Character Callings

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The Aspects

Each calling may fulfill one or more of the following aspects: History, Power, Shape, Partner, Oath, Trick, and Flaw. You cannot take two callings that fulfil the same aspect with one exception. By taking up to three Flaws, you can take up to three additional Tricks or Histories.

• History: Your background and childhood, significant events or times that shaped you.
• Power: A rare gift, requiring focus, expertise, and dedication.
• Shape: This represents a physical state of your body that makes you abnormal in some way, or an ability to alter your state.
• Partner: You are physically, emotionally, possibly spiritually bonded to another. This bond cannot be divided or shared.
• Oath: This determines your loyalty and precludes all other oaths.
• Trick: A learned skill or special art that you have mastered.
• Flaw: You have some kind of difficulty holding you back, but pushing to find new ways to compensate.

The Umvelts

An umvelt is a layer of reality. All are true, but if you are living in the first umvelt, you cannot see into the second and third. Accessing those truths opens up new possibilities, so certain callings will only be available if you are aware of those umvelts. Whether you are or not is a player choice at this point.

Monstrous Penalty

Many shape aspect callings may alter your appearance into something outside the norm, which can be upsetting, alarming, even terrifying to look upon. The Monstrous Penalty applies to all situations, usually Charisma rolls, in which the person you are rolling against is faced with knowledge of how monstrous you are. In certain other situations (such as Intimidation) it can be used as a bonus. In situations where it is unknown (pen-pals, telegraph, voice recording, speaking from disguise or unseen) it may be ignored.

It may also be ignored at will by those who choose not to be affected by it. This is extremely rare within the first or second umvelts.

Certain times, circumstances, or alterations may convert this to an Otherworldly Penalty. It is the same, only there are more situations in which it may be used as a bonus, such as performing religious inspiration, for certain people or crowds, or claims of godhood. In common situations, however, it will still throw a wrench into regular interactions.

Animal Traits

The following are specific traits and abilities that various callings may apply to a character.

• Natural Weapons – Unarmed damage now +1, 1d4 Lethal.
• Regeneration – Vitality recovers at a rate of 1d6 per day.
• Armored Pelt – Gain Light Armor protection of +6 over your whole body.
• Scenting – Use Sense to track using only the scent of your target.
• Eagle-eye – Your eyes work as well as binoculars.
• Inhuman Speed – Base Movement is doubled.
• Inhuman Strength – Double all non-combat Might successes, and add +3 damage to all Might based attacks.
• Inhuman Reflex – +3 to all Evasion and danger avoidance rolls.
• Great Leap – You can make up to your base movement in a leap, though it costs 1 stamina.
• Spit Attack – You can now deliver one type of chemical attack, with a range of half your Vitality rounded up.
• Slashing Pelt – Each round you are grappled or grappling, opponent takes 1d4 Stamina damage.
• Night Vision – You can see as clearly in the dark as in the daylight.
• Arboreal Grip – You move at full speed while climbing as long as there is something to grab (rope, branches). You can also move at double base speed when swinging using branches, ropes, or vines.
• Terrifying Roar – Intimidation rolls can affect everyone present, and gain a +3 bonus.
• Gliding Wings – As long as you have room to maneuver, you can glide instead of falling using a pair of pseudo-wings.
• Shell – Gain Heavy Armor +10 over your torso. Can be used as cover, and a shield (allowing you to block ranged attacks) Burden 3.
• Huge Stature – Double your Stamina Pool, but you cannot use evasion stances.
• Aquatic – You are effectively amphibious and can double your base movement while swimming.
• Small Stature – Gain an extra action per turn, but you can only wield one-handed weapons, only light weapons can be dual wielded and only get one attack. All lethal damage is halved rounded down.
• Camouflage – Gain a +3 bonus to hiding and sneaking.
• Burrowing – You can dig rapidly, at a rate of 1 foot per action in regular earth. 3 feet per action in soft earth.
• Mimicry – You can mimic voices and repeat sounds you’ve heard with exact detail, rolling Intellect vs Sense for the falseness to be detected.
• Extra Limb – Gain one of the following:
  • Extra Arms: 2 extra off-hands
  • Extra Legs: +3 movement speed
  • Prehensile Tail: 1 extra off-hand and +1 movement speed

Callings of the First Umvelt

These are callings a character may follow even if they have a regular, mundane view of the world as it is commonly accepted, and know nothing of the supernatural, paranormal, or strange.

