Fate

The fate of a hero dictates their beginning to end, it decides weather they end up a beggar on the street or a hero who all aspire towards. in C&S fate exists as a mechanic for players to change their own fate altering to outcome of a scenario to be more favorable towards themselves. Many players will find themselves primarily using this mechanic as a way to give themselves a boost in the midst of combat, however, it can help significantly outside of it, such as making your words seem just a tad more persuasive to whomever the player may be speaking towards.

The player starts with 3 fate, they than gain a fate point every 25 event points. Furthermore, fate can either be spent normally boosting certain actions or attacks, or used in a special manner called burning fate, which permanently uses the fate point but gives a massively increased effect, or for the usage of a classes' ultimate.

## Uses and limitations

There are a variety of ways to use fate both in combat and outside of it, additionally fate can also be used in different circumstances for certain classes and

#### **In Combat Usage**

- improve damage of a skill/attack

- if a skill notes it has a "chance" to activate, this chance increases.

- Can use a fate point to increase a skill's tier or attribute by 2, if this is used on a skill with dual attribute scaling, the bonus is split in half.

- improve a stat by 2 for the duration of an attack

- Restore reserves equal to double soul attribute: EXAMPLE: if you have 10 in soul you gain 20 reserves(your max would be 100), effectively restoring 20% of your reserves. NOTE, this can only be used twice per battle. This can ONLY be used if you have **none** of the character's physical attributes exceed the character's Magical Power (this is because this is mainly meant to support blaster casters which notably run out of reserves frequently).

- use 50% of user's max fate (rounded up) to give the user a full reaction even if they would normally only have a minor reaction.

#### **Out of Combat Usage**

- Can find a clue in tracking oriented scenario, clue will likely be limited to things that can only be discovered through luck.

- Words are viewed more favorably whilst persuading or diplomatizing, depending on circumstance may also work for bargaining. Note: this will not make someone hostile or overly cautious of you suddenly accept anything you say.

- Can increase the character's "luck" for a particular scenario but not for a specific thing. For example while at a casino a player could use a fate point to naturally increase their luck, but they could not use a fate point to increase their luck of "everybody suddenly sneezing during poker and showing me their hands".

#### Limitations

- when increasing a stat you can only increase a stat once

- fate can't be used to regain charges, stamina, fury, or other resources unless specified otherwise.

- fate cannot be used to enhance a completed action, for example if an attack misses a player can not then state they wish to use a fate point to make it more accurate, similarly if a fate is used to enhance damage, tiers, or any other factor it must be stated beforehand.

- the user/player is commonly limited to 2 fate per turn, they may exceed this limit but for every additional fate they use they must pay another as a form of tax, the exception to this is burning fate. (subject to change)

- the user/player can only improve the same stat twice per hour as they are pushing their bodies to the limit. (subject to change)

## Burning Fate

The ultimate choice, a character burning away at the very essence of their soul to lethally injure a foe warranting such a decision. Burning a fate is only to be used in the most dire of circumstance, as it permanently reduces the maximum number of fate points a character can have at any time by one. The slight silver lining, is that any time a character burns a fate point, they in return gain a stunt slot. Normally burning a fate point is used to enhance an attack by a massive amount, however, most classes will have some form of "ultimate ability" which can significantly increase the effectiveness of burning a fate. The abilities per class are shown below with the exception of knights as their ultimate abilities are tied to their knight houses.

Spirit contractor : Broken Vow

A fate point can be burnt to ignore any Sacrifice for 3 full turns. (ending at the end of the third turn of this effect)

(in the future I may scrap this and instead have separate burnt fate options for each element)

Curse Augmenter :  Black blood and Occult bones

A fate point can be burnt for the enhancer for 3 turns to add their magic to all three of their physical stats (this effect ends at the end of the user’s turn).

