Prelude and Setting

The Human Race

The next book of the Power of Ten, as requested by the readers, will be ‘urban fantasy’-mode.

Urban fantasy varies from one author to another. My particular inspirations center on Shadowrun (without the cyberpunk super-science aspect), Monster Hunters International, the Dresden Files, the Vampire/Masquerade world, and naturally enough, d20 Modern.

In my experience, Urban Fantasy has several particular features:

Into this mix of features, I’m going to be mixing the Power of Ten ‘reality’.

I will be reposting the glossary from Power of Ten: Sama Rantha.

The Rules of Power of Ten are in effect for the story:

Extra humanoid Racial Class Levels can be taken when you reach Four, Seven, Ten (Atlantean Human), and as discovered in the last book, Fifteen (Advanced Human). The Ten and Fifteen Levels are basically just acquiring the Atlantean and Advanced Templates.

All rights reserved to add other Classes the Power of Ten doesn’t normally have (The Rules are Different Here).

Magic items are usually based on their D&D equivalents, although Quality Level is a mechanic added in to reasonably restrict how powerful they can grow, and Skill Ranks are very important.

There are no Bags of Holding or Portable Holes (creating extradimensional holes/pockets). These are excuses for something to come in through the Veil through the weakness and eat you and everything nearby. Shrinking/compression magic is used for this purpose instead (similar to the Pym Particle) via use of Itemize.

As a general rule, I like to stick close to the Paizo Pathfinder or 3E Stat line for monsters, but I’m happy to deviate if need be. In particular, monsters having Health Qi to up their staying power is anything but uncommon, and the way many of them ‘get tougher’ with age.

The Glossary

Some History: I freely borrow from Pathfinder and D&D 3E and 3.5E as I do this, as well as AD&D, BECMI, and even Warhammer FRPG and some of the video games I’ve played in the past. Since I’m being authorial, I can add all this in to liven up the world and show the underlying mechanics of what is at play. Of course, playing with all of the stuff I use without a computer doing all the stuff behind the scenes might be very slooooooow... especially with Deep Tens getting access to all sorts of stuff!

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The Players! Powered, Primos, Forsaken, Nulls, Voids, Sources, Karma

Powered: The Magic Folks who won the super-power lottery. They can use magic, chi, ki, whatever, they have the potential for it, they only need the Stats and Levels to make use of them. Basically, they have stretchy souls.

Primos: The rest of us. Terrans are all Primos. We can learn to use magic items, and accept a Warlock or Binder Pact. Our souls are considered rubbery rigid. The vast majority of humans are simple Primos.

Forsaken: Primos who had forsaken Magic are either Nulls, Sources, or Voids. They cannot use any magic, chi, or psionic effects that require them to be projected, Cast, or otherwise, nor most magic items.

Nulls: The most common Forsaken, the hardest souls. Reinforce the rules of Reality around themselves. Magic and such energies intruding on their Null simply gets straightened back out to basic background magic, and vanishes into nothingness. Tough and wise.

Sources: Radiate magic at its most foundational level, and so burn away higher forms that intrude on their Sun. Effectively Make Fate for themselves. Strong and charismatic, Kings Among Men/Queens Among Women, natural leaders.

Voids: Filter magic through themselves, tying themselves to it with every breath and heartbeat. Abnormally sensitive to impurities and disruptions, and driven to get rid of them. Very dexterous and extremely intelligent, their Voids manifest as Helices of different colors dependent on their Order that can drain magic from things around them. Since they are Awakened by the Land, there are Voids in the story.

Forsaken are effectively limited to using ki (passive effects only), and some Alchemy in the story. They can use Powered magic items with passive effects, but cannot improve them.

Karma: Another term for experience points. Karma is gained many ways, but the universally acknowledged fastest way is to defeat worthy opponents. This can be meta-gamey (evacuating a town before the flood caused by an enemy drowns it) or straight up bashing skulls en masse. Note that slaughtering things that are not a threat to you or yours generally gives you nothing, unless it’s for a greater purpose (i.e. completing the Fountain of Death Becoming to create an undead army, or something). If you are a Good person, saving lives is generally worth much more Karma than taking them... rewarding you for being a hero!

Just like classic RPG's and the video games that borrow from them, it takes more and more Karma to gain every extra Level. You can always keep accumulating Karma even if you can't Level up, buying Feats, Masteries, Hit Points towards your cap, Secondary Levels, spend them to make magic items, and so forth.

A Level is defined as one Character Class Level, One Purchased Feat, and 3 Mastery Advances, in terms of Karma and Caps.

For this novel, Powered must Level to gain new caps on Feats and Masteries, and only if they cannot Level can they Train Feats and Masteries sideways.

It takes a Stat of 10+Level in the Class you want to take a Level in it. Thus, to be a Ten, you need a 20 in the prime Stat of that Class. It takes an exceptional person to gain Levels. If you play the system, you need a 14 base Stat to make it all the way to Ten eventually. Magical items do NOT count towards this limit!

Regardless of how much Karma you have accumulated, you can't Level up ten times in one day. Between Renewals, you can add one Level, one Feat, advance one Mastery, or train up one Hit point towards your maximum (Health or Soak, not both).

You can only put a combination of 1,000 points of Karma and gold combined into a magic item (ONE Magic item!) per day via Infusing or Investing. There are special exceptions to this for Consumables, such as Scrolls and Potions, but largely 1,000 is a Hard Limit, until you get to very high end Forsaken Crafting...

This amount of 500 gold + the Karmic equivalent means a ‘goldweight’, the amount a Powered can Infuse a day, is a Known Standard of value, and the actual value of an object or power comp is generally measured against goldweight. This amount represents approximately five pounds of gold, half a pound of platinum, or fifty pounds of silver (pure, unrefined, uncrafted).

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THE LIMITS!:Ten, Valence, First and Second Ceilings, Alignments, Gaining Levels/Feats/Skill Points, Primary and Secondary Classing, Prestige Classes, Renewals

The Power of Ten was largely an E10 world, meaning characters were mostly limited to Ten. The Human Race is largely an E6 world... the vast majority of characters don’t ever exceed Six.

Spells are limited to Valence III at Six. Post-Six characters with higher Slots can meta their spells to be more powerful, but D&D level 6+ spells are not possible to cast, and 4-5th Level spells are incredibly rare.

The First Ceiling is Level Six. This is the limit for a normal mortal/human. It is by definition the limit of being Human. If you are a Seven, you are by definition a post-human. Thus, Tarzan, Batman, and the like, who are not post-humans, are Sixes. If you are a Seven, you’re better in some way than Batman is. The average level of an experienced Terran Primos is Two. An elite is a Three. An Olympian/World-Class is a Four, and the best in the world today might be a Five. There are probably no Sixes alive on Terra, as it’s much too hard to get there without healing magic.

Batman would be a Deep Six... a Six with a LOT of secondary Classes, and many Feats and Masteries, and a nigh-prefect Stat Line.

The Second Ceiling is Level Ten. Only truly legendary characters exceed Level Ten.