• Abrupt Chaos (Trick) – Once per combat, you can spend 10 XP do something flashy and distracting to force all participants to stop for a moment. Initiative is rerolled and the turn order begins again from the top.
• Addiction (Flaw) – You have a need to consume a certain substance or participate in a specific activity. It may be alcohol, gambling, smoking, or even a compulsion such as playing the harmonica. If you haven’t partaken of the activity in 24 hours, you cannot gain XP.
• Aeronaut’s Instincts (Trick) – Your soul lives among the clouds, and you naturally can predict weather patterns, navigate air currents just by looking at the sky, and take no environmental, fear-based, or most other penalties while operating flying devices or airships. You also can direct falls and crashes from any height and have a significantly greater chance of surviving them.
• Animal Repulsion (Flaw) – Animals just don’t like you, trust you, or want to be around you. The feeling is probably mutual.
• Another Life (Flaw) – At some point in your past, you had to get away and create a new identity for yourself. Some aspect of your old life is still out to get you.
• Athletic Build (Shape) – You are fit as a fiddle and have the shape of an Olympian god. You gain +5 to your Stamina pool.
• Beast Whisperer (Partner) – You have an ability to communicate clearly with animals, often getting them to listen to you and do what you want. There is one especially with whom you have forged an unshakable bond.
• Blackened Hands (History) – You did work in a coal mine as a youngin’. You know labor and aren’t afraid of hard work. You are comfortable underground, even if you hate it, and it is damn near impossible for you to lose your bearings there.
• Blind (Flaw) – Your Sense is useless when it comes to knowing anything by sight.
• Bookworm (History) – You have the advantage of growing up with access to books. As such you can roll Intellect on any bit of information even if you don’t have a knowledge skill proficiency for it.
• Born to Die (Flaw) – You dealt with a chronic illness as a child and some call it a miracle you survived at all. As such, when you are bleeding out, you only get 2 strikes instead of 3.
• Can’t Swim (Flaw) – You really can’t. If you are in water over your head, you’ll immediately begin rolling Vitality and losing 1 every time you fail.
• Clockwork Driver (Partner) – You have a special relationship with one clockwork engine or flying machine in particular. It is likely in the shape of an animal, but may also be another kind of a vehicle. You keep it oiled, in good repair, and fueled up. Though you know it is a machine, at times you feel a connection with it, and it seems almost alive to you. You know it’s quirks and can keep it running when it might fall apart under anyone else’s care.
• Cool Under Pressure (Trick) – You don’t let the little things, or the big things for that matter, get to you. You have one specific stressor, such as time pressure or fear, that doesn’t cause you any penalties when attempting delicate or important tasks.
• Coward (Flaw) – You can’t spend any XP in combat, offensively or defensively. You know damn well you’d rather be anywhere else.
• Deadeye (Trick) – You are a natural with a pistol. Part of a special class of gunfighter who makes other shooters look like amateurs by comparison. You don’t get a bonus to normal shots, but all added difficulties from aimed attacks, ranged attacks, and trick shots are reduced by 3.
• Depressive Narcoleptic (Flaw) – You have a nasty habit of falling unconscious when things don’t go your way. Every time you roll a critical failure, you have to roll Charisma not to pass out.
• Desired (Shape, Flaw) – You have such a strikingly beautiful figure that you find yourself the focus and obsession of many. You may turn it to your advantage in social situations, but it will never stop drawing out the crazies.
• Distinguishing Feature (Flaw) – You have a mark, probably a scar or a birthmark, or some feature that makes you extremely memorable and easy to locate.
• Excitable Narcoleptic (Flaw) – You have a nasty habit of falling unconscious when you get riled up. Every time you roll a critical success under most circumstances, you have to roll Sense not to pass out.
• Explorer’s Eye (Oath) – You have dedicated your life to exploring the unknown, and charting new territories. If you have looked at the map with enough references to an area, or have already been in an area, you cannot get lost there. You can also draw accurate maps from memory. Finally, when searching for something or forging a new path, you cannot critically fail on luck, and critically succeed on a 1 and a 2.
