NOBILIS 101
Written by Ry Herman

I've trying to make this an easy-to-understand boiling down of Nobilis
concepts and rules, so that people can get a handle on the world and a
start on making their characters. I'll start with the world and its
concepts, and then do a section on rules, at least those which are
significant to making a character, which is most of them, quite frankly.
The section on the world duplicates a lot of the information that was in
Nathaniel's post explaning the game, but I'd recommend at least skimming it
anyway, as I tried to make it less confusing. Questions are welcome. And
I apologize for any typos, it's late.

So, to begin:

THE WORLD

1) Player Characters

The PCs in this game are Nobles, beings which are responsible for /
represent / embody / are one aspect of the nature of existence. This might
be an object and class of objects, quality, idea, philosophy, theoretical
construct, social movement . . . pretty much anything that could be used as
the subject clause of a sentence. So, this aspect can be juist about
anything in the conceptual lexicon : Fire, Salinity, Calendar Days,
Weirdness, Punk, Missing Socks, BDSM, Phlogiston, Straight Lines, Objects
Moving At High Speeds, or Telecommunications would all be valid ideas for
Nobles : and of course there are thousands and thousands of others.
Opening a dictionary to a random page usually results in a few good ideas.
Nobles who represent concepts which do not actually exist in the real
world, or which are more abstract, are by no means less powerful than those
who represent more "present" concepts. (Nobles who represent *extremely*
narrow and specific concepts - like, say, Lipton Instant Noodles - are less
intrinsically powerful, although they receive some minor benefits as a
result in practical game terms. More on that later, when we get to
character handicaps in character creation.) Nobles have many powers
directly relating to their Domain, and also numerous others which are
largely unrelated to it.

Nobles are themselves servants / aspects / avatars / pieces of even more
powerful, complex, fairly incomprehensible beings called Imperators (again,
more on them later.) Every Noble is bound to a single Imperator. A group
of Nobles bound to the same Imperator are a "family" of Nobles. The PCs
will play one such family. Although they are "bound" to their Imperator,
and in some senses are to greater or lesser degree no more than aspects of
the Imperator's personality, they are not automatons - they retain free
will for all practical purposes, and are treated as such. A Noble can
decide to betray its Imperator if it wants to - although this is usually a
seriously Bad Idea, since they will be severely punished, and quite
possibly instantly annihilated.

Nobles are made, not born. They are created when an Imperator imbues
someone or something else with a piece of Its own soul. Most Nobles were
at one time human. A few were originally animals or mythological beings in
their own right, and a very few were originally something even weirder,
like a computer program or an anime character. Nobles retain some of their
original soul and personality after the transformation, which is one of the
reasons they are so valuable to the Imperators. But they are far more
powerful than any human could ever be. People get made into Nobles in any
of a variety of ways. Some happen to be in the neighborhood when an
Imperator pinches off a part of the world to make a its magical kingdom
("Chancel") and are chosen from among the inhabitants for unknown reasons.
Some accidentally wander into such a chancel later. Some simply attract
the notice of the higher beings somehow (by being particularly smart, or
beautiful, or skillful, or evil, or whatever), and are deemed worthy of
being Ennobled. Some happened to be near where a Noble died, and got stuck
with their aspect because the dying Noble gave it to them. Some
(exceedingly rarely) killed a Noble and took their power, and for whatever
reason the Imperator decided this was fine. A few simply got caught in
some kind of bizarre magical accident which resulted in a piece of an
Imperator's soul getting thrust into theirs with neither of them
particularly wanting it, and the Imperator just decided to live with it.
There are many ways.

Many Nobles look human. Many look like creatures of legend or mythology.
Some are superintelligent shades of the color blue or whatever. In
general, they'll be in human form when on earth, but it's player's choice
what they really look like. Often, but not always, rather than walk
directly on Earth, Nobles inhabit the bodies of Anchors : (usually) human
servants who have been made aware of the true nature of things. (More on
Anchors later.)

Nobles are charged with three main duties : defend the aspects of reality
related to yourself and your Imperator (which includes those aspects
related to your fellow PCs), guard and govern the Imperator's chancel and
its inhabitants, and (when it does not interfere with those two duties)
help in the general defense of earth. Nobles also generally have specific
goals related to their Domains and their allegiances, which often conflict
with the goals of other Nobles . . . but (need I say it?) more on that
later.