The limit on Stats for a human body is 30-35. After that point, your body is basically a magic item, your mind is thinking in the akasha outside your skull, and so forth. Your strength is more telekinetic than physical.

Twenty is the absolute Mortal Limit. After Twenty, you become Eternal, stop aging, and will not die of natural causes, you can only be killed. The Road to Twenty is the Road to the Eternal.

Powered gain 10 years of additional prime years (normal age 20-40) for every Level they have... meaning they also live longer than the rest of us. Forsaken do the same. Primos who become Forsaken at Seven get back the years, which can rapidly de-age them, as do Primos who swear a Warlock Pact and become pseudo-Powered.

Secondary Classing is allowed. One’s Primary Class is not fixed until Level Four...the first Class to reach Four is your Primary forever, so prepare well! Your Secondary Classes are limited to half the level of your Primary, rounded down, +1. Thus, at Ten, the maximum Class Level you can have in a Secondary Class is Six.

Gaining a Level in a Secondary Class costs exactly what it would cost to gain your next Level in your Primary Class.

Skill points gained from a Secondary Class MUST be spent on Class Skills for that Class. Likewise, any Stat advances from Secondary Classes must be spent on the Prime Requisite of that Class. Any Feats and Masteries taken must also involve Skills or features related to that Class.

You gain no bonus Skill points from Intellect from taking Secondary Classes, nor extra hit points. You do get the best of the Save/Resist Bonuses by Class, and Attack Bonus. You also do not gain any weapon or armor proficiencies, or other starter bonuses only available at Level One.

There are Prestige Classes, which are basically special niche Classes or work off combinations of one or more main Classes. The main Classes are where the real power is. Most such Classes are 5 Levels long, and cap at Ten (i.e. require you to be a Ten to take the final Level).

You gain a Stat point at Level 4 in any Class, and again at 8. When you first reach Ten, you gain +1 to all Stats (only once).

Skill Ranks impose absolute limits on certain things you can learn and know. If your Soul is not developed enough, you simply can’t understand certain things.

The existence of Levels is widely known and understood.

Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are fundamental forces that empower the universe, not philosophical arguments.

Creation refers to the multiverse of multiverses. Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars, and the Power of Ten all exist in Creation, although the rules of their realities might be wildly different.

There is no war in Heaven.

Renewal is your Reset time, when your Magical Day begins. It calculates the duration of all day-long spells, the reset on x/day abilities, when you can begin enchanting magical items again, when you can rememorize spells, when you roll again for saves to throw off an effect, and the like. Anyone who has gone through a Renewal knows exactly what it feels like, and so can track days passing by their Renewal. (Yes, I borrowed the concept shamelessly from the Dresden Files).

The vast majority of Renewals are at Dawn. Other popular times are Noon, Dusk, and Highmoon (midnight).

Renewal is based on personal time. Going to a world with week-long days, a Renewal is still once a day. The time of day can be changed by eschewing Renewal at the proper time, and proceeding to the time you want to Renew at.

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FEATS AND MASTERIES: Explanations of what they are

Feats represent special tricks and capabilities that build upon other basic abilities, and come in all types and flavors, magical and not magical. They are analogous to some of the Skills of video games, but virtually all Feats are passive in nature. The ability to Power Attack, giving up accuracy for a considerable boost to damage, or focusing solely on kill-points, is a Feat that builds over time. However, Skill Focus Feats give a +3 bonus to using a Skill, which doubles at Ten to +6.

Melees, Archers, and Scouts have access to Class Features that basically supercharge certain Feats, allowing them to improve with time. It’s how the Primos truly improve over time.

Many Feats require you to be a certain Level, have certain Stats, possess certain Class Features, be of a certain Alignment, or know other Feats and Masteries to take them.

Power Feats are certain stacking Feats that can only be taken once per every three full Levels.

Masteries are basically half- or minor Feats that represent increasing proficiency in a specific area. If applied to a Skill, they give Competency bonuses and count as Skill Unlocks. In other areas, they serve as ways to upgrade a power or ability over time.

Because they have no access to magic or spellcasting, Forsaken and Primos focus on Feats. Any time a Forsaken or Primos gains a Feat when Leveling or from a Class, they gain an extra Feat. If a Forsaken or Primos takes a Class that has magical ability or Casting, any Level where they would gain a Spell or similar power, they instead gain a Feat appropriate to that Class.

Competence bonuses for Skills are limited to +5, exactly what you get from a Mastery. Most other Bonuses are limited to +3 at Ten. Magical items that buff ability scores are limited to +5 at Ten.

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The Stats! Strength (Str), Intellect (Int), Wisdom (Wis), Dexterity (Dex), Constitution (Con), Charisma (Cha), Health, Soak (Hit points), and what they mean in real terms.

-Human Stats average 10-11 as a baseline. As PoT mirrors reality, most women take a -2 penalty to Strength. Conversely, they gain +2 to any other Stat, up to the human maximum of 18. This means women don’t make the best Melee Fighters, but they definitely make the most talented multi-discipline Casters!

- Every 5 points represents a doubling. So, a Strength score of 20 is basically about as strong as 4 men, and a 20 Intellect can match wits with 4 average people easily.

-The total bonus of a Stat increases by +1 every 2 points past 10, and is a penalty in the other direction. The subordinate score increases by +1 in between (i.e. Might increases before Power for Strength).

-The normal human Stat maximum at career start is 20 (base 18, +2 for starting choice reflecting training). In the real world, the human maximum is about 23. It is VERY difficult for an average human to train beyond that level. Having a Stat of 24+ basically means you are beyond human in some way. People who are born with natural 18’s and train to make it a 20 are incredibly rare... but not on Player Character Creation sheets, it seems...

-If you want to see what a 22-23 represents, pull out the Guinness Book of World Records!

---Ogres have a Str score of 21 on average, making the average Ogre stronger than all but the very strongest humans, and they have Cons of 18, making them incredibly tough. Spider-man sits in the mid-40 range since he can toss a car, the Thing has a Might of about 60 (Power low since he’s not very fast), and the Hulk a Str of 60+ (fast AND strong!).

---Succubi have Charisma scores of 26 (+8) on average, making them more charming than any human on Earth. Napoleon rode an 18-20+ Charisma to historical immortality, despite being nothing much to look at.

--Intellect maps to IQ. An Intellect of 13 is the smartest person in the room. 14, in your grade. 15, in your grade school. 16, in your high school. 17 is a true genius, and best in your college. 18, probably in your state. 20, probably in your country. 22, probably the planet (Sherlock Holmes range). Batman probably has a 23, and Lex Luthor a 24-26 (and a lot of Feats/Masteries). Reed Richards is probably in the 30’s, but has no ceiling, since he can grow his brain.

-Spider-man has a reaction time 15x a human athlete, and perfect balance and body control. That puts his Dex score in the 38-40 range (+14-15). The best snipers in the world will have Precision about 20, while the best yoga masters and gymnasts will have Agility in the same area.