Curse Mystic : Esoteric Insight

A fate point can be burnt for the emitter for 3 turns to be able to cast two magical skills simultaneously, whilst also halving the reserve cost of all their magical techniques.(ending at the end of the second turn of this effect)

Curse Conjurer : Cursed Apotheosis

A fate point can be burnt to create a powerful conjured creature which is sentient and ignores the orders of its creator. This creature has only one objective : destroy the enemies of its creator. This creature lasts 5 turns and the appearance and abilities can be somewhat customized by the user.

Curse Conduit : Power Overwhelming

unlimited reserves, items are not needed for magical skills, and magical power is increased by 50%(rounded up). The duration of the ability depends on the current state of the user, if at 2 fatigue, this lasts 1 turn, if at 1 fatigue, this lasts 2 turns, at 0 fatigue, this lasts 3 turns. However, there are two major downsides to this ability, first of all regardless of the duration, once it ends the user immediately passes out, second, the user can only "safely" use this twice, afterwards, their death is practically guaranteed upon using this ability. (should this be used a third time even despite knowing the consequences, the user will instead increase MP by 100% and duration is 1 minute regardless of fatigue.)

Curse Fabricator : Stratified Magic Complex

The Fabricator can create a new spell through layering fabricator magic one atop another, they can do this as many times as they wish as long as they would have enough reserves to cast all those magics at one exact moment. However, for the purpose of this ability, the cast cost is reduced by 75%. Lastly, regardless of the cast duration of the spells included this will always take 2 actions to cast (for this reason any spell with a cast time beyond 30 seconds can't be added).

Curse Mutator : Corrupted Evolution

The mutator temporarily transforms his own body to be similar to that of a curse growing a grotesquely flesh like layer of curse energy around themselves in a near instant. The user may decide to have certain monstrous elements to this change such as an increase to size, claws, and other abilities, alongside this, their physical abilities increase by 3 and their MP by 5, however, 1/3rd of their MAX soul decays at the end of every round. Right before this ability is used the user must declare a primary opponent, this ability cannot be ended until that opponent is defeated, if 3 turns pass the user will then enter a state of rampage as they have let the mutation overtake them, this rampage lasts for 5 turns, with their rampaged state mainly attacking the primary opponent, if the opponent is defeated early they will then attack the closest living creature until the effect ends.

Deshi : Dragon’s Outburst

A fate point can be burnt while using a Hakari to in an instant apply the Jiyuna effect and enhance the entire skill by 1.5. This outburst of Jiyuna does not deplete any turns of Jiyuna the Deshi would normally have and is so rapid that even if used against a non-curse will not be recognized as an illegal use of Jiyuna.

Makos : Culmination of Fury

A fate point can be burnt for the Makos warrior to instantly gain an amount of fury equal to ¼ of their PP & ¼ of their VIT (both rounded up) then added together. Additionally, the Makos warrior can spend double the fury cost of a skill to make the skill 1.5 times stronger.

Dytos : Wrath of the Gods

A fate point can be spent to choose one of three effects representing each of the three most important Okunrin :

- For 5 turns any skill can be used and all skills get their power increased by 1.25 times.

- Perform an unarmed strike at double the user’s PP which is unavoidable.

- Mark an opponent for Vengeance dealing double damage but gaining a fatigue every turn.

Villain : Ace up the Sleeve

A fate point can be spent for the Villain to temporarily be able to put a spin on their skills making them nigh impossible to react to for 3 turns. Additionally, a one time use to have their Despoil be guaranteed to work on ANYTHING the opponent has that is under 5 pounds, even if it something the opponent is holding.

Inventor : Epiphany

A fate point can be burned during downtime when an Inventor usually uses inspiration to create items, this time due to an Epiphany they create something far stronger than the user could usually create. The item created is permanent but what can be created still must be discussed with the GM.

Commander : Genius of Battle

Captain - all troops gain +2 to all physical stats for 3 turns

Leader - Can have any number of Maneuvers ongoing at the same time and can ignore Stratagem restrictions for 3 turns.

Sworn Ally - Guardian doesn’t cost fate and all Stratagem costs are halved for 5 turns.

Note, all methods of burning fate are subject to change as the effects are observed during testing.