Nobles cannot use their magic to *directly* affect other Nobles : if you
are the Lord of Hair, you cannot cause another Noble's hair to grow,
although you could do so with your own. This is because Nobles : and the
things of which they are composed : are not part of any Domains (one name
for the aspects of existence controlled by Nobles.) Nobles who are
artists' are not part of the Domain of Artists. Nobles' bladders are not
part of the Domain of Bladders. Etc. Nobles can be affected indirectly by
the magic of other Nobles : you could strangle another Noble with living
ropes of hair you cause to materialize out of the air. Nobles do have
natural resistance even to this, however, and you would need to break
through this natural magic resistance first. Both of these statements are
also true of Noble magic used on Imperators, and Noble magic used on
Excrucians (the primary enemies of the Imperators and Nobles : but . . .
more on them later.) With rare exceptions, *any* other beings *anywhere*
can be affected both directly and indirectly by Noble magic, with no need
to break through any resistance.

2) Imperators

There are seven major types of Imperators : Angels (allied to heaven),
Fallen Angels (allied to hell), Light Lords (dedicated to the preservation
of humanity : not the same as heaven), Dark Lords (dedicated to encouraging
humanity to self-destruct : not the same as hell), Wild Lords (dedicated to
freedom), True Gods (who generally have an individual code of some kind),
and Aaron's Serpents (the children and allies of the World Ash).

An individual Imperator is, on average, about as powerful as an entire
family of Nobles : in other words : if the player characters needed for
some reason to take on an Imperator in direct combat (which can happen,
albeit rarely), if they all attacked at once it would probably be a toss-up
which one would win, unless the Imperator was a particularly weak or a
particularly powerful one.

Most Imperator magic works just like Noble magic : and therefore can only
affect Nobles indirectly. There are a couple of exceptions to this : 1)
With great expenditure of energy, Imperators can use magic which affects
Nobles directly. Nobles can simply never do that. 2) Your *own* Imperator
can simply withdraw the piece of its soul from you at any time if it gets
pissed off at you, which would effectively kill you. Both of these events
are extremely rare, since the first is hard to do and there are generally
easier ways, and the second is sort of like cutting off your own hand. And
Nobles very seldom attack their own Imperator since, well, it's almost
certainly a death sentence, if nothing else. But it has happened.

3) The Excrucians

Imperators and their Nobles are fighting a war against beings called
Excrucians, whose goal is to erase the Universe. Already, they have
removed many aspects of the Universe, but no one remembers what they were,
because once they're gone, they never were at all. Excrucians are
incredibly powerful beings, but it's only very seldom that an entire
Excrucian gets into the world : the Imperators spend much of their time
preventing that, and fighting the war on that level. More often, a "shard"
or fragment of an Excrucian gets through to Earth. Generally, it's up to
the Nobles to deal with that.

Excrucians fight in a variety of ways : often, they foment discord among
the Nobles and Imperators, for they are subtle creatures. Also, they use a
kind of sympathetic magic to erase aspects of the universe : they take a
situation on earth, degrade it in certain ways, and finally when it is
destroyed in Microcosm it is also destroyed in the Macrocosm. Wars and
disasters on earth are not infrequently the results of Excrucians degrading
such a situation, although they are just as often the work of Nobles or
humans themselves.

Fighting Excrucians directly is often extremely difficult : even their
shards are extremely powerful, their magics can affect Nobles *directly*,
and they are often armed with Abhorrent Weapons of great power.
(Furthermore, if they are fought on Earth, the expenditure of magic often
drives many innocent humans insane, which is against Imperator law. And .
. . more on that later.) However, Excrucians like to avoid fighting Nobles
directly for much the same reasons : Nobles are pretty damn tough in their
own right. So, more often, the war consists of the two sides trying to
counter each other's moves : Nobles figuring out what the Excrucian's plan
is and attempting to halt the plan rather than attack the Excrucian
outright, and Excrucians trying to stop, misdirect, or deter them. Of
course, sometimes direct assault is just necessary : but when most of your
foes are immortal, that may have repercussions later on . . .

There is another important way that Excrucians and Nobles can hurt each
other, but since Nobles can do it to other Nobles as well, I'll reserve
that for the discussion on the Nobilis Society.

4) The Nobilis World

The world of Nobilis can is divided into several different places :

A) The Spirit World : this is where the Imperators keep the bulk of their
personalities, fighting the Excrucians in their own way and in general
doing whatever it is that Imperators do. Nobles seldom go there, so it's
not that important to the game, really.