-The wisest and most cunning advisors and plotters in history have Wisdom scores in the 20-22 range, which is about the basic level of a lesser Angel. The way Shakespeare’s Plays have endured the centuries is a timeless testament to the wisdom of their writer.

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Strength/STR: Physical power, divided into Might (lifting, breaking, bending, damage) and Power (how fast you can use your Might, hitting stuff, control). Power cannot be higher than Might. Someone with high Might but low Power could carry a mountain, but only throw it a couple feet, for instance.

Someone with high Might will generally have massive musculature, while someone with Power will appear more toned, lighter on their feet, and faster. A body builder, for example, has high Might, but probably has less Power than an MMA fighter.

Strength is very important to a Melee combatant, signifying speed and control of a weapon, and being able to wield heavier arms and armor. A mighty warrior wields bigger weapons (perhaps ridiculously so), but a Powerful one controls them more easily and swings them faster and more lightly.

Dexterity/Dex:Agility and Precision. Not Speed. NOT SPEED. Speed is derived from Power. Agility is quick reaction times and dodging stuff, like Spider-Man doing his thing to avoid all the Green Goblin Shurikens, and twisting around like a pretzel. Precision is control, balance, a steady hand, and affects to-hit rolls with missiles, finesse combat, and when working on delicate tasks. These factors tend to be equal, but it would easily be possible for a tumbling acrobat to have a higher Agility than Precision, while a sniper might go the opposite direction.

High Dex people are graceful, flexible, controlled, precise, steady, and balanced, and move with efficient motions.

Dex is NOT SPEED! It’s vital to both quick-reacting and agile combatants, such as Scouts, and ranged combatants, like Archers.

Constitution/CON: Vitae, the power of your lifeforce/soul, and Vitality, same for your body. They tend to be equal, strong soul breeding strong body, but do not need to be. Vitae governs bonus to Class Levels/Soak, and Fortitude saves to resist things that affect the life/soul (life drains, necromancy, etc). Vitality governs the bonus to Hit Dice/Health and Fort saves against things that affect the body (fatigue/exhaustion, poison).

People with high Constitution are in extremely good Health and phenomenally tough, able to keep going when others fail, and resist negative energy attacks more easily.

Intellect/Int:Reason and Memory. Reason is the ability to figure out things rapidly, working through a new problem. Memory is retaining what you know. Reason governs present skill rolls for many crafting and profession skills, and Memory how many Skill Points you get.

A high Intellect person knows a lot of things, and can apply them effectively and consistently, figuring stuff out faster than those around them.

People who work with Arcane magic and Crafters, as well as Skill-heavy folk, need high Intellects.

Wisdom: Divided into Experience and Insight. Experience is what allows a Wise person to pick the best option out of many available, doing the right thing at the right time. Insight allows a Wise person to know what is out of place, including things affecting themselves, and so pursue harmony.

A Wise person can give (and take) good advice easily... or horribly wrong advice, if they choose. They tend to be hard to sway, self-controlled, and calm.

Wisdom is important for those wanting attunement with Nature and the Divine, so Monks and Divine and Druidic Casters require it.

Charisma: Divided into Personality and Willpower(is NOT Appearance!!). Personality is social skills, ability to get along with people, have them follow you, personal magnetism, ease of being around people, silver tongue, always having the right words for the occasion, having a thick skin, and so forth. Willpower is strength of will, inability to be swayed, commanding presence, emotional power, and pure stupid determination.

Naruto would be an example of a high Charisma character... not much in brains or common sense, but gets people to follow him, never gives up, and becomes a leader.

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Examples: The high Int character exploits every cheat in the game, the high Wis character rewrites the rules of the game instead, and the high Cha character convinces the Admin to let her win.

The high Int character comes up with a dozen battle plans, the high Wis character picks the best one... and convinces the high Cha character to back it, so everyone follows along.

The High Int character goes looking for lots of advice and alternatives; the High Wis character gives the best advice; and the High Charisma character bulls ahead, figuring he can fix anything that goes wrong as he goes.

For a Negative Example, Donald Trump is an example of high Charisma, Low Wis/Intellect. He had the charm and personality to manipulate people to become President of the United States, but had neither the Intellect nor the Wisdom to do well once he got there.

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HIT POINTS: A term that includes Health, Soak, Temporary Hit Points, and Health Qi. The base idea is similar to video games (who took it from RPG’s).

Healthis actual physical damage an object or being can take. Most monsters and creatures only have Health. The average human has 1-8 Health. A brick usually has 5. Fast Healing, Magical Reserve Healing, and Regeneration only affect Health. Health naturally returns at Level/Hit Dice + Con bonus/day, twice that if resting, for normal humans.

Soak is the magical ‘oh that didn’t actually hurt’ or ‘damn, that was lucky’ effect, very fundamental battle magic. It ONLY comes from Class Levels. Creatures fighting humans with Class Levels hate it. (Why puny human not fall down when tree trunk smash his ribs?) It manifests in whatever manner is the most efficient to save the person struck, including near misses, lucky steps, glancing blows... but you can face plant after falling two hundred feet onto concrete, get up and walk away if you’ve the Soak for it. Magical stuff! Clerical Cures can restore Soak, but mostly it’s restored steadily at (Level+Con)/hour, much faster than Health, for humans.

Battle Vigor, a Combat Feat, is designed to rapidly restore some lost Soak.

Temporary Hit Points: Come from magic. Any damage taken is first taken from these, and they are burned away/expended. Like a magical field of ‘Ahhhhh, don’t cut me!’ Very similar in effect to Soak.

Health Qi: A form of damage absorption/instant healing possessed by really powerful monsters. You cut them, blood sprays, flesh tears and rips... and in the next second they are right back to normal, and the crimson stuff kinds of evaporates. Powerful monsters can have LOTS of Health Qi. They can burn Health Qi to overcome ability damage, poison, stun effects, etc, meaning things that have it are total pains to deal with. It is recovered after all Health damage is healed, building right back up, so Fast Healing and Regeneration, as well as healing spells, can help a monster get their Health Qi back very quickly.

Temporary or Subdual Damage: This is Health damage that is not lethal, returning at the same speed Soak does. This is how you beat people unconscious. Melee fighters have Vigor, which turns lethal wounds into subdual damage, meaning they heal much more quickly than normal people. Also, every point of Health or Soak damage cured by other means also heals a point of temporary damage, meaning double effect healing!

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COMBAT TERMS:TH, MAB and RAB, d4/d6/d10 etc, Hit Dice, Crits, AC, DR, MAB, Energy Res, Saving Throws, etc.

TO-HIT/TH: The modifier to your roll to hit an opponent. In video games, this is generally a % chance. The enemy has a target number for you to hit (their Armor Class/AC), you roll % dice or a d20 (twenty-sided die), add your To-Hit modifier, and if you equal or exceed their AC, contact is made and it is time to roll damage. Most magic weapons modify To-Hit and Damage by a fixed amount.

TH is divided into MAB, Melee Attack Bonus (close combat) and RAB, Ranged Attack Bonus (missile combat).