• Eye for Finery (Power) – You have a gift when it comes to the appraisal, buying, and selling of luxuries. You can spend 5 XP to instantly know the value of any object, and you gain a +2 bonus when haggling with someone who does not know the value of the object.
• Famous/Infamous (History, Flaw) – You have some level of notoriety either locally, regionally, or perhaps even globally. Your reputation may help you, but you are also easily recognizable and some people or organizations might be out to get you for one reason or another.
• Firebrand (Trick) – You are not just a master orator, but also an expert when it comes to riling people up, gathering support for a cause, and causing trouble for the rich and comfortable. You can use a Speech roll to gather a crowd, and can use your social skills without penalty on entire groups of people, enraging or pacifying mobs with relative ease.
• Four Eyes (Flaw) – You have a need for glasses. If you lose or break them, then your Sense is cut in half-rounded down, for anything involving Vision
• Gambler’s Heart (Oath) – You have one true love: Lady Luck, the Angel of Fortune herself: Ravella. By begging for her favor you can borrow a bit of luck on credit, causing your own critical failure to also have the effects of a critical success, but a near-future Critical success of the GM’s choosing will also have the results of a critical failure. You cannot re-use this power until that happens.
• Glutton (Flaw) – You love food, and you enjoy scarfing about as much as you can get your hands on. You only gain a benefit from eating when you can have a second helping at least.
• Grounded (Flaw) – You hate ships, you’ve always hated ships, and you hate being on ships most of all. They always make you sick to your stomach. While on a ship, you can’t spend any XP.
• God-Fearing (History) – You were raised to respect the church. Any church and every church. Even if you’re not practicing, they are sacred spaces to you, to be treated with respect and reverence. Within such places, as long as it’s sanctity is maintained, you can pray for XP.
• Guardian Angel (Oath) – You have made a personal oath to use whatever resources, skills, and abilities you possess towards the protection of something, or someone. You cannot be made to betray or harm them by any magical means, and if they accept your protection, you gain a link to them so that you know if they are ever in trouble, and generally where you might find them.
• Guilty Conscience (Flaw) – You’ve done something you’re not proud of. Something so bad it eats away at you and causes you to doubt yourself. You get a -5 from your Willpower pool.
• Gun Shy (Flaw) – Your ability to successfully use a firearm is extremely limited. You can still take firearms proficiencies, but you can apply no skill boosts and any attempt to use a firearm renders the base attribute to a 1 for the roll.
• Healer’s Touch (Trick) – You have a natural instinct when it comes to healing others. Your touch alone seems reduce pain and help others recover. Each consecutive turn you spend attending to a patient grants them a +1 bonus in all rolls they make regarding their current injuries, up to a bonus of +5.
• Heartbreaker (Trick) – Your personality is absolutely magnetic, and you find yourself surrounded by people who adore you. Whenever you interact with a character who could potentially be attracted to yours, you gain 5 XP to use on that interaction.
• Illiterate (Flaw) – You never learned to read, but you can count from A to K easy enough.
• Inspiring Soul (Power) – You ignite the fire in peoples hearts, even in the darkest of times. When heading into a dangerous situation, you can give an inspiring speech. Any character who hears and can understand you gains XP equal to your speech roll successes, which may be multiplied if the GM deems the situation of particular danger, especially hopeless.
• Inventor’s Spark (Power) – You have the spark of ingenuity that allows you innovate wildly and make the impossible a reality. Create items that can mimic other effects present in the system, or devise new effects at the GM’s discretion. Can have up to 3 active prototypes at a time.
  • Each prototype begins with a completion score determined by the GM based on the power-level and impossibility of the invention. Generally ranges from 100 to 300 development points. 25% and 75% of the completion score are milestones.
  • Use the item by rolling as if it were functional, with the appropriate Attribute and Skill.
  • Development points are added to the item by repairing breaks, catastrophic breaks, having breakthroughs, and spending workdays on it. Catastrophic Breaks may be especially hazardous if the experiment is deemed volatile (usually because it involves dangerous chemicals, energies, or compounds).