B) The Chancels : These are the private kingdoms of the Imperators. The
Nobles' Chancel is their home, and they are charged with its governance and
defense, since the Imperator is generally busy with other matters.
Chancels are connected to the Earth, but often by strange pathways. A
Chancel can be anything : a fairy-tale kingdom, and undersea grotto, a
bizarre world of living computer programs, Detroit, whatever. The players
will design their own Chancel (they will also, incidentally, design their
own Imperator) in the process of character creation. The Chancel plays an
important part of the game, as the characters will spend a good deal of
their time there and *must* deal with any problems that arise in it. A
Chancel is made the same way as a Noble : an Imperator imbues it with a
piece of Its soul : so it is critically important to defend it against
attacks both subtle and direct.

C) Earth : Earth is two worlds simultaneously; Prosaic reality, which is
pretty much the world outside your window, and Mythic Reality, where
*everything* is alive and can be argued with, elementals roam and mythical
beasts abound, time works in fairy-tale manner rather than clock manner,
and roads are as likely to lead to the Sun's Palace or to Heaven as to
Cleveland. These two worlds are actually the same and do not contradict
each other : affecting one will affect the other. Killing a hamadryad in
mythic reality will cut down a tree in prosaic reality, and vice versa.
Humans, with their little minds, can only see prosaic reality, and
generally go mad if they see mythic reality. Nobles, with their dual
minds, can see either one but not both at once. Imperators presumably see
reality as it truly is.

In mythic reality, the earth is a flat disc which hangs in the branches of
the world ash, with heaven at the top of the tree and hell at the bottom,
and other worlds hanging in other branches.

D) The Realms Beyond : The lands beyond the Weirding Wall which surrounds
the World Ash. This is where the Excrucians come from, and where some of
the Wild Lord Imperators are also said to originate (although no one knows
for sure, perhaps not even them.) Very little is known about these lands,
since few have come back alive from them and no one has returned sane.

5) Nobilis Laws

The War against the Excrucians is run by the Imperator Lord Entropy, which
makes him the de facto ruler of Nobilis society. Beyond the Nobles' basic
duties : and the general injunction to serve your Imperator before the War,
and the War before yourself - he has laid down five laws : here they are,
with some notes:

I. Thou Shalt Not Love Another.

This law is broken by pretty much everyone and is largely impossible to
enforce, since the thoughts and feelings of Nobles are generally unreadable
to all but the most incredibly powerful and seldom-used of magics. Nobles
retain many human feelings, and fall in love as uncontrollably as humans do
: with humans, with other Nobles, with Imperators (angels, even fallen
ones, are incredibly beautiful . . . ), and even with other, stranger
beings. (In fact, in the game mechanics, loving a human or two is
certainly convenient and very nearly necessary for certain important
things.) Most Nobles have quietly decided that the best way to follow this
one is to try to keep things quiet and claim it was just for the sex if it
ever comes to court, which it almost never does.

II. Thou Shalt Harm None Who Has Done No Harm

This one, on the other hand, is taken incredibly seriously by the powers
that be. It applies not only to Nobles and Imperators, but to humans AND
TO EXCRUCIANS. Driving human bystanders insane with miraculous magic
counts as harming them, according to all court precedent. Arguments that
no one anywhere has actually done no harm, etc., have been thrown out as
sophistry : if you have no proof, or at least reason, to believe they've
done harm, you are violating the law. Punishments can be severe, so take
care you know what's up before attacking, be subtle with your magics on
earth, at least if anyone is watching, and if things get out of hand, try
to fix things.

III. Treat No Beast As Your Lord

Beast includes humans. This one is also taken seriously, but in a
different way. Nobles are expected to mete out severe justice when they
are insulted, ordered about, or dissed by "lesser beings" (and yes,
apparently insults qualify as "harm" under the second law.) While
punishment for the crime of not punishing such hubris is rare, enough
unanswered insults from lessers can make you a pariah in Noble society.
Certainly it gets in the way of making allies. This rule can be hard on
Nobles who are basically nice people. Bastards usually don't have a
problem with it.

IV. Protect No Power From the Justice of the Code

I.e., don't harbor any criminals. This one is taken fairly seriously, but
if you can get away with at least convincingly claiming you didn't know you
were harboring a criminal, you can generally get off without punishment.