If you are subject to Luck, rolling a 1 (01-05) is always considered a miss, and rolling a 20 (96-00) is considered always a hit.

This is somewhat different from many video games, where you are presumed to hit, and damage is just modified. Mathematically, they end up in the same place... whiffing is basically the same as seeing 0,0,0 damage come up...

In terms of combat importance, you generally want your attacks to hit, then do more damage per attack, then gain more attacks. It’s all math, but if you can’t hit, it doesn’t matter how many attacks or damage you get, and if you don’t do any damage, it doesn’t matter how many attacks you have.

D4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, d100: the d is short for ‘die’. Google ‘Gamer dice’ to see what they look like. They are used to roll random results from 1-4, 1-6, 1-8, 1-10, 1-12, 1-20, and 1-100, respectively, with other combinations possible by halving or combining different dice. They are used for calculating weapon damage and hit points for combat, and TH rolls and saves.

The main reason dice is used is because of mathematical averages with more than one die. 2-16 means an equal chance of any number from 2 to 16. 2d8 means the damage is heavily weighted towards the average of 9, and 2-4 and 14-16 are very uncommon. So, a 10d6 fireball mathematically stays around 35 damage, instead of having the same chance to do 10 or 60 as the middle.

A knife or dagger does a d4 in damage.

A gladiator’s short sword or a normal arrow does a d6.

A knightly longsword or broadhead arrow does a d8.

An average handgun does a d10.

A two-handed sword or axe, or a lance on a charge, does 2d6.

A rifle or shotgun does 2d8 or so.

A cloud giant is four times the height of a human, can wield a Heavy Weapon, and so his sword strike would do roughly 5d6 damage, +11 from Strength... Remember us Terrans have on average 5 Health...

A d20 is also known as an icosahedron! D&D basically invented the market for almost all non-d6 dice... If you take a geometry, you will learn that the vertexes of each die help make another one with more faces...

CRITS: If you actually roll high on a TH Roll, you have a chance of hitting a key point (throat, eyes, stab the heart, cut the groin, etc.)... you know, the places you WANT to hit. You confirm the Crit by rolling again, and if you hit again, you generally deal double or triple damage, depending on weapon type and feats.

Sword-type weapons crit more frequently (19-20 roll) and generally do double damage, making them more consistent.

Axe-type weapons crit less frequently (20 roll), but hack down for triple damage when they do, making them more explosive.

Simpler weapons, such as clubs and maces, crit on 20 and do double damage. A few exotic weapons are 20/x4 and 18-20/x2. The big difference between simple and martial weapons is generally that martial weapons are designed to hit and kill things, and simple weapons are just tools or random objects that can double as weapons.

Exotic Weapons generally obey these crit ranges. The highest base combination is 19-20 x3, the natural damage range of a falcata (sword-axe, like an oversized kukri).

HIT DIE/LEVELS: These are the number (and type) of dice rolled to calculate hit points. Monsters use a d6 (such as Fey), d8 (ex. Humanoids, Animals, Aberrants), d10 (magical creatures, Jotuns, Soulborn outsiders), or a d12 (Dragons) for their Health, usually assigning average values. To each Hit Die, you add their Constitution bonus to gain their Final Health, which can vary with other Feats and Masteries. So, a 12-HD Hill Jotun with a Con bonus of +6 has 12 x (1-10+6) Health, or roughly 12 x11.5 on average, or 136 Health. An average Terran Human with a Con of 12 (d8+1 bonus) has 5.

Video Games tend to assign hit points per level, instead of rolling variables, and using an average is perfectly fine. Basically, the more Hit Die you have, the tougher/stronger/more badass you are.

The average Human has 1 Hit Die for Human/1, and 1-2 Class Hit Die. How’s it feel to be a wimp like me? An experienced, Veteran soldier might be a Three, and the best spec ops soldiers in the world, Fours.

Main Characters are assumed to be highly trained and experienced, and at Level One start with maximum Health and Soak for their Class and Race. Us noncombatant NPC’s have to roll...

Class Levels also have Hit Dice + Con bonus, which grant Soak. Pure Casters, like Wizards and weak combatants (Experts, Commoners, Vizards), have a d6 for Soak. Partial combatants and skill-centered Classes have d6+2 Soak (d8 for NPC’s) (Scouts, Archers, Bards), primary fighting combatants have d6+4 (d10 for NPC’s) (Melees, Dragon Warriors, Paladins, Knights), and savage melee combatants have a d6+6 (d12 for NPC’s) (Barbarians, Berserkers).

Note: This is Power of Ten, and I am making a clear difference between the Classes if they use average hit points. It takes much more investment to make a Wizard as tough as a Melee using d6 vs d6+4 (3.5 vs 7.5 average), instead of using a d6 vs d10 (3.5 vs 5.5 avg). It was a problem in 3.5E D&D.

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AC/ARMOR CLASS: How hard it is to hit something. Unlike many games, PoT treats armor not as damage-reducing, but avoidance, i.e. it bounces off your armor. If some force gets through, it isn’t reduced automatically by the armor, it’s a hit.

Armor Class is raised by wearing armor, using a shield, being dexterous, dodging, being insightful and reading movements, having a tough hide/skin/scales, and other methods. It starts at 10 (a normal human with no bonuses or penalties), and goes up as high as you can make it.

Bonuses to magic armor and shields raise the amount of protection they give by the same amount.

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DR/DAMAGE REDUCTION (and Hardness): The amount of damage taken off a physical attack. This can be magical protection, toughness, supernatural vitality, special armor, otherworldly physiology, and so forth.

DR is expressed as a number/bypass. DR 10/Silver means 10 points of damage is removed from every physical attack... except if the attack is silver. This is the standard defense of were-creatures, and why they are fearsome enemies if you don’t have silver, as you just can’t hurt them or nickel and dime them to death.

There are Feats and Masteries that help bypass DR.

DR X/- means there is no bypass, except some Feats. Common types of DR are X/Silver, X/Magic, X/Good, X/Cold Iron, and X/Adamant, but there are X/hawthorn, X/Jade, X/Obsidian and X/Gold out there, among other things, and X/(random special object) are always fun to throw at people.

Hardness is possessed by objects, but is more like Indestructibility, while DR is more like Invulnerability. You need to exceed the Hardness of an object, using the right tool, to damage it. So, wood has a DR of 5, and a casual blow by a human isn’t going to damage it. Steel has a Hardness of 10, and is very hard for a human to damage without the right tools. Mithral and the finest steel hit Hardness 15, and Adamant has a Hardness of 20.

Jotuns have Primal DR equal to their Strength bonus, which also applies against Energy of the standard types. It allows them to live pretty much anywhere.

ENERGY RESISTANCE: Is DR for Energy, as opposed to physical attacks. Even a single point of fire and cold resistance is enough to render you immune to Terra’s natural extremes of temperature.

The five basic energy forms are fire/heat, cold, acid/base/corrosive, lightning, and thunder/sonic.