  • As the development score reaches each milestone, it changes how the invention may be used. When it reaches 100% of the completion score, the item is fully useable, and you have a working blueprint to make copies.
  • Mock-Up: Before 25% to Completion
    • Crit Success: Function
    • Success: Function + Break
    • Fail: Malfunction + Break
    • Crit Fail: Malfunction + Catastrophic Break
  • Prototype: Between 25% and 74% to Completion
    • Crit Success: Function + Breakthrough
    • Success: Function
    • Failure: Malfunction + Break
    • Crit Failure: Malfunction + Catastrophic Break
  • Working Prototype: After 75% to Completion
    • Crit Success: Function + Breakthrough
    • Successes: Function
    • Failure: Malfunction
    • Crit Failure: Malfunction + Break
  • Broken items take 1 hour to repair, and grant 1d4 Dev. Points. Catastrophically broken items take 1 workday to repair and grant 1d20 Dev. Points. Breakthroughs grant 1d12 Dev. Points on the spot. Simply spending a workday on the item grants 1d8 Dev. Points.
• Last Gasp (Trick) – If you would fall unconscious, you can immediately take one more action interrupting the turn order before doing so.
• Life-Saver (Oath) – Whenever you save a life through medical intervention (they will die without help), you gain 5 XP. Whenever someone (ally or enemy) dies in your presence who could have been saved by your medical intervention, lose 10 XP.
• Lucky Streak (Trick) – You cannot take this calling, it can only be given by the GM as a reward. You can choose to reroll any roll one time without spending XP. If you fail the roll, it is a critical failure that goes catastrophically wrong and you lose this calling.
• Martyr (Oath) – You live your life for others. When an ally is hit by an attack, you can use an action from your next turn to throw yourself in the way, taking the full brunt of it. You are unable to roll defense when you do this, but do still benefit from armor.
• Master of Tongues (Trick) – Language is a second nature to you. You speak and read in well known languages fluently. When encountering a new language, you can pick it up for only 10 intellect or sense BP. This takes 3 days of study, 1 day or immersion, or 1 hour if provided with translation to a known text.
• Mentor (Partner) – You have an old teacher with whom you have a close bond who instructed you in the ways of the world. If you spend at least an hour talking to your mentor, you gain 10 XP. You can only gain XP in this way if your mentor can offer insights on a new situation presented to them.
• Metal Allergy (Flaw) – This is, for most people, a perfectly normal condition that affects their lives not at all. Most don’t even know they have it. It simply means your body will never be able to accept a steam-prosthesis.
• Mule-Stubborn (Trick) – You know that the world has all kinds of nonsense and you aren’t about to be taken in by it. +5 to your Willpower pool.
• Mute (Flaw) – You cannot clearly communicate due to physical or psychological trauma, and have not gotten prosthetics to solve the problem.
• Nemesis (Oath) – Costs 50 BP. There is someone who is hunting you, or someone whom you are hunting. You are engaged in a cat and mouse game that will lead inevitably to an encounter. If either of you manage to defeat your nemesis and end the rivalry, through killing, permanent jailing, or even by finally making peace, the Calling ends and you are rewarded with a stack of 150 BP.
• No Touchy (Flaw) – You may be comfortable fighting at range, but in close quarters you fall apart. You can still take melee and unarmed combat proficiencies, but you can apply no skill boosts and any attempt to use attack or defend in melee range renders the base attribute to a 1 for the roll.
• One Armed (Flaw) – A simple enough flaw. You lost one of your arms and could not afford a prosthetic. As such you can only wield one-handed weapons, and have difficulties with certain two handed skills, such as horse-riding.
• One-Legged (Flaw) – One of your legs is a stump and you could never afford to get Prosthetics. Your base movement is reduced to 1. This can be increased using braces, crutches, pegs, and the like, but you’ll never be your spry old self. You can also Surge to up to your full movement speed with a Prowess roll, but you’ll usually fall by the end of it.
• Outlaw’s Smile (Oath) – You are a rulebreaker through and through. You cannot abide being confined or controlled by authorities, and delight in showing your rebellious nature in little ways. When things go bad for you, they tend to really go bad. Each minor crime you commit, from a petty theft, to cheating at cards, or lying to an authority, grants you 5 XP on the spot. Critical failures in attempting such an infraction, drain all of your stored XP. This effect does not apply to larger crimes such as grand theft, murder, or bank-robbery, but then such crimes carry their own rewards, and their own consequences.