V. Aiding the Cammora is No Crime

The Cammora are the human agents of the Nobles and Imperators on earth
(they are different from Anchors, who are magically bound servants. The
Cammora are hired help.) Taking an action to benefit the Cammora is usually not
considered a crime, even if it pushes the boundary on some of the other
laws.

7) Nobilis Society

All of the Nobilis band together to fight the Excrucians and defend
reality, in general. Beyond that, different Nobles and Imperators are
devoted to different causes and fight, intrigue, and squabble amongst each
other as much as in any society. Nobles and Imperators often have their
own goals and enemies related to their powers and their pasts, and there
are also large groups with differing : often opposing - goals. Every
player character Noble must be allied to some code, although it can be unique. It
does *not* have to be the same group as your Imperator. Imperators are
subtle and complex beings, and it is entirely possible : in fact, likely :
that an Angel would have as a trusted and rewarded servant / aspect of
their personality a being that was utterly devoted to serving the cause of
Hell. But while this may not cause problems between Nobles and their own
Imperators, it can certainly cause problems between Nobles and *other*
Imperators who might not agree with your own Imperator that a servant of
Hell is just the thing Heaven needs . . . or with other Nobles, *including*
the other Nobles serving your own Imperator (although you might want to
stay on at least somewhat decent terms with them, ideally, since you're
going to be defending each others' backs). . . or with other beings or
various types . . .

The five major groups are :

i) Heaven : Beauty is the highest principle. Justice is a form of beauty.
Lesser beings should respect their betters.

ii) Hell : Corruption is the highest principle. Suffering is a form of
corruption. Power justifies itself.

iii) The Light : Humanity must live, and live forever. What must be done
ought to be done cleanly. Humans must be protected (particularly from
themselves.)

iv) The Dark : Humans should destroy themselves (individually.) Humanity
should destroy itself (except for a few toys). Ugliness to human eyes
shows that one is worthy. (Note that the Darks' goal is quite different
from the Excrucians' goal : if humanity is destroyed by outside forces, the
Dark loses.)

v) The Wild : Freedom is the highest principle. Sanity and mundanity are
prisons. Give in kind with a gift received.

As with Excrucians, it is often difficult and unrewarding for Nobles to
attack each other directly. However, there are ways to indirectly attack
them which both weaken your opponent and grant you benefits. Every time
you destroy, debase, or turn against them something which they love and
want to protect, they lose some power and you gain some. (This can be done
against Excrucians as well, and can be done by Excrucians against Nobles.)
This means that information about others is often a key part of the game,
and subtlety. (There are game mechanics which deal with this.)

Nobles often sometimes duel using illusions ("Ghost Miracles") to resolve a
dispute. Generally, they're over when one side is hideously embarrassed
somehow, or acknowledges that had the magic been real, they would have been
defeated.

8) Mortal Allies

As has been mentioned several times, working magic in the real world is
problematic if anyone sees you do it (you can do anything you like in
Chancels.) Since much of the War is fought on Earth, that can make things
difficult. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways around that, involving
mortal allies.

Anchors, as has been mentioned before, are (usually) humans bound to you.
They must be humans you either loved or hated before they became Anchors.
They retain their free will, but you can kill them instantly simply be
making them cease to be Anchors.

Anchors are incredibly valuable. Nobles can inhabit their bodies and work
magics through them. They therefore allow Nobles to be several places at
once. And perhaps more important, magics worked Anchors are very difficult
to trace back to the Nobles who did it : in other words, it still drives
other humans nuts, but it probably can't be pinned on you.

Anchors you loved are more likely to serve you willingly, but are
vulnerable to attack for this very reason (see above) if your enemies
figure out who your Anchors are. Anchors you hated are not vulnerable to
this attack, but are likely to try to think of subtle ways to betray you
when you're not directly controlling them : although they will still share
your allegiances to your Imperator, Chancel, Affiliation (i.e., Light,
Dark, Hell, etc.), and Domain, since they contain a piece of your soul.
But they'll hate *you*.

Anchors, like Nobles, are intrinsically resistant to magic : because, like
their Nobles, they are not part of any Domain and therefore cannot be
directly affected by Domain magics. (Quite frankly, anchors are to Nobles
as Nobles are to Imperators, in many ways.) Anchors also attract the
attention of Fate : the concentration of magic in them tends to cause
strange things to happen in their vicinity.