Other types of damage include necroic/negative energy, Force, Radiant, Primal, Divine, Eldritch/Arcane and vivic/positive (which generally doesn’t harm the living), among others.

Poison is not an energy type.

1 point of sonic/thunder resistance means you can fire off a gun next to your ear all day without harm.

1 point of lightning resistance means you’ll never pick up a static charge from the floor. 10 points means you can’t be shocked by your home wiring. 20 points makes you immune to a downed power line. 30 points means you can ignore being struck by natural lightning.

1 point of acid resistance means bleeding in the sea/salt in your wounds won’t sting, and most caustic fumes have no effect on you. 10 points means you can drink battery acid. 30 points means you can drink aqua regia.

1 point of fire resistance means you can’t be burned by a match, and are immune to sunburn and sunstroke, and physical exercise can’t make you sweat from the heat. 10 points means you can stand in a decent bonfire. 20 points means you can’t be burned at the stake. 30 points means you grab and mold lava, and stroll around in the heart of a forest fire. 50 points or so means you can go swimming in lava, and watch an acetylene torch not burn your skin.

1 point of cold resistance means you can hold a chunk of dry ice all day, and go swimming in ice water. 10 points means you can guzzle liquid nitrogen. 20 points means you can tolerate the cold of orbital space. 30 points means you can take a bath in liquid oxygen, and walk around on Pluto (air pressure and breathing still problems, however!)

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SAVES: RPG’s use the concept of rolling dice to mitigate, resist, avoid, nullify, or neutralize magical and other attacks, known as ‘saving’ against the attack. This is different from video games, which often just reduce the damage or duration of an effect. Saving Throws, like AC, are part of a person’s main defenses.

The broad categories of Saves are Will, Reflex, and Fortitude (Fort) saves.

Will Saves: Attacks against the mind and willpower. Illusions, charm spells, paralysis spells, ‘these are not the droids you are looking for’ effects, and so forth, attack a person’s will.

Reflex Saves: Here comes the fireball! Roll a modified 22 or better to dodge the brunt of the attack to take half damage. Also used for, say, jumping out of the way of the boulder rumbling down the hallway, Dr. Jones... or ducking around the corner ahead of the dragon breath, or firmly lining up behind your shield to deflect the lightning bolt some.

Evasion is a quasi-magical Class Ability that allows you to totally avoid any damage on a successful Reflex save against something, along with a quippy phrase and sneer of contempt or two...

Fortitude Saves: A combination of spiritual and physical vitality. Attacks against the soul, such as life drains, and against the body, such as poison, are Fortitude saves.

A Save works much like a To Hit Roll against Armor Class. The target number represents the potency of the attack, with a low number being easy to resist (12 for a small spider’s poisonous bite) and a high number meaning you better be praying (27 for a Banshee Scream or the poison of a house-sized Scorpion), and can reach 30-40 or higher for truly legendary monsters... and PC’s who build in that direction.

Naturally there are ways to make yourself immune to certain effects, which basically means you ‘auto-save’.

Generally speaking, a 20 on the die roll is considered ‘always saving’, and a 1 ‘always failing’, if you are subject to Luck.

There are many effects which can modify Saves, including high Stats, Resistance, Luck, insight, blessings from the Divine, and so forth.

-----------------

Other fighting terms: Finesse fighting, Sneak Attack

Finesse Fighting: Normal combat assumes you are using your Strength to control your weapon and hit hard and accurately with it. Finesse fighting assumes you are using lighter weapons and using them with extreme precision and control, going almost solely for those key points. Because you aren’t using as much force, you don’t smash home with as much power when you hit... but if you have High Dex instead of Str, the additional bonus to hit means landing blows that might otherwise miss.

Knife fighters are typical finesse-style fighters, but it’s not uncommon for many weaker, faster martial artists.

Generally speaking, someone who is using very fast, flashy, and precise fighting styles is using Finesse Fighting. In real life, it doesn’t work as well as Power (just ask an MMA fighter), but it sure does look prettier.

SA/Sneak-Attack damage: You know all that extra damage your rogue/thief damage does when flanking something or backstabbing it? That’s Sneak Attack damage. Special note: Your attack actually has to hit and do damage, and THEN the Sneak attack damage applies! So, hitting that werewolf for 9 points... nope, you didn’t get past his DR 10/Silver, and you don’t get to apply your 6d6 of Sneak Attack dice.

Notably, Sneak Attack dice are not multiplied by critical hits, since they are basically ‘critical damage’ as they are. Also, creatures that don’t have weak points in their anatomy, like slimes and oozes, elementals, golems, and the like, tend to not be affected by Sneak Attack damage (it’s hard to poke a liver when they don’t have organs).

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MAGIC, WEAPONS AND ARMOR:

On Magic Weapons and Armor:Quality Level (QL), Goldweight, Naming Karma, Requirements, Spellcraft, Costs, Arsenal, Slaughter.

Naming Karma: If you Name a Bonded Weapon, you can share your karma/experience points with it, up to 1,000 points a day. This way, you can grow a magic Weapon without being a Caster. However, how strong your Weapon can get is still affected by its QL.

Goldweight: A unit equal to exactly the amount of gold a Powered Character can imbue into a magic item per day. This amount was divided by 500 to get the size of a standard gold coin. Thus, a goldweight is also equal to 500 gold pieces (gp). Silver is worth a tenth of what gold is for imbuing items, platinum is worth five times more. Gems can be worth anywhere from 1 gp to tens of thousands.

In the story, the demand for gold means that a pound of gold is valued at about $30,000, or about $1800 an ounce. The lack of power comps and desire for magical items naturally prices them out of reach of most people. Five pounds of gold is a goldweight, or $150,000. Making a Ten Slot Weapon at 200 Goldweight would thus be $30 Million JUST for the gold to power it up, let alone getting someone to make a QL 40 item.

The existence of active magic tends to coalesce pure minerals far more than in a non-magical world, so veins of precious metals and gems are more common. Different flavors of magic imbuing different materials creates Energized Materials, whose biases form ‘new substances’. Energized pure Earth Tungsten is Adamant. Mithral is Water Energized Titanium.

Burning gold to create magic items releases their essence into the item. The gold (or other material) dissipates into the aether... later to recoalesce as it gathers enough magic, forming another vein of the material once again, somewhere else, and has to be mined out again. So the precious metals will never run out... but you do have to find them.

QL/Quality Level: How well an item is made. Subsumes crafter skill, material, style, complexity, ornamentation, and other things. QL limits how powerful an item Crafted with non-Divine aid can be. A god can make an old tooth an artifact. A human would need a QL 40 item to contain something with a Caster Level of 20.

The general rule is QL 20/Masterwork for the simplest, Cantrip-level weak magic items (shoes that tie themselves, a coat that sheds rainwater, etc), +1 QL for every Caster Level of effect you want to put in it.

Note that the maximum Caster Level you can imbue into an object is based on Spellcraft Ranks. As a Ten, that is 10 Ranks. Thus, many powerful magical effects cannot be put into magical items!