• Paranoid (Flaw) – Especially when stressed you don’t trust anyone to get near you, much less take a knife or needle to your flesh. Even when you’re dying, you need to be sedated or pass a Sense roll to let anyone try to stabilize or heal you.
• Phobia (Flaw) – You have a perfectly legitimate fear of something other folks don’t have a hard time dealing with. As such you cannot spend XP in the presence of your phobia.
• Prodigy (Power, Flaw) – You have an innate talent for a specific skill that few true experts could even hope to match. When attempting said skill, you can reroll up to two times per attempt without spending XP. Due to your singular focus, however, rerolling any other skill costs 10 XP for the first attempt, rather than 5.
• Retainer (Partner) – You have a friend, ally, employee, follower, or someone of that sort who generally trusts you and follows your suggestions. They may leave if they feel abused or mistreated.
• Scholar’s Key (Power) – Your powerful brain holds the keys to a mind palace. You can hold on to any subject you have studied, any book you have read, doubling the number of knowledge proficiencies and allowing you to add to them, when you have a source for the information, at the cost of 5 BP per proficiency.
• Semper Fidelis (History) – You were or still are a soldier. Your history of service often grants you ins with military or law enforcement.
• Ship Shape (History) – You’ve spent almost your whole life on and around ships, and as such are highly comfortable when in and around one. You are as comfortable sleeping on a ship and eating ship grub as you are at an inn.
• Silver Spoon (History) – You were raised in wealth and privilege. As such you are well spoken with an air of respectability, and have no problem blending in with the highest social circles. You can also occasionally trade XP to call in social favors from people in high places.
• Steam Prosthesis (Shape) – Any number of steam prosthetics may be used to replace your broken or missing body parts. Each prosthetic inflicts a 2 point monstrous penalty.
  • Arm: Medium Armor 8, 1 attachment point, req. 1 pint gear oil
  • Leg: Medium Armor 8, 1 attachment point, req. 3 pints gear oil
  • Torso: Medium Armor 10, 2 attachment points, req. fuel: 1 lb wood per hour/coal per day.
  • Eye: 1 attachment point, req. 1 pint gear oil
  • Voice/Mouth: req. 2 pints gear oil
  • Attachments may include special weapons or holsters, additional armor, storage, or other inventions.
  • Prosthetics can be modified to resemble normal limbs more closely. Such boring prosthetics give no armor or attachment points, and become much easier to hide beneath regular clothes, almost entirely removing the monstrous penalty.
• Swashbuckler (Trick) – You have a flair for the dramatic in combat and the skill to back it up. Whenever you perform a daring maneuver such as swinging from mast to mast, riding a knife down a sail, or swan diving from the deck of a ship, you gain 5 XP for use in the combat.
• Thin-Blooded (Flaw) – You just don’t have it in you to be a particularly physically active person. You take a -5 to your Stamina pool.
• Trusting Nature (Flaw) – You may not be dumb, but the simple fact is you tend to be less skeptical and more easily taken in by folks. It’s charming, but it’s not a survival trait. You take a penalty of -3 to detecting lies.
• Under the Stars (History) – You spent your childhood traveling from place to place, sleeping in wagons, tents, around a fire, and on rough ground. You sleep as soundly on a patch of dirt as you do on a feather-bed.
• Urchin (History) – You grew up orphaned in a particular town or city and know it better than anyone. While in your home city, you can never be lost and have connections with the criminal elements such as gangs or black markets.
• Ward (Partner) – You have a young apprentice learning a trade or some skill from you. Your ward will generally do as you ask, being able to perform simple tasks and aid you in the skill they are apprenticing for. In return, you must provide for them and protect them.
• Warrior’s Folly (Trick) – At the beginning of every battle, gain a pool of 10 XP to spend only on that battle. Increase this pool by 10 for every one of the following factors that apply: Outnumbered, Outgunned, Ambushed. Other significant disadvantages may also apply at the GM’s discretion, up to no more than 50 xp.
• Well-Traveled (History) – You’ve been everywhere, man. You don’t suffer penalties when attempting to communicate through a language or cultural barrier.