Another way to get things done on Earth is the Camorra. This is a society,
hundreds of years old, which serves the Nobilis in the war : for a price.
After centuries of bargaining with powerful beings, they are powerful
themselves and extremely corrupt. And they've learned how to drive a hard
bargain. They can act as more conventional human agents for intrepid
Nobles, and they often have minor magics of their own.

Well, enough of that. On to character design!

CHARACTER CREATION AND RELATED MECHANICS

First, figure out what you want your Domain to be (the aspect of reality
you represent.) This is probably the most important aspect of character
creation. I advise you to pick something you'd have fun playing. Since
there are millions of choices, I recommend you give yourself a time limit
and pick the best one you come up with within that period, or you could be
at it for weeks.

Next figure out who you were before you became a Noble. How did you become
a Noble? How do you feel about it?

All right, now for the nitty gritty :

You have 25 character creation points to spend. (Note that this is only
the first part of character creation : there are other aspects you'll need
to work on later which don't involve character creation points.) Character
creation points can be spent on any or all of three things:

Attributes
Permanent Attribute Miracle Points, and
Gifts

Attributes cost 3 character creation points for every point of attribute,
to a maximum of five in any given attribute. There are four Attributes :
Aspect, Domain, Realm, and Spirit. Before points are added, they start at
zero.

Permanent miracle points cost 1 character creation point per point. There
is no maximum limit. There are four Permanent miracle point pools, each
associated with a specific attribute. Before points are added, they start
at five.

Gifts vary in point cost depending on the Gift. More on that later. You
don't have any gifts until you buy some.

So, to begin with, your character is:
Aspect: 0
Aspect Miracle Points: 5
Domain: 0
Domain Miracle Points: 5
Realm: 0
Realm Miracle Points: 5
Spirit: 0
Spirit Miracle Points: 5

ASPECT represents the degree to which your body itself is imbued with
power. Characters with high attribute can perform physical and mental
wonders.
DOMAIN represents your control over the part of creation you embody.
Domain level also determines your rank in Noble society. Characters with
high Domain can work incredible magics within their particular bailiwick.
REALM represents your degree of control over the Chancel you rule. Realm
level also determines your rank in the hierarchy which runs your Chancel.
(Later, in "group" character creation, characters with higher realm will
also have more influence in determining the nature of the group's Chancel.)
Characters with high Realm can do practically anything, as long as it is
within the Chancel where the characters live.
SPIRIT represents the degree to which the power of your Imperator fills
your soul. (Later, in "group" character creation, characters with higher
spirit will also have more influence in determining the nature of the
group's Imperator.) Characters with high Spirit get a variety of
advantages, including high resistance even to indirect magics, a greater
number of Anchors, and a facility with Nobilis ritual magics.
MIRACLE POINTS are magical energies which can be expended to perform
magical feats beyond the natural abilities represented by your attributes.
The can be refreshed, in several ways to be discussed later, up to whatever
their permanent total is (rather like the Blood Pool from Vampire, say.)
GIFTS are innate magical abilities not covered by the above.

A bit more detail about what attribute level roughly mean, before getting
into actual mechanics:
aspect
Domain
Realm
Spirit

How Aspect Works; Mechanics

Aspect, and its associated miracle points, govern physical and mental
feats, extrapolated to impossible extremes. As a general rule of thumb,
they must be extrapolations and not out and out changes : e.g., a human can
read a book, so aspect can be used to read a book in five minutes, or at a
higher level to read and memorize a book just by flipping through the
pages. But a human can't read a book without opening it, or read a read a
book which contains information it didn't have before you started reading
it, so aspect cannot be used to do those things at all : that's no longer
an impossibly difficult physical or mental feat, it's entirely magical, and
that is covered by other attributes. (At the very highest level, though,
the feats are impossible enough that the distinctions can become somewhat
moot : with enough expenditure of power, you might be able to, say, weigh
the book in your hand, figure out how much ink was used based on the weight
in relation to the number of pages, come up with the most likely
combination of letters used, determine probabilistically the words they are
mostly likely to have formed, and, similarly, the order the words are most
likely to be in, and read the book that way. Although since at a much
lower level you could simply read the stupid thing in a couple of seconds,
that seems kind of pointless. But you get my drift, I hope.)

