to read/identify a target. This can be rolled once per round. Subtract the distance in meters the target is (Sphere Chart), add the height in millimeters (Sphere Chart), and subtract the character’s height in meters (Sphere Chart). There is a bonus if the character is shorter than a meter tall or the target is closer than a meter away from the character, and a penalty for things smaller than a millimeter.
For objects that are within a number of meters equal to the height of the character, add the Close sight adjustment to the roll. Otherwise, add the adjustment to Ranged combat for sight. In addition, Nearsighted characters have a penalty of 1 to the roll for things further away than their height. Farsighted characters have a penalty of 1 to the roll for things nearer than their height.
The following table gives the modifiers to the Attack Score in Close and Ranged Combat. The bonus or penalty for Ranged Combat will not be greater than the number of Range Sets to the target, plus the Close Combat bonus/penalty.
Sight Close/Ranged Combat Modifier
0 -5/-9 (-2 to Defense)
1 -4/-8 (-1 to Defense)
2 -3/-7 (-1 to Defense)
3 -2/-6
4 -1/-5
5 -1/-4
6 0/-3
7 0/-2
8 0/-1
9-16 0/0
17 0/+1
18 +1/+1
19 +1/+2
20 +1/+2
21 +1/+3
22 +2/+3
23 +2/+4
24 +3/+5
+1 +1 Every 10/+1 every 5
(at 29, 34, 39, etc.)
Farsighted characters can’t have microscopic sight. Nearsighted characters can’t have telescopic sight. Players whose characters have a Sight of less than 14 should choose either Farsighted or Nearsighted.
If a character has a Sight Power, divide the distance something is from the character by the sight power for the distance it seems to be. This reduced distance will apply to Short Ranges and Range Sets, but not to Maximum Range.
Fog, dust, and darkness can decrease vision. If such conditions exist, modify the sight die roll by a number from 0 (normal visibility) to infinity (zero visibility). Heavy fog will be about 10. Light fog will be about 5. A few feet underwater, the modifier will be 3.
Characters can have different kinds of sight (infrared, ultraviolet, normal). Usually the same sight score is used for each kind. However, the player has the option of re-rolling sight for each type of sight.