Houses of the Blooded: Phases and Aspects

Phases
While creating a character, you won’t just look at who he is, but you’ll also take a look at who he was.

Your character’s past is told in a series of phases. A phase represents a certain amount of time in your character’s past. For example, the Youth phase embodies your character’s youngest years: from birth to pre-adolescence.

For each phase, your character gets:

•    Aspects
•    Skill Points, and
•    Background Points

Each phase is different, representing a different time in your character’s life. The more phases you choose for your character, the older your character becomes. Age brings advantages but also carries the weight of certain disadvantages. See each phase below for details.

Also, it should be explicitly stated that you do not have to use all five Phases for character creation. You can stop whenever you like.

Phase 1: Youth

• 2 Aspects
• 3 Skill Points
• 5 Background Points

Phase 2: Adolescence

• 2 Aspects
• 3 Skill Points
• 3 Background Points

Phase 3: Adulthood

• 2 Aspects
• 4 Skill Points
• 3 Background Points

Phase 4: Maturity

• 1 Aspect
• 1 Solace Aspect
• 5 Skill Points
• 2 Background Points

Phase 5: Solace

• 1 Aspect
• 1 Solace Aspect
• 3 Skill Points
• 2 Background Points

Aspects
Aspects best sum up your character’s experiences and life lessons. An aspect could be a single word (Strong, Weak, Dutiful, Charming, Alert, Dramatic), a career (Swordsman, Mercenary, Yvarai Witch, Assassin) an important (magical or otherwise) personal item (Family Sword, Mother’s Broach) or even a quote (“Why won’t you die?!?”). Aspects may be good, bad or both but they should always reflect some important element in your character’s past.

When an aspect is chosen the character gains one rank of that aspect, noted as follows:

    1 Swordsman

An aspect may be chosen again on a subsequent phase, in which case it goes up a rank and is noted as:

    2 Swordsman

And then

    3 Swordsman

Aspects can also take the shape of plot hooks. For example, a sworn enemy would make a wonderful aspect. Choosing the Baron of Shavalay as an aspect (reflecting the fact that he killed your mother in a duel) gives you bonus dice whenever he shows his cowardly face. If you challenge him to a duel, invoke your aspect, you gain two dice on your first risk against him. (That first hit really matters.)

True love is another example of a great story-based aspect. If your character has fallen in love, any risks involving that love are worthy of being invoked for bonus dice.

Negative Aspects
You may want to choose an aspect that is not entirely beneficial. For example, you could choose “bad temper” as an aspect or even “too vengeful for his own good.”

Picking negative aspects does put your character at a disadvantage. Any other player or the GM can “tag” a negative aspect. If one of your aspects gets tagged, you must play along with the consequences. For example, if you choose “bad leg” as an aspect, you’ve deliberately chosen a negative aspect. If your character tries a physical risk, such as climbing a fence, and someone tags “bad leg,” you lose two dice from that risk. At the end of the risk, however, you gain a Fate or Chance Point.

Aspects not only influence physical actions, but your character’s behavior as well. For example, if you choose “too vengeful for his own good” as an aspect and your character gets challenged to a duel with a superior opponent—superior opponent who happened to kill your father, let’s say—anyone can tag that aspect, invoking your unhealthy sense of vengeance. Instead of showing the better part of valor, your character pulls out his sword and throws away the scabbard (a sign that he is willing to fight to the death). Of course, you lose two dice on your first risk (not the entire fight scene), and after the risk is completed, you get a Fate or Chance Point.

The disadvantage in taking negative aspects is that you lose dice and a certain amount of control of your character. The benefit is that negative aspects give you Fate and Chance Points. I’d recommend taking at least one negative aspect. Negative aspects add a lot of color to characters and allow you to choose your weakness. Also, negative aspects can help the GM shape a campaign.

Solace Aspects
One particular kind of aspect no character can avoid are solace aspects. As your character grows older, he gains aspects that reflect the slow decline to the inevitable. These could be anything from “slow reflexes,” to “poor perception,” or any other physical or mental symptom of solace.

Any other character may tag your solace aspects. In order to do so, they have to give you a Fate or Chance Point. If the GM tags one of your solace aspects, he also gives you a Chance or Fate Point.

The mechanical disadvantage of solace aspects is that they cost you two dice from your next roll—if the aspect is appropriate. In other words, if you are about to get involved in a duel and someone tags your slow reflexes solace aspect, you lose two dice from your next roll. You also get a Fate or Chance Point. If someone tags one of your solace aspects and it does not apply to the risk you are about to take, you do not lose dice nor do you gain a Chance or Fate Point.

Be creative with your aspects. This is where you really get to make your character different from everyone else’s. A fun aspect can really make the game shine, even if it costs you dice or influences your character toward danger.

Skill Points
Each phase gives you a number of Skill Points spend on your character’s Skills. Skills represent your character’s knowledge and abilities he learned during each phase of his life. Choose from the Skill List provided below.

Each phase, you may only spend one skill point per Skill. That is, you may spend a skill point to either increase a Skill’s rank or add a new Skill to your character sheet. Adding a new Skill costs one Skill Point. You may not spend more than one skill point on any Skill. In other words, you may not spend two or more skill points on any one Skill per phase.