Anyway. Humans can jump, so aspect covers jumping over a wall. Humans can
compose, so aspect covers writing great tunes. Humans can't make fire
without tools, so that cannot be done at any level of aspect. It can't be
used to read minds, but can be used to read body language to an incredibly
fine degree. You can use it to make a painting of beauty so great that
those who see it will desire to tear their eyes out rather than look on any
lesser beauty, but you can't use it to make a painting you can walk through
to another world. Etc.

These feats are performed by doing Aspect "miracles", which are categorized
in levels ranging from zero to nine. Any Noble can perform a miracle of a
level equal to or lower than their Aspect Attribute with no additional
expenditure of magic. If they wish to perform a miracle at a higher level,
they have to spend enough Aspect miracle points to make up the difference,
to a maximum of four : e.g., someone with an Aspect of 4 wishing to do a
level 6 miracle would have to spend two Aspect miracle points. Someone
with an Aspect of 3 could not do a level 8 miracle, since it requires more
than 4 Aspect miracle points.

Aspect miracles are categorized as follows:

How Domain Works; Mechanics

The mechanics of Domains are similar to those of Aspect; there are
miracles, ranging in power form zero to nine, you can do any at or below
your attribute automatically, otherwise you make up the difference by
spending Domain miracle points, up to a maximum of four.

Domain covers your control over the concept you embody. Unlike Aspect,
these are non-physical magics, and therefore not restricted to physicality
by their nature.

Incidentally, it is possible to buy a secondary Domain attribute, at three
points per attribute point, if, say, you wanted to be "Night and Nocturnal
Animals" (and you could even buy a tertiary one, if you like), but I don't
advise it for a starting character, as it spreads the points a little thin.
Talk to me if you really want to do this.

Domain Miracles are ranked as follows:

How Realm Works : Mechanics

Realm works almost the exact same way Domain does, with one major
difference. Instead of merely controlling one aspect of creation, you can
do it to *all* of them : as long as they are within your Chancel. Any
aspect of the Chancel, including inhabitants, geographical features, and
visitors can be affected . . . although bear in mind that Noble, Imperator,
and Excrucian "visitors" cannot be *directly* affected.

The scale of Realm miracles is exactly the same as the scale of Domain
miracles:

How Spirit Works : Mechanics

Spirit works differently from the other Attributes. Instead of allowing
you to perform specific miracles, each point in Spirit provides a host of
individually minor but collectively important advantages.

You can have a number of Anchors equal to your Spirit plus one.

Spirit miracle points can be expended instead in place of (but not in
combination with) other kinds of miracle points if you are working through
an Anchor. (Yes, that does mean your reserve of Miracle points for a given
attribute can be effectively doubled by working through an Anchor. There
are, however, some drawbacks as well : more on that later.)

Your level of Spirit is also the level of your Auctoritas : the degree of
magical protection you have even from indirect magics. Your Auctoritas
surrounds your body to a distance of about three feet. Those attacking you
must expend miracle points equal to or greater than your Spirit : in
*addition* to any they spend to cast the magic itself : for the magic to
have any effect within that sphere. The additional miracle points do not
count towards the four point maximum. This also protects you from even the
effects of magic which is insufficient to pierce it : if they throw a truck
at you using an Aspect Miracle without spending enough to overcome your
Spirit, the truck will just bounce off. Or miss. Or whatever. Of course,
this applies whenever you attack someone with an Auctoritas, as well . . .
and note that some forms of magic make it kind of moot. If they summon ten
miles of impenetrable night to cloud your vision, even if they don't
overcome your Auctoritas, well, you'll be able to see just fine as far as
three feet in front of you, but . . . and once again, this applies to magic
you cast on others, as well. Auctoritas effects also apply to Divination
magics : they must be overcome to get information about a Noble.

The higher your Spirit, the more benefits you can reap from the magical
rituals of the Nobilis. For example, when you drain miracle points from an
enemy by destroying something they love, the maximum number of miracle
points you can reap from it is your Spirit level.

Additional Notes and Reminders on Miracle Points

All Domain miracles, with the exception of divination, cost an additional
miracle point if they are performed at a great distance. Performing them
through Anchors does not incur this penalty. Any miracle worked through an
Anchor must be reasonably local to the Anchor, however.

Miracle points can be refreshed in three ways: when your characters flaws
impede them (more on that later), when you slay, degrade, or turn something
or someone loved by a Noble, Imperator, or Excrucian, and at the beginning
of any new game "chapter" (in our game, they will be completely refreshed
after the month pause.)