Callings of the Second Umvelt

These callings are for those who have had a brush with the paranormal. Their world has been upended by this contact, or they have been affected by it in a fundamental way. They are very aware that the supernatural world exists, but possess little knowledge or true understanding of it.

• In the Shadows (History) – You spent much of your life hidden from the world, taking shelter from the light of Solannis. You have a hard time blending on socially, but are fantastic at blending in stealthily. You don’t need hiding places in order to hide, as long as you are in anywhere but a bare well-lit room.
• Reanimated (History) – You may seem like a normal person but you bear the scars of a past life… and a past death. If you’re lucky, you have no other flaws from the experience. Anyone who knows your secret may apply a +2 Monstrous Penalty, if they believe it. As a side-effect, you no longer feel pain, but otherwise your body functions normally.
• Deadly (Power) – You can spend 10 XP to reroll a vitality damage roll once.
• Husk Affliction (Shape, Flaw) – Something horrifying has happened to you, and stolen your humanity. Your monstrous nature may be easier or harder to disguise, based on which such curse afflicted you. Two things, however, are certain: You now have a terrible hunger that must be sated, and with this curse come certain other benefits; if you are willing to use them. Sating that hunger will often heal, restore, and/or empower the husk. The urges may be resisted for a time, but almost all husks succumb eventually.
  • Vampire – You appear generally human, but can hypnotize people with your voice, finding manipulation easy; easiest when your victim is relaxed and unguarded. You must use your fangs to feed on blood at least once every three days. Feeding more often may heal you, and grant you added benefits. Feeding less often reveals your monstrous nature, adding a cumulative +1 Monstrous penalty for each day past the third that you go without. Your weakness is that you cannot cross a threshold, nor bite into a victim without their permission.
    • You may gain the Scenting, Inhuman Reflex, Regeneration, and Night Vision Animal Traits.
  • Ghoul – Your form is undeniably hideous, with a +5 Monstrous Penalty, but can at least be disguised by a cloak and hood. You have terrible claws and a driving urge to consume dead flesh. The longer dead, the better. If you cannot have access to a proper bone-orchard, you may begin one yourself. This need dominates your personality. Besides your twisted appearance, you find yourself additionally afflicted by a terrible phobia of water, unable to set foot in it or even cross a bridge over a running stream.
    • You may gain the Scenting, Natural Weapons, Regeneration, and Inhuman Speed Animal Traits.
  • Chirops – Your true form is almost entirely bat-like in it appearance. A large human-size bat monster, capable of flight, bearing fangs to tear flesh and drink the blood of its victims. You must consume all the blood in the body of a victim. Once you have done so, you transform into their appearance. For 3 days you appears entirely human, then begin gaining 1 Monstrous Penalty per day until you feeds again. At +2 you regains your fangs; at +5 you regain the ability to fly and your voice no longer sounds human; at +10 the monstrous penalty maxes out, and you loses the ability to speak and reason, seeking only to feed once more.
    • You may gain the Gliding Wings, Night Vision, Natural Weapons, Eagle Eye Animal Traits.
  • Lamia – A lamia will feed on human emotion rather than flesh or blood, making you much more insidious and hard to locate as you drain the life-force of your victim. Each day you remain emotionally and physically close to your target, that person loses 1 point from every attribute, and you gain a +1 Otherworldly Penalty as you grow more and more animalistic, starting with the eyes and teeth, then the skin and claws, and finally a lower half. As the victim draws closer to death, you may become more overt, aggressive, and protective of the relationship. Common animalistic traits are serpentine, vulturesque, and leonine, with the final form resembling medusa, a harpy, or a wingless sphynx. When the victim’s final attribute reaches 0, they turn to stone, salt, or to sand, and you reach the height of your power; a condition you are deeply addicted to, which lasts only one precious day before you revert back to human form. Unlike most husks, the lamia may live as human, without needing to feed, but many find this nearly impossible, as the process will begin against their will with any human to whom they become emotionally close. If you leave, the human may or may not recover with time. If you are slain, the victim will recover almost instantly, as long as they have not yet been petrified.
    • May gain the Natural Weapon, Scenting, Inhuman Reflex, and either Spit Attack, Terrifying Roar, or Gliding Wings.