Different materials can only be crafted up to certain QL’s. Normal base steel can only hit a 30, with really fine steel alloys hitting 35. It takes mithral or adamant to hit a 40 QL or higher for metals. For wood, you’re looking at Weirwoods or other hugely rare, powerful trees; mundane woods will also only go to QL 30, with some alchemically/magically grown/raised able to hit 35.

WEAPONS/ARMOR: Magical Weapons and Armor have further restrictions. The number of Slots magical Arms and Armor have is limited by QL, to 1 for every 2 points of QL over 20, to a minimum of 1, and maximum of 10. Thus, QL 20-23 = Slot Einz, 24-25 is Slot Zvei, etc. It takes a 40 QL, requiring a base +30 Crafting Check, to make a potentially Zehn-Slot Weapon or Armor peice, with 10 Slots open and running.

Furthermore, Spellcraft Ranks must be 3 Ranks for every point of Enhancement Bonus or equivalent. This limits Weapons to +3 or equivalent effects at Nine, improving to +4 at Twelve and +5, the mortal maximum, at Fifteen. So, no Vorpal effects before Fifteen!

Opening each Slot is more and more expensive per Slot. Doing nothing but opening all Ten Slots on a Weapon costs 100k gold for a Powered, and 200k for a Primos.

Powered folk Imbue magical items with gold-equivs and Karma. Primos and Forsaken Invest them with gold or power comp equivalents, and Naming Karma, instead.

As a convention, magical items are capitalized. So, a Sword is magical, a sword is not.

---Because of the E6 limit of the story, powerful magical Weapons and items are simply non-existent for the most part. Each one is at least $300,000, too.

--Magical bonuses to Skills do not raise Skill checks, they only raise Crafting Speed (how much work is done). Thus, having two magic items giving you +5 to your checks gives you +10 to your check for speed, but has no effect on the Quality Level you can reach.

ARSENAL: Forsaken have no magical signature, enabling their Bonded Weapons the ability to change between Rune effects on their Weapons. Arsenal is the name of the effect which houses these Runes, allowing one Weapon to change its nature based on current need. Of course, it all costs a lot of gold and/or Naming Karma...

Arsenal I takes only +I effects. Arsenal II takes two additional Slots, and +II effects. Greater Arsenal can potentially take +3 to +5 effects, but has to be tied to the appropriate Slots. Naturally the prices for all such Runes must be paid...

SLAUGHTER:Bane effects are the strongest targeted magical effects you can put on a Weapon for their cost, and the nature of their curse-oriented Rune doesn’t work in an Arsenal. Thus, Banes have their own Slaughter Rune which stores their ire. Adding a Bane to a Slaughter requires 2,000 points of Karma/gold (i.e. two days), and first killing a member of the enemy type to be Bane to.

Bane enemy types are fairly narrow. Each humanoid type (orcs, humans, elves, hyen, etc.) has its own Bane, although Animals and Vermin (bugs) are fairly broad. The Enmity effect is broader (Mortals, Natural Creatures, etc), effectively subsuming multiple Bane categories, but it’s not as strong.

Additional note: A non-Forsaken using a Weapon Bane to his own species suffers the Bane effect themselves. Thus, a Powered man using a Humanbane Weapon takes an additional 2-12 damage from all attacks against him, and foes are +2 TH/Dmg against him! It’s not a Curse effect for nothing...

Banefire is exactly the hue of the blood of the creature it is Bane against.

The corollary Arsenal effect for Armor is called Armory, and Bulwark for Warding (the anti-Bane).

Adding an effect to a Weapon or Armor must be declared and added until done, i.e. I’m adding Brilliant, means I’m going to open 4 Slots, and I can’t stop midway and use the gold invested for something else, or start something else, without losing all the work put in. The Runework depowers if you abandon it for anything else, although it will wait if you stop and then start again.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OTHER STUFF:Vivic Energy, Thaumaspectrum, Valences, Vajra, Alignments

Vivic energy: I invented this myself. To wit, it’s the opposite of necroic energy, and a subset of positive energy.

Where necroic lifeforms (the undead), are mostly-dead and feed on life energy, vivic energy is mostly alive and feeds on death energy, their exact opposite. It has next to no effect on living creatures, unless they die, when it starts consuming their bodies like firewood, feasting on the negative energy slowly flowing into them. Corpses with magical power in them burn faster, and undead/negative energy life forms (including many necromancers) of any kind burn like oil, taking 1-6 points of damage from contact with vivic flame.

Vivic energy is unknown at the start of the story, as magic hasn’t been around long enough, and the things which might know about it have either forgotten it or have no desire to speak of its existence.

Vivic fire is slightly heavier than air, misting slowly along the ground as it burns, the energy slowly sinking into the Land, where it is absorbed and turned into basic life energy for the Land.

‘Unwhite’ is ‘true white’. The human eye sees ‘white’ whenever multiple colors stack on one another. Unwhite is ‘true white’, it has no component other colors. Its opposite color in the thaumaspectrum is naturally utterblack.

Thaumaspectrum: Those who can Detect Magic can see the Thaumaspectrum, the array of light and colors given off by magic, and infer many things from it, such as type, school, or Domain of magic, personal biases of the Caster, strength of the magic, source plane, and other things, depending on the strength of their Arcane Sight.

Octarine, Jale, Ulfire, and Dolm are examples of magical colors in the thaumaspectrum.

There exists a Pspectrum of psionic colors, and an Aural Spectrum of the Alignments.

Valences: Power of Ten uses the Vancian Spell system, where the energy for Casters is first accumulated in distinct packets of energy, not a spell point system. Cantrips are level 0, endlessly castable, and come from the heart of a Caster’s Matrix. Level 1 spells are Engrams floating in a shell around that heart, the first Valence. Each successive Valence is a higher and larger shell, and can hold more powerful Engrams, up to the Fifth Valence, where the Caster can teleport hundreds of miles, bring the dead to life, fly all day as swift as a pigeon, turn a foe to stone, Summon powerful creatures from other planes, or travel to those very planes themselves.

At the beginning of the novel, the standard cap of Six means that Valence Three is as high as most people get, with shenanigans allowing some to access the Fourth.

Vajra: From the Sanskrit for “Diamond Soul”. A Forsaken with at least 10 points of Ki and Soul Essence or Magic combined can form a simple Vajra, fusing life and soul energy together for greater passive effect. This cannot be gained by Powered as is, because Powered souls are flexible, not hard enough. They can replicate all the effects easily enough with magic, psi, chi, Soul Essence, Racial Levels...

A basic Vajra reduces food consumption by 1/x of normal, where X is the lower of Ki and Essence over 9. A basic Vajra also provides a low level of elemental resistance, sufficient to ignore 1 pt of Elemental damage/rd, if the character takes the Mastery. The character’s soul reaches up to an inch past his skin.