There is an additional miracle point cost of (5-Spirit Level) for Aspect
miracles performed through an Anchor.
It is possible to shift miracle points from one pool to another, using a
ritual. However, you have to spend some miracle points to do it. The
amount you have to spend is lower the higher your Spirit is.

Remember that the maximum amount you can spend to increase the miracle
level for an attribute is four. In addition to this, you can spend as many
additional as you like to break through a beings Auctoritas, if you deem it
necesaary.

At any time, a Noble can spend eight of a single type of miracle points, if
it has them available, to issue a "word of command". This is a powerful,
raw magic which damages the Noble casting it greatly : but which is likely
to do a heck of a lot more to whatever it was aimed at. It is not
necessarily for destruction, but can be used for any of the seven magics :
divination, creation, destruction, change, preservation, gating (travel),
or control. (Gating and control, incidentally, are not included outright
in the Miracle systems, although certain other kinds of miracles can mimic
them. It is possible to obtain gating and control powers as gifts.)

Gifts

(Finally.) Gifts are any magical abilities not covered by the attributes
and miracle point pools which you might want your character to have. Gifts
can be related to your Domain, or Realm, or completely unrelated to them at
all (you can take a maximum of two gifts directly related to your Domain.)
They can be just about anything. The book has a system for figuring out
their point cost, but it's kind of long to put here. If you want, e-mail
me what you want and I'll tell you the cost (decent one- or two-point gifts
are entirely creatable, by the way.) I'll give some of the common samples
listed in the book and their associated costs, to give you a feel for it:

Immutable : 1 point. You grow hungry or tired, but can survive
indefinitely without food, water, sleep, or even air. You age slowly, but
you will not die of natural causes.

Eternal : 3 points. Immutability plus. You won't age. Hunger, thirst,
and strain are optional for you.

Durant : 1 point. You are difficult to injure and heal quickly.

Sacrosanct : 8-23 points. You are warded against all but the most puissant
of weapons, you will heal any wound in a day if you live that long, and
anyone who injures, imprisons, or degrades you is cursed to a degree
determined by the number of points spent on this Gift.

Immortal : 6 points. You can only die in four ways : if your Imperator is
slain, if you are struck with certain extremely rare Excrucian weapons,
*possibly* if you commit suicide, or possibly if something completely
unexpected comes from beyond the known Realms with unknown powers. You are
both Eternal and Durant, as well.

Glorious : 2 points. Your physical appearance, in some ways, stirs strong
emotion in all mortals and (to a lesser extent) Powers. The emotion could
be lust, fear, respect, a desire to cause you no harm, etc.

Fire-breathing : 1 point. Popular with characters who are dragons in their
true forms.

Flight : 1 point. Handy for winged characters. Unnecessary for winged
characters with an Aspect of 5, who get it automatically.

Remove Poison : 1 point. Nifty for Unicorn characters. For an additional
point, it also removes disease and demonic influences.

Petrify with a look : 1 point. A must for cockatrices, gorgons, basilisks,
etc. Does not affect Nobles, Anchors, Excrucians, or Imperators.

Shapeshifting : 1 point for one or two shapes. 2 points for comprehensive
shapeshifting ability. Very chic for dragons, vampires, werewolves, etc.

Venomed bite or acidic spittle : 1 point. Good for a variety of beasties.

Worldwalker : 2 points. The ability to walk into and out of any Chancels
automatically, without having to find the hidden, secret, or guarded paths.

Gatemaker : 3 points. Not only can you walk in and out of Chancels at
will, you can make gates through which others can come as well.

Elemental : 2 points. You are so close to your estate that you can replace
your body with a construct of your domain, and turn yourself into living
lava or telephones or bacteria or angular momentum or whatever your domain
happens to be.

The Sovereign's Gift : 3 points. Regardless of your Domain level, you need
only spend one miracle point to command the simpler motions of your Estate.
(Make water part or sunbeams avoid you or clouds cover the sky or
whatever your estate happens to be.)

Constant Domain : 5-44 points. Your estate will serve you even without
your explicit command, acting in your best interest and protecting you.
The points spent determine how many ways it can do this : i.e., what magics
it can employ.

Devoted Populace : 3 points. The inhabitants of your Realm love you. No
matter what. It's magic.

Unblemished Guise : 1-5 points. You can disguise yourself as a human, more
or less impenetrably, depending on the points spent.