Skill points may not be “saved” to be used in future phases. Any unspent skill points are lost at the end of the phase.

The Skill List
Art
Athletics
Bureaucracy
Intrigue
Performer
Revenge
Romance
Scholarship
The Road
The Sword

Art
The ven celebrate all intellectual endeavors, and in their academies, students are taught the seven great arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. With this knowledge, they create haunting poetry, heartbreaking operas, and tragic plays. Of course, they also use this knowledge to study the universe around them, calculating the distance of stars, forecasting weather, and inventing tools to help them in their daily lives. Art is the beginning of understanding, the first step on the road to wisdom.

Any creative or scientific endeavor uses Art as the most appropriate Skill.

Athletics
Physical training is part of any young noble’s life. In fact, it nearly dominates every moment of his life. The mind must be rigorously trained, but so must the body if he is to survive the life awaiting him in court. He is taught gymnastics and calisthenics to keep his body physically fit, trains in long distance running, sprinting and climbing. A whole body is the perfect compliment to a sophisticated mind.

Any physical endeavor uses Athletics as the most appropriate Skill.

Bureaucracy
When it began, the bureaucracy was small and required little effort to understand. Now, it is a massive industry all unto itself. People spend years learning its ins and outs, its loopholes and traps. With this knowledge, you can bypass all of that and get what you need when you need it.

Any attempt to navigate the difficult terrain of the Senate’s system of paperwork uses Bureaucracy as the most appropriate Skill. See “Systems” for more information on how to use this Skill.

Intrigue
Rumors and unspoken truths are part and parcel of the ven courts. What is not being said is far more important than what is being said. The ven are trained to pick up even the slightest nuance—the smallest wince, blink or grimace—and know exactly what it means.

Any attempt to lie or hide the truth uses Intrigue as the most appropriate Skill. Detecting that lie or attempt to hide the truth also uses the Intrigue Skill.

Manners
Knowing the right thing to say at the right time is important in the courts. A well-placed compliment or appropriate courtesy can win all sorts of favors. Knowing the rules also means knowing when you can break them to the best advantage, but abusing the delicate rules of etiquette can prove most disastrous. You must take care.

Manners is a Skill that is used with the Etiquette System. When you abuse one of the rules of etiquette, you must make a Manners risk. If you succeed, you have successfully broken the rule. If you fail, your Manners rank goes down by one for the rest of the night. See “Etiquette” for more information on how to use this Skill.

Revenge
Sometimes, actions must be taken that are beyond the pale. The ven do not deny this. In fact, they embrace it. When a ven declares revenge (in the appropriate and acceptable way), the burden of the law is lifted from his shoulders. Of course, the burden of the law is lifted from his target’s shoulders as well. All is fair once revenge is declared, and remains fair until it is settled.

Forgery, breaking and entering, and other less honorable acts fall under the domain of this Skill.

Romance

Lingering looks, a subtle flirtation, an invitation to dance. Like every aspect of ven culture, romance is highly ritualized, full of pitfalls waiting those who try to enter the game without understanding the rules.

All attempts to engage with Shanri’s difficult and complex rules of romance use this as the default Skill. See “Romance” for more information.

Seneschal
Maintaining a domain is no easy task. It requires a steady mind and a detail for attention (something the ven find very difficult). While there is little honor and glory in such activities, they are still necessary. Someone has to take care of things. It may as well be those who have the head for it.

Seneschal is an important Skill in downtime actions. It makes staff perform more efficiently and makes domain management easier. See “Seasons” for more information.

The Road
Outside the city, Shanri is waiting. Waiting with claws and teeth and wily eyes. To travel outside the protection of the city requires a specific knowledge, a specific set of skills. Hunting, trapping, moving through the wilderness without leaving a trace. These are the skills of the Road. And without them, you might as well stay home.

All “outdoors” activities use The Road as the default Skill.

The Sword
No weapon is its equal. Any other weapon would dishonor the hand of the wielder. The sword is the only weapon of honor a ven would allow in his hand, and since he could first hold it, he has studied it, earned its trust, earned its respect. This is the weapon of a noble.

The Sword is the most appropriate Skill to use when wielding a sword.

Background Points
Each phase, your character gains a number of background points. These can be spent on your character’s Skills, Advantages and Secrets. Background points may not be “saved” to be used in future phases.

Skills
Background points may be spent to buy new skills or to improve existing ones. You may increase one Skill by one rank with background points. Like regular skill points, more than one background point may not be used to increase the rank of an existing skill per phase.

Advantages
Advantages are elements of the character outside the scope of skills and aspects. Some examples of Advantages include:

• A magic sword
• A loyal servant
• Knowledge of an enemy’s weakness
• A castle

Advantages are purchased with background points. Advantages fall into three main categories: Intrinsic, Personal and Shared. Intrinsic Advantages are permanent parts of the character, like “ambidextrous” or “dangerous beauty.” Personal extras are those things within the character’s control, like equipment or servants. Shared extras are elements of the game environment the character cannot fully control, like resources and contacts.

Find the list of Advantages in the boxed text below. Note that some Advantages have restrictions. If you want to add that Advantage to your character sheet, your character must meet those restrictions.