A Diamond Vajra kicks in at 20 each Essence/Magic and Ki. This actually represents full body awareness and the body as a magic item. Elemental Resistance improves to lower of Ki or Essence, -10. Resistance to alternate forms of damage is possible. Most importantly, the character becomes Sustained, and needs no food or drink (other than to replace lost cells, so a good meal a month or so) and less need for sleep. The character’s soul can now extend two inches outside their skin, and so can shove aside air and water and other non-living material to a degree, or display effects of magical energies or control within that two-inch area. They have heightened senses because they are touching things with their soul, can filter out bacteria and dust in the air, and instantly clean themselves by repelling foreign matter from their skin.

This is a personification of the effects that allow monks to stay healthy, reject poison, be aware of their surroundings, lift things above their hands, etc.

A Mark III Vajra includes two of magic, Essence, or psionics, in addition to Ki, and extends the soul to 3 inches. A Mark IV Vajra includes all four.

Alignments:Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, and Neutrality.

These are the fundamental forces that drive the universe, not cast-offs to encourage proper role-playing. Your Alignment is determined by thought and action... doing the wrong thing for the right reason isn’t going to make you Good, and doing the right thing for the wrong reason isn’t, either. Alignments basically reflect where you stand in relation to all other living, thinking beings with respect to your moral code.

Note that this is different from a game, where playing fast and loose with Alignment is commonly tolerated so the game goes on. In the ‘real world’ of the story, you can fool yourself, but you can’t fool the Profound Forces.

Neutral GOOD people are yellow to golden. The more rigid the color, the firmer their beliefs. Angels are classic Good creatures. A farmer who just wants to tend his fields, but enlists to fight against the evil empire when called upon, is also NG.

LAWFUL Neutral people are blue to sapphire. They tend to be rigid in beliefs, conservative, and members of organizations who tell them how and what to think. Axiomatics and many militaries and bureaucrats qualify as Lawful Neutral. LN people tend to think that everybody should follow their rules/ethos/laws/organization/philosophy, and the world would be a better place.

Neutral EVIL people are purple to amethyst. They tend to be duplicitous, manipulative, untrustworthy, and have no problem sacrificing others to achieve their goals. Daemons, the Fiends of Natural Death, are Evil. By modern standards, most NE would be considered psychopaths to some degree or another. Lex Luthor would be a model of Neutral Evil.

CHAOTIC Neutral people are grey to steely. They have few lasting attachments, and their own goals are basically all that they are concerned about. While they are not actively malevolent, if they want something, they are perfectly willing to kill to get it, and really don’t care about any opinions but their own. By modern standards, most such people would be considered rather insane. True barbaric warlike, nomadic societies would be Chaotic. They are not ‘random’, in their actions, but their deeds often have bizarre purposes others do not understand. The crazy old coot who lives out in the woods and drives people away is Chaotic Neutral, as is the compulsive thief who can’t hold a job and so just steals to survive, or the Viking Raider who thinks war is the best way to live and wants only to die in battle.

TRUE NEUTRAL people are green/emerald. They have taken a philosophical view of balance and nature, and are unwilling to commit to more extreme views. This doesn’t mean isolated or uninvolved, but they tend to be concerned with long-range implications, and care nothing for ethical and moral conflicts between others.

FALSE NEUTRALS are clear/empty, and represent anything that simply goes along on instinct, and hasn’t taken a moral or ethical stance, simply responding on animalistic grounds. Animals, Elementals, Plants, and intelligent beings who focus simply on survival and ignore all else are False Neutral. A pig farmer who doesn’t care about the army coming to lay waste to the kingdom and spread misery and death, he just wants to feed his pigs and survive another day, is False Neutral... as are his pigs!

LAWFUL GOOD are white/silver. They represent those rather unrealistic heroic/moral types we all wish we could be, and whose ideals we strive to live up to. Paladins have unique powers because they adhere to Lawful Good, the most restrictive of Alignments. Mother Teresa is a classic LG person, as are Superman and Captain America.

CHAOTIC GOOD people are orange/rainbow. They tend to be self-obsessed sorts who nevertheless make contributions to society in their own way, they just hate being told what to do, and will break laws without a second thought to do the right thing. Robin Hood vigilantes, wandering bards with a weakness for women, and lone rangers out on the frontier patrolling against the enemy on their own are all Chaotic Good. Goku from Dragonball Z is CG.

CHAOTIC EVIL people are black/jet. They are completely self-obsessed, only their desires matter, and they have little to no restrictions on what they will do to get it. The more Chaotic and Evil you are, the more ANYTHING is permissible in pursuit of your ambitions. The Gods of the Warp and Demons are Chaotic Evil. The Joker would be Chaotic Evil.

LAWFUL EVIL people are red/ruby. They are organized, malicious, and believe that as long as they stay within the rules, anything is permissible. It is the Alignment of tyrants, mobsters, stratified class-based societies, and the devils in Hell. Slade Wilson, the Terminator, is LE because he will kill anyone without remorse, but has a code of conduct and holds to his contracts. Stalin, Lenin, and Machiavelli would be considered Lawful Evil.

From an outside perspective, Alignments represent an ever-shrinking number of choices that can be made in any decision, as some actions simply are not permissible. A Chaotic Evil person can give lollipops to kids, kiss babies, and salute veterans. He can also kill all of them without batting an eye, potentially.

As you move away from CE, you either become more rigid about holding to a code of conduct (more honorable) or you become more sensitive to the feelings of others (more moral). A LE person will prize his personal honor, which will restrict him from acting against the rules put forth by his superiors. A CG person will empathize with others and not undertake actions to harm them without good reason, although he’ll ignore rules he doesn’t like whenever it is safe for him to do so.

A Lawful Good person both obeys an existing set of rules, and will make moral choices that consider the effects on others, meaning they have the smallest amount of choices available to them in life. This often causes them to seem stuffy, conservative, inflexible, and hopelessly old-fashioned to those around them... and yet they are time and time again the bedrock upon which a strong society is built.

====================================================

Prelude 1: – Cast Off Karma

From Be Gone, Power of Ten, Year Ten:

He was raging, tearing through astral space as the power of the death giant demilich’s Death Curse drove him away from home.

Be Gone. Be Gone. Be Gone...

It was echoing in his mind and soul, and was trying its damnedest to get rid of him.

Yeah, it had been pretty potent. A Thirty Caster, maybe, and a Death Curse was effectively something like +10 Levels, when fueling it with your soul. The Save against it had probably been in the 50-60 range.

Unfortunately for the bony bastard, his Moment of Perfect Clarity could easily hit an 80, and his Scarab of Protection made sure he got a Save against spells that normally allowed none.

It was supposed to obliterate him, remove him from reality, and even memory, washed away by the dreadful Fate-bending of the Curse...

Fuck that. He was Beyond Law and Chaos for a damn Good reason, and this was only one of them!

He had made the Save, and the Curse wasn’t able to wipe him. It was still a tenacious and dangerous thing. It was now hurling his body as far away as it might, and since it couldn’t obliterate his mind and soul, it was trying to wipe them clean.