The next step : Bonds

All right! Now that you've bought Attributes, permanent miracle points,
and gifts, you're done with character creation points! I'm on page
seventeen and we're in the home stretch, which isn't bad considering I'm
condensing a 206 page book.

You have twenty points which you must divide among bonds, things which are
important to your character. This can be people, objects, a goal or
mission, a place, etc. Any Anchor you love must have at least one point
spent on them. The degree of points you spend on bonds determines the
degree of their importance to you. Five points means they're pretty
important to you. Twenty points means it's the only thing in the world
that really matters to you.

This is an important game mechanic. If your bonds are destroyed, degraded,
or turned against you by another Power, you will have miracle points
drained from you : usually temporary ones, but possibly even a permanent
one if the bond is strong enough : in the same way that you can drain
miracle points from Excrucians and other powers through their bonds. The
amount that is drained from you is proportionate to the amount you have
invested in it (although not on a one-for-one basis, by any means.)

It is more important to the game to use your bonds to make an interesting
character than to simply try to find ones which are impossible to attack.

Flaws

The last step for now is picking handicaps (flaws) for your character.
Handicaps cost no points and give no points, at least in character
creation, and can be arbitrarily created at any time even during the course
of the game, long after character creation is done. They're a little
harder to get rid of. There are two kinds of Handicaps: First, they can be
permanent limits on your powers of Aspect, Domain, Realm, or Spirit. This
kind of handicap provides the character with extra miracle points whenever
their pool fully refreshes (i.e., at the beginning of a chapter.) These
are not extra permanent points : you only get them when your pool
refreshes. This is the only way in game to exceed your permanent miracle
point level.

The second kind of handicaps are general restrictions, not related to a
specific attribute. Whenever these actually impede a player during play,
they get spent miracle points back (player's choice of which pool they go
to.) You cannot exceed your permanent miracle point pool level, of course.
If your restrictions never impede you, no problem : you just don't get
any miracle points back for it.

All player characters MUST take the restriction Affiliation. Your
affiliation must be to Hell, Heaven, the Light, the Dark, or the Wild.
High service to the appropriate code refreshes 1 miracle point. Disservice
to it costs you one. Characters should decide on a general mission related
to both the affiliation and their specific domain (for example, Sharpening,
in service to the Dark, might decide his mission is to make humans get as
many objects razor sharp and dangerous as they possibly can; it would gain
an MP when it notably advanced this goal.)

Other sample handicaps might be :

Sample Limits:

Aspect: Disabled in some way (blind, lame, psychotic.) 1-2 extra Miracle
points whenever they completely refresh at the beginning of a chapter.

Domain: Small Estate (This is the advantage people who are the Lipton
Instant Noodle Goddess get.) 1 point per Domain level.

Realm: Hated (The inhabitants hate your guts, and try to kill you every
chance they get.) 1 point per Realm level.

Spirit: Uninspiring (You should be impressive, but you're not.) 1 point if
your Spirit is greater than 2.

Any specific attribute: Focus. (One or more levels of an Attribute is
invested in an exterior focus : a physical object of some kind. If you
don't have the object, you can't use them, and whoever gets their hands on
it can.) 1 miracle point per 3 points of attribute invested. Round
miracle points up. The extra miracle points also move with the focus.

Sample Restrictions :

Cannot lie. 1 MP refreshes when a lie would have been very useful.

Cannot enter a house uninvited. 1 MP (depending on circumstances)

Cannot cross running water. 1 MP (depending on circumstances)

Can be summoned and can't leave an unbroken pentagram. 2 MP paid whenever
it comes up. (I love this one.)

Cannot kill. 1 MP (depending on circumstances)

Cannot use modern technology. 1 MP, but it comes up often.

Must feed of human blood or no reflection. 1 MP when it gives you away.

Repulsed by the Creator's name. 1 MP.

Hated (or loved too well) by animals. 1 MP when they're a threat, or when
they give you away.

Hunted by Lord Entropy. 3 MP paid when the boom falls. But really : this
is a bad idea.

Bound to friendship with anyone they share a smoke with and cannot resist
and offered smoke. 1-3 MP depending on who or what they end up bound in
friendship to . . .

And so on.

And that's it for now! Woof. The next step in the process is group
determined : the group gets to design the PCs Chancel, and their Imperator.

Feel free to e-mail me any questions. I'm going to bed.