Undeath of History: Character Creation Rules

Now for some crunch. Today I present how the character creation rules for TimeWatch need to be tweaked to account for the setting for Undeath of History. These means new Investigative Abilities and a new General Ability: Vitality.

Character Creation Rules

For the most part the rules for TimeWatch work well for this setting. The existing list of Abilities is short enough to allow for broadly competent agents who can operate in any time or place. A few Abilities however need to be added to highlight the premise of the setting.

New Abilities

Occult Studies [Investigative Academic]: borrowed from Night’s Black Agents, this investigative skill establishes the agent an expert on the supernatural, “magic”, and superstitions throughout human history. This includes the typical abilities of the Undead. You can:

• supply historical facts and anecdotes concerning occult phenomena, cults groups, undead and legends.
• identify undead as such and guess at their specific capabilities.

The Patchworks [Investigative Academic]: You know the alleys, tunnels, and twisting corridors of the Patchworks like the back of your hand. You can:

• recall details historical details about any landmark, market, occupied structure or other point of interest.
• quickly find an entrance or exit to the Patchworks.
• expertly navigate the dangers of the Patchworks: the gangs, the undead, the Watch.

Every character begins with a free point of Patchworks.

Vitality [General]

Some people might argue Sanity would be a good addition for a horror game like this. But I tend to find it hard to make players connect with the horror of slowly losing one’s mind. At least without it coming off as silly or punishment.

However, I’ve had much better success when the effects of the horror directly impact the player’s experience. The horrors in the Undeath of History are very physical. For this game I want to hit the players where it hurts: the very nature of their character.

Time travel in the Undeath of History erodes one’s connection to the living present. Travel too far or too often and you become disconnected. You stop aging, perhaps stop blinking or breathing as well. Mortal weaknesses fade away. But you also lose such useful abilities as cosmetic healing or a body temperature. Your wounds never close even if your actual Health recovers just fine. Go far enough and you become little more than a withered and maddened ghost.

Vitality measures how alive your character still is. Like Sanity in Trail of Cthulhu, it only goes down. All characters begin with 4 points and can raise it at character creation as high as 10. Should it fall to 0 your character becomes overcome with a hunger or hatred for the still living and becomes unplayable.

Each point lost from Vitality gives a player 1 point to allocate to Temporal Dislocation (see below).

This next bit has never been tested. I’m trying to err on the side of caution but some of these powers may be very abusable. Game masters beware.

Temporal Dislocation (General; special): Each dot in Temporal Dislocation grants one of the flaws below. These “powers” are suppose to cover the normal abilities of the Undead within the setting, at least those that the players characters are likely to become. Each flaw give a minor boon but also a noticeable drawback.

In general I would avoid letting a player start off with these abilities (especially since I haven’t playtested them) but if they did their Vitality (starting and maximum) should be dropped accordingly.

• You are unaffected by the passage of time for the purposes of aging. You never grow a day older naturally, though further exposure to temporal paradox can cause you to age in strange (and generally horrific) ways.
• Electromagnetic radiation no longer interacts normally with you. You are invisible to electronic devices and do not appear in mirrors. Direct sunlight overwhelms your eyes increasing the difficulty of all actions by 1.
• You no longer have basic metabolic needs like blinking, eating, or breathing. You cannot starve or suffocate. Rolls to hide your inhuman nature or appear unsuspicious are at +1 difficulty.
• You have an unnatural hunger that can only be satisfied by draining the life force of others. Killing a human being or sapping their Chronal Stability allows you to ignore the negative effects of Temporal Dislocation for a night. Each death and every 5 Chronal Stability suppresses one point of Temporal Dislocation.
• Your body ages unnaturally. You appear as if you were well over a century old. This does not affect your skills though it does affect NPC reactions.
• You age until you are a wasted, clearly Undead thing. Gain armor -2 from your leathery hide.
• Your wounds no longer visibly heal. While your Health pool recovers the damage remains visible.
• You can drain the life-force of others to heal cosmetic damage. This attack uses Hand-to-Hand and inflicts +0 damage to Chronal Stability.
• You become partially out of phase from reality. All general abilities suffer +1 difficulty but your Hit Threshold also increased by 2.
• You become fully incorporeal. Energy weapons can still harm you but you are immune to all other attacks. You cannot affect the normal world except through some psychic or supernatural power.

Ability Changes

Chronal Stability: If your Chronal Stability reaches -6 or lower lose 1 Vitality and allocate 1 point to Temporal Dislocation. If you reach -12 your character is pulled fully out of time and experiences millions of years of subjective time in seconds. The experience renders them either a drooling zombie or a screeching spectre.