A Concentration modifier of +70 allows one to do some totally zany things, and playing the copy/paste game with a necromantic Curse virus was part of it.

He couldn’t do much about where he was going, but shoving the Curse into one of his thoughtstreams, and copying memories away from it, and then pasting them back into the thoughtstream after the raging Curse moved along basically put the damn thing onto a loop that would slowly and eventually run the Curse out of power... in several decades.

Too easy to disturb his Concentration and let this get away from him. He had to gut it and get rid of it, and that meant somehow Dispelling it.

A Death Curse at Forty... Maybe if he could run into a Celestial Phoenix...

Copy, pasting of memories...

He had an Intellect of 40, totally beyond human, and considered many options in a very brief period of time.

He was effectively assigning and re-assigning sections of his mind and soul. Was this not an incredible opportunity?

Like most people, he had acquired most of his Levels later in his career, paying premium prices for them. Even paying Nine prices was incredible, vs. Level One.

So... what if he reorganized the Karmic Loads using this opportunity? What if, instead of all those Levels he acquired at Nine, he allocated them at the earliest possible Levels?

He would free up gargantuan amounts of Karma, yet keep ALL his Levels. It would not be excessive to say eighty to eighty-five percent of his Karma could be removed.

His Karma was effectively his soul. That meant he could remove that much of his soul, without actually impacting anything. His remaining soul would be ‘smaller’, but just as hard, or even harder, without all the wasted space.

He’d just have to cut off big chunks of his soul... which, once he cut them free, wouldn’t be him anymore, and the Curse would instantly lose most of its power.

He didn’t have anything better to do, so he got started on the process.

So many base Classes, NPC, Primos, Powered, Advanced, Prestige, Theurgic, Arch...

Yeah, that was a lot of Class Levels he’d taken. Rank M had been no joke, and all that Macroing to get that far...

His other thoughtstreams got to work rearranging things, sending memories into the path of the Curse to tempt it, lifting them off, and as it swept past, painting them into the cleared area... with considerably less Karmic Cost, drawing links to other Classes and memories for mutual support.

The structure of his powers was already artificial, filled in with later Karma. He started mucking with the structure of his own mind and powers, making sure not to endanger his own ability to Concentrate and Cast, learning the tricks of balancing all of this, while at the same time drawing up a pretty big mental spreadsheet of what he had to allocate, where those memories were, how to link them post-move, where to send the Curse on its gallivanting course of destruction, and how to rebuild himself...

-------

Using Concentration to slice off a portion of his own Karma was like slowly sawing off his arm. He allocated all the pain to two of his thoughtstreams to spread the load, four focused on the cutting, and with a murderous effort of willpower, he chopped free the first ten Levels of Karma he’d saved up by allocating those Levels at One and Two... after the Curse rampaged into that section of his soul, looking to wipe everything.

With a mental snick, a section of his soul, brimming with Death Curse magic, was severed from him and went spinning away into the astral void. He only saw the frozen reaction of the Curse as suddenly it wasn’t affecting its target anymore, and then he was hurtling on, starting to work on the next fraction of his Karma, while his two agonized thoughtstreams gibbered at him no, no, please don’t, that hurt way too fucking much...

The voices of angels whispered in his soul from the glowing golden Runes scribed upon it, and there was no fear of what was certainly going to come...

Prelude 2 – A Hagchild is Born

Birth was a very unpleasant process. It’s not made any better when you are self-aware and conscious when you are born.

The squeezing, the pressure, the sudden violence and force and cold, the shock of getting your lungs to breathe...

She was naturally extremely disoriented during this process, her perspective, the voices around her, a brain that wasn’t fully developed...

{Hi there! Curse to start this recording!}

What the fuck?!

{Curse accepted! Good morning to your new life! You are a brand new freshly born Rantha Hagchild, imprinted with the memories of a game-created character called Sama Rantha. Curse again to continue!}

I... wait, I was Sama Rantha? I wasn’t Sama Rantha? Created memories? What the fuck?

{The Rantha Curseline has managed to alter the course of the Hag Curse. Instead of being applied to Evil souls as a punishment to them, the Rantha Curse is applied to souls who die rather horribly at the hands of Evil. You have been reincarnated into a new life, and are now a Rantha Hagchild. When you hit maturity, your Curse will activate, and you will become a Rantha Hag, which is basically a VERY evolved Human Racial Class you are going to alternately love for the benefits, and curse for how long it takes to pay for them.

{You are not Sama Rantha, but you have the same memories of her we all do. Feel free to use the name, or not, as circumstances dictate.

{For all intents and purposes, you are a Null Human until your Curseline activates, at which time you will be a Rantha Hag, which is a Null Hag.

{When your Charisma reaches 30, you can do an Incarnation Dive and find out who your soul used to belong to. Until then, put up with you being you. After that, I’m sure you’ll know what to do.}

I am a reincarnated soul killed horribly by something Evil? Fuck yes, I know what to do to the bastards!

{I don’t know the circumstances that you will be reborn in, but if you are being born, you’re just a newborn human, and your advantage is that you are self-aware and have Sama’s experiences to draw on.

{If this comes as part of a Hag Awakening because of very, very bad circumstances, run and live!

{When you go through your Hag Awakening, it will totally suck fighting the Hag Curse off, but when you win, you get all that sweet Hag Karma for yourself, and the Rantha Evolution. You will come out of it a Rantha/3, Expert and Melee/3, Null Psion/2, Psi-Warrior/2 (Bladebelle), Null Soulshaper/2. You will have enough Karma to take one Level in any Class you want. If for some reason any of those Classes cannot be taken, you will get the Karma back, but you will have to allocate them at the normal pace on your own.}

So, a Hag Awakening basically came at puberty. At that time, she was going to become this Rantha race, physical changes, and gain multiple Levels of Karma. Any way she wanted to look at it, that was a huge bonus in life, if she got anything resembling the natural Stat bonuses of any of the main types of Hags. The fact she got Levels instead of becoming a Rantha Hag monster-type meant this really was a case of take of Evolved Levels... and for some reason, she had the distinct impression that this spiritual recording being transmitted down the Curseline wasn’t going to lie to someone starting out at the same point she had.

{Your Marks are there, but have no Karma. You’ve got to earn them yourself, apologies! Survive first, revenge later, and know that you just saved someone’s soul from Hagdom by being born! Live, girl!}

Oh, fuck yes, she was going to do that!... What were Marks?...

{Good luck from Grandmother Rantha, and take care.}

Wait, that’s it?

{This Curseline message is now ended. Beep!}

Uh, sure?

She couldn’t see or concentrate too well, but the memories of being Sama Rantha were Right There, and she knew she wouldn’t forget them, even as she added memories of her own. She was just a newborn baby and would have to go through all the early years of childhood like anyone else... except she had the memories of an ass-kicking Null swordswoman with tons of Secondary Class potential to build on, and none of the typical learning curve most kids had to go through.

Oh well, time to go to sleep and act like a baby for a good long time. It was a good thing she had a hunter’s sense of patience, as growing up was literally going to take one year at a time...