Additional House Rules

### Will To Live & Complications

If a player spends a persona point for Will to Live, then the character is guaranteed to recover from the Mortal Wound. The wounds will close over time and they will *eventually* wake up. If no point is spent then the character bleeds out, or is killed instantly, or whatever.

If the fiction dictates that by-all-rights *you should still be dead*, but damage and such has not yet been rolled (e.g. you’re surrounded by demons, or are trapped on a desert island) you can introduce a complication instead of dying, but the complication must be a fate as bad as death. If you leave it until the mortal wound is struck before introducing a complication, then you’ll have to spend *two* persona points.

### FoRKs are ‘Yes’ Linked Tests

When you really think about it; when the GM lets a character FoRK things, he’s really just saying ‘yes’ to a linked test. With this in mind, to further cement that bond: If you *twice exceed the Ob* during a linked test then you add +2D to the next test.

*For example, if I’m making an Ob 3 linked test with Research. 4 successes would give +1D to the following Symbology test, while 7 successes would give +2D.*
Furthermore, I think that you should be able to FoRK into beginner's luck tests.

Help isn’t quite the same, because the dice are literally handed over. And the shade and open-endedness of those dice matter.

### Falling Damage

Before calculating falling damage, test Speed at an Ob equal to the base Mortal Wound of your stature (plus situational penalties). If you succeed then you manage to tumble as you land and miraculously avoid all damage.

If you fail then the surface that you land on is considered to have made a successful attack against you. The base Power of this attack is equal to the number of feet fallen divided by 10 (rounded up; to a maximum of the base MW of your stature), add any margin of failure from the Speed roll, and further modify it by the following surfaces: Matting (−2 Pow); Grass, dirt, sand (−1 Pow); Wood flooring (+0 Pow); Sheet metal (+1 Pow); Stone or cobblestone (+2 Pow); Jagged rock (+3 Pow); Metal spikes (+4 Pow). Then choose which body part is hit (VA = 1) and roll a DoF (IMS = 1-2/ 3-4/ 5-6).

### What Have We Learned?

*This rule is meant for newer players to encourage them to think about their role in the game:* At the end of each session the GM can ask the players what they have learned, and what their characters have learned; or a thing that they liked or didn’t like. If their answers are new and unique, they earn a fate point. If they can’t think of anything, or repeat themselves week-to-week, then don’t award the point.

### Killing Spirits

As with Faith, on BWC pg 336, Solar exalts can use Essence to perform miracles that banish unwanted demons to hell; but permanently destroying a spirits is tough. You must make them suffer a mortal wound, which will require a spirit weapon or other magics.

Each time a spirit suffers a mortal wound their Essence exponent drops by one. They gain a trait that represents this scarred essence—which alters their physical form in some way when they remanifest too. Then they make recovery rolls as per the usual rules, after being spirited away to their sanctum. They do not rematerialize for the entire recovery period. Spirits without a sanctum double the recovery time. Elementals are not naturally immaterial, so they risk being killed *again* during this recovery period.

A spirit is only permanently destroyed if its Essence is reduced to zero, and then killed *again*. Spirits without Essence (of which there are few -- young ghosts mostly) can therefore be killed like any other mortal, as long as you have a spirit weapon. Alternatively miracles or other magics may be used to try to *remove* the Essence trait first, but this should be suitably difficult.

### Miscellaneous

* You can only buy a *maximum* number of named relationships equal to your Will exponent during character creation.
* Only *successful* Tax or Sustainance tests count towards advancement for Forte and Will.
* A character may only ever have one Aid preemptively channeled and "stored".
* If ever you need a random NPC origin, terrestrial direction, or elemental aspect, roll a d6 with the following results: 1: Air or North, 2: Wood or East, 3: Fire or South, 4: Water or West, 5: Earth or Centre, 6: Choose, roll again, or use the same direction or aspect as the roller.
* Spells that are treated like a weapon can be Avoided but not mundanely Blocked.
* You cannot mundanely Block melee weapons with your bare hands.
* Streetwise is renamed Streetfly. Two-Fisted Fighting Training is renamed Two-Weapon Fighting Training.