  • Gruloch – Caught out at sea in a terrible storm, perhaps nearly drowning or surviving a seemingly deadly case of pneumonia with a miraculous recovery, grulochs may pass for human for a time, but will grow more and more icthyan in appearance as their affliction worsens. You may only stave off the transformation through consuming human brains. Each week you do not feed, you gain an irreversible +1 monstrous penalty. If it progresses too far, and your penalty reaches +8, you seek out the ocean and are never seen again. You have a deadly allergy and revulsion to garlic.
    • Over time you may gain the Aquatic, Natural Weapon, and Armored Pelt Animal Traits.
• Mark of Loyalty (Oath) – You have dedicated yourself to an order, criminal, or occult group. You have been marked, branded, scarred, or tattooed in such a way that you may show the mark and always be identified and granted all the benefits of trusted membership. This may get you resources, information, backup, or other forms of support. However, not all may be friendly to you if they become aware of your loyalty, and certainly, leaving behind such an oath is not encouraged. It may also come with behavioral requirements or occasional tasks being demanded of you.
• Excommunicated (Flaw) – You are not welcome under the watchful light of Solannis. You lose 1 Stamina per round, or 3 per minute while you can’t take cover from sunlight. This doesn’t take you below 1.
• Card-Reader (Trick) – You know how to read the fortunes of others using a deck of playing cards. This can grant them XP if and when certain events you have foreseen come to pass.
• Raised by Wolves (History) – Your childhood was a tad less conventional than most. You have integrated back into society but you never lost a knack for running on all fours. With both hands free, you add 3 to your base movement.
• Weather Joint (Trick) – You have a trick knee, elbow, or shoulder that lets you forecast the weather a few days in advance of any other sign.
•  Iron Gut (Shape) – You can stomach things that would make others vomit or worse. You can eat rotten food with absolutely no penalties, and gain a +3 bonus when resisting ingested poisons, diseased food, and intoxication.
• Seer (Power, Flaw) – All your life you have been prone to visions. You may often dream of events, witnessing an event, or how it started, or the consequences, but never all three. They may be cloaked in metaphor, and you may sometimes see different versions of events that could happen. This allows your rerolls to only ever cost 5 xp no matter how many times you reroll a single result. However, the instability of this means that you willpower is halved, and you are extra vulnerable to possession and magical effects.
• Wildcard (Trick) – Spend 10 XP to force one roll to be either a critical success or a critical failure.
• Flammable (Flaw) – Fire just seems to like you a lot. Fire attacks always catch and are harder to snuff out.
• Abomination (Shape, Flaw) – Through contact with Promethean sludge, or a botch reanimation, you have been warped and mutated. This may include natural weapons and defenses, greater size, animalistic traits, and possibly extra limbs. Each added trait gives a monstrous penalty of +3. There is no known recovery, so ogres often become hermits, driven to madness and violence. See the list of animal traits under Daemon-Guided.
  • You may gain the Inhuman Strength, Large Stature, Natural Weapons, Armored Pelt, Extra Limbs, and Terrifying Roar Animal Traits.
• Night Terrors (Flaw) – You suffer from terrible dreams which means that you rarely if ever get truly restful sleep.
• Resurrectionist (Power) – Using science, magic, or a combination of both, you have the ability to animate a functional corpse. To even attempt a roll requires 50 XP. Then a reanimated person must pass one of every Attribute roll. Each failure may apply an appropriate physical flaw, psychological flaw, or animal-trait mutation.
• True Faith (Trick, Oath) – Your faith in the light of Solannis and Zachariah is absolute, and is strong enough to repel husks, banish spirits, and ward against the most blatant and aggressive magics. You must take care, as subtle attacks may circumvent your resistance.
• Sun-Gazer (Trick) – You take warmth and empowerment in the practice of Sun-Gazing. You stare into the sun to see the face of Solannis and try to know his mind. This acts as a form of fortune telling. Roll Charisma when the sun is out. Crit failures may result other vision-loss related flaws.
• Hunter’s Gaze (Trick) – You have a natural ability to sense magic, spirits, and cryptids. You may not always recognize what you are looking at, but you know when it doesn’t belong, even when it is out of sight or heavily disguised. You can roll Sense to analyze something for signs of the paranormal even with no outward signs.

Callings of the Third Umvelt

Such callings are for those who know well the nature of the world. They do more than see beyond the veil… they live there, amongst the weird and magical forces hidden to most. They are well aware of the often dire need to maintain secrecy from the world of man.

• Zoadaemon (Shape, Partner, Oath) – You are one of a unique race of cryptids, who, by their lore, was given the task long ago of protecting, guiding, and sometimes managing mankind. You are essentially an animal in form, but for a few significant differences. You are as intelligent as any human. You are effectively immortal, though not unkillable. You can communicate with other daemons freely, but unless you are blood-bound to a human partner, you are limited by your animal physiology and find communicating with any humans difficult. They must be in an altered state to communicate telepathically at close range. All zoadaemons are familiar with the Bloodbinding ritual.
• Daemon Guided (Shape, Partner) – You are blood-bound to a zoadaemon, sharing minds and abilities, guiding and assisting one another in all endeavors. They are your sibling in spirit, your other half.
  • Kin Daemon– Shared mind in close proximity, can take a moment to gain a minor temporary boost to abilities, or perform a ceremony to temporarily be possessed by the daemon, gaining 1-5 traits based on the strength of the bond, and sharing a body. Their own body is left vulnerable during these episodes.
  • Familiar – Shared mind over any distance. Can perform a ceremony to experience each others senses.
  • Primal Beast – Shared emotions, no possession, physical body gains permanent traits based on the primogen’s animal type, and the ability to influence lesser animals of the same type.
• Wandering Spirit (Power, Shape, History) – You are a spirit. Either an elemental being tasked with maintaining nature, an entity dreamed into existence by a mortal mind, the drifting spirit of a dead mortal, or an altered form of one of those three. You have no physical body, and exist on the astral plane adjacent to the material. You cannot take physical damage, but emotional damage affects you much the same way. You do have some form of power over mortals or the natural world, and may be able to act on the material world through possession under the right circumstances
  • Tulpa – You are a living dream. You can communicate best with the unconscious and dreaming, or those in an altered state, and while you have the form you were imagined to have by your mortal creator, you are like spiritual clay, and if you are weak or careless, your form and nature may be altered when you enter the dreams of another. Tulpas with more willpower can control the dreams of mortals, and the strongest can possess the sleeping, taking control of their body.
  • Shade– You are the spirit of a deceased mortal, stuck in the Astral plane. This can be an unnerving, and deeply confusing experience as many shades do not understand that they have died, and without a body to ground their sense of self, they may give in to pure emotion and become a faceless nameless dybbuk. You can communicate with the quietest of whispers and chills, but when emotionally driven, you have some powerful but difficult to control telekinetic abilities. You are bound in proximity to something very important to your life. This may be an item, a location, or most commonly your mortal remains. You may possess a human when they surrender willingly, or out of abject terror. You can only be seen through telekinetic actions, by those in an altered state. Abject terror counts as an altered state.
  • Trickster – You may have started as an innocent elemental sprite, but an experience with humanity has turned you from the path of balance. Through anger or delight, you now take pleasure in manipulating elements to the end of causing mischief for others. You have control of fire, frost, water, wind, plants or pest animals. You may possess these things and direct them to your will, even lashing out and physically attacking or restricting those on the material plane. This is risky, as your power can be stolen by the disruption of your element. You cannot be killed, but you may be bound against your will.
  • Muse – A tulpa or a shade that has found a new purpose. You can now appear fully at all times to one person whom you have chosen to support and encourage in a symbiotic relationship. Your main purpose has become dedication to the goal they have dedicated themselves to. You can grant them BP in ever increasing amounts as long as you keep them on-task and uninterrupted, and as long as they do not reject your help. The tragedy of a muse is that they are always rejected at some point, either when their nature is discovered, their attempts to protect the goal become overbearing and jealous, or even because they are successful and the host decides to move on. A rejected muse must find a new host or they risk transitioning into a different form of spirit.
  • Ancestor – A spirit of the dead who has returned or been called back from the places those spirits are supposed to go. May also be a Shade or a Muse who has attained peace and been around for a very very long time (probably 50 years at least) Ancestor spirits can appear to anyone connected to their bloodline, or in an altered state, and communicate through sampling their descendants’ memories, or sharing their own. This memory control can extend to alteration, surfacing, and suppression. They cannot possess the living, but they can possess dead flesh and bone. When they do this, they still cannot speak unless the body is capable of it.
• Spirit Gifted (Power, Partner) – You are breath-bound into a partnership with a spirit. This goes beyond possession, granting them the ability to use your body, protection from most emotional attacks, and granting you some of their powers and ability to manipulate the forces of the world. It amounts to shared custody of both the body and of the powers. You can see and communicate freely with your spirit partner, and use their abilities at will just as they can essentially use your body at will. A living being can be breathbound to any spirit, such as the playable spirits above, and also potentially to Furies, Nightmares, Sprites, and Weavers.
• Hedge Practitioner (Power) – You have studied the spells of The Song of Shadow. You can memorize 1 spell per 2 Intellect, and perform any others you have instructions for. You can also train the Hexcraft skill. You may attempt spells from other paths, but there are penalties to doing so.
• Night Stalker (Shape, Flaw) – You are a cryptid most commonly referred to as el Chupacabra. You are nocturnal, with day-blindness. You are small, with a monstrous penalty of 6. You possess natural weapons, camouflage, and a venomous bite that does not skill, but slows, is very painful, and may disables and temporarily paralyze. You are generally attacked on sight among humans, so staying hidden, and even mimicking the sounds of coyotes, raccoons, dogs, and other animals is a necessary skill. Chupacabras tend towards an anarchic tribal culture, an animalistic appreciation for indulgence and luxury, and are often considered greedy and vicious. Yet within them there is a potential for more, as they have been known to show mercy, morality, kindness, and even heroism.
  • They suffer from a toxic reaction to most garden-variety flowers.
  • They take at-night vision penalties during the day and no penalties in the dark.
  • The have the Small Stature, Camouflage, and Slashing Pelt Animal Traits.
• Rambler’s Stride (Power, Oath) – You have studied the spells of The Tex Arcanum. In learning those spells and reading from that book, you have also bound yourself to the purpose of the Rambler’s Guild. You can memorize 1 spell per 2 Intellect, and perform any others you have instructions for. You can also train the Sigilcraft skill. You may attempt spells from other paths, but there are penalties to doing so.
• Chosen One (History) – You were born marked by fate and destiny to some great purpose. You will face a number of trials. Each successfully completed Trial will mark you, and grant you an advantage when you finally face your great destiny.
• Werebeast (Shape) – You are not quite human. Your body can undergo a metamorphosis under certain conditions which transform you, giving you the claws, teeth, speed, tracking ability and general shape of a wolf. Raised among your own kind, you are trained to control this. Raised in isolation, among humans, these transformations can be difficult to control and often make one a target of fear.
• Mystic Keeper (Power) – You have heard and can repeat The First Story. This allows you to know all the basic shamanic practices involved in dealing with spirits. You may call them, restore them, banish them, and see or hear them at will. You are also the keeper of a single shamanic rite. These are never written down, so to perform any others you must bring in another shaman, or call forth an ancestor spirit to perform it.
• Cursed (Flaw) –

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