## ***Warning:*** The rest of these rules are experimental and unfinished.

### The Sidereals

I've written up a whole bunch of notes on sidereals: here

The main thing to take away from all that is that, at least to run a sidereals game in heaven, you have to be pretty committed. Which I am not, currently.

### The Endowed

"Endowed" is the catch-all term that we use for describing all of the other not-quite-exalted-but-still-powerful mannish substocks in Creation. This may be creatures born from the mating of mortals and spirit, mortals who have been granted spiritual endowment, half-caste exalts, fêy-bloods, liminals, and other things.

### Endowment Lifepath

Unlike the exalted, characters who take one of these lifepaths *will* continue aging beyond the lifepath, and they age like all other men. That is, they are ultimately still mortal. All endowed stats are capped at 7. If the endowed also has power over Essence, then use the exalted age table to determine your starting rank, but it does not grant bonus lifepath skill points or bonus rps, as these are facets of *true* exaltation.

##### **Exigence Notes:**

**1:**This is a born lifepath. It may only be taken once.

**2:**You may take a one year lead to this lifepath from any other lifepath in the game but, like exaltation, this lifepath can only be taken once.

**3:**Tainted Legacy can be used in this instance to either obtain a freaky monster trait (to make yourself look more demonic/godly/ghostly/etc.) or it can be used to acquire a common trait from one of the exalted stocks (excluding the Exalted trait and excluding any dragon-blooded traits) to create a half-caste. Gaiakin can also use this to take the Anima Storm trait, if they are already an Essence Wielder.

#### Exigent Traits

 ***Restrictions:*** Spirit-Blood common trait. Must be taken during character creation.

 ***Restrictions:*** Choose this trait for a low-powered exigent.

 ***Restrictions:*** Choose this trait for a mid-powered exigent. Points cannot be used to take the Force of Nature or the Higher Power trait.

 ***Restrictions:*** Choose this trait for a high-powered exigent. Points cannot be used to take the Higher Power or the I Am God trait.

*Footnote:*The three "Endowment" traits, grant you a lot of flexibility, but some care should be taken with them. Endowed characters must always be designed with the help of the GM, so that you can decide together what is "appropriate". If the bonus trait points are used to get a powerful die trait, or multiple call-ons, then the GM should get a say on where some of the remaining points go.

 ***Restrictions:*** Requires exigency or exaltation. May not be taken by Dragon-Bloods, as their power is already hereditary.

#### Terminology

There are a few different in-universe terms and sub-terms for the various exigent types. **Endowed** collectively refers every non-exalted mortal who has some extra inhuman power. Those who are granted power through rituals, bargaining, and sacrifice are called **Exigents**. Those who were born into that power are called **Spirit-Bloods**.

Mortals endowed by gods are called "godkin". Mortals endowed by demons are "demonkin" or "akuma". Mortals endowed by ghosts are called "ghostkin" or "stygians". Mortals endowed by elementals are called "gaiakin", and are associated with a particular elemental aspect. Mortals endowed by the Fêy are called "fairfolk". Mortals endowed by exalts are called "half-castes". Among the half-castes there are "moonfolk" or "beastmen", born to the lunars; "sunfolk" born to solars; and "starfolk" born to sidereals.

In the eyes of the Immaculate Order all Exigents, and all half-Castes, fairfolk, stygians, and akuma are considered "Anathema". Distinguishing between a godkin exigent and a godkin spirit-blood is often quite difficult though, so often true spirit-bloods are hunted too.

##### **Ascension**

A spirit-blooded (non-half-caste, non-fey-blood) character has the Essence Wielder trait then once they reach an Essence Exponent of 10, their character will ascend to true spirit-hood and literally become a god, rather than have their soul passed into Nirvana.

## Future Ideas

* Linchpins and Matrices for spellcasting (sources of bonus dice for Sorcery/Necromancy)