Difference between revisions of "ExpandedHeartsBlood"

Revision as of 02:21, 19 December 2003

Lunchtime!

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Heart's Blood as written is, like, the worst Background ever. You can pick up Heart's Blood 1 in play without even ruining the flow of play.

ST: "You enter the Majestic Emerald Basin and set up camp."\\ PCs: "In the evening, we begin hunting local animals and devouring whatever we can find."\\ St: "Right, well, you've picked up Heart's Blood 2. Congrats."\\ \\ Heck, you can snag Heart's Blood 5 in a downtime by announcing your character spends a week eating all the animals they can find. Why buy it at character creation?

So I put together this little background mod, to demonstrate a considerable amount of time spent hunting and consuming the Heart's Blood of creatures that probably did nothing to you. Enjoy.

Revised Hearts Blood

X You have not bothered to hunt. What, you have something better to do? The only shape in your Library is your Totem form.

* Prowling your region, you've sampled the local population. Your Library includes most common, non-predator animals (rats, cats, dogs, lizards, foxes, goats, fish) in your home region (region being northeast, southwest, central north). Your lack of true dedication to consumption has kept rare or predatory species out of your diet, so no great cats or weird poisonous spiders.

** You've combed your region and its borders, searching for dangerous or elusive prey. Your Library includes all common non-predators and a selection of local predators (great cats, river dragons, rapace, siaka) and rare species (weird, elusive beasts that you will probably make up), plus a collection of non-predators from your general Direction (North, South, East, West).

*** Your palate is cultured and experianced, having roamed the entirity of your Direction. Your library contains all non-predators and nearly all predators from your region, most non-predators from your Direction, and a variety of predators and rare species from your Direction. Plus, your prowess as a hunter has been proven, as you have managed to kill and consume one of the mightiest beasts of Creation. Your Library includes a single super-predator, such as a tyrant lizard, pelagic dragon, or giant squid.

**** Wandering far and wide, you have supped on the strong, weak, and the weird. Your library contains an exhaustive selection of your Direction, predators and non-predators alike. Your library also contains most common, non-predator animals from your neighboring Directions and a well-kept, if not complete, menu of standard predators from those Direction. You are a predator among predators as well. You now have three super-predator forms.

***** Creation is your dining table. Your knowledge of your home Direction's fauna is incomparable, and your library ranges from pole to pole in all directions. Your library contains most non-common, predatory, and rare species of Creation, as well as five super-predators.

Notes

Heart's Blood is also a dice adder!

• Add Heart's Blood to Athletics checks made in a form from the Exalt's Library (not including his totem, DBT, or homid forms), reflecting the capability of the Exalt to pick a form especially suited to the task at hand (flying in high winds, balancing on roofs, jumping through trees) IF the Exalt is within an area he is familar with regarding his background.
• Add Heart's Blood to Stealth checks made in a form from the Exalt's Library when guardians may be looking for anything out of the ordinary. Similar restrictions (no DBT!, familar region) apply.

Keeping track of forms is less a matter of book-work and more a matter of considering where the character is from and where she's been. Use your best judgement to consider whether your character would have an appropriate form or not. With a low Heart's Blood, your cruel Changing Moon might only have a raiton form, but at a higher level, he may have a pheasant, pidgeon, or miniature pteradactyl form.

These levels only reflect what kind of forms are available to the character at the start of play. Additional animals can be eaten as the game progresses, but it will have little impact on the Heart's Blood score as the sheer volume of animals necessary to raise the Heart's Blood score requires time and effort (otherwise known as downtime and XP).

Once you reach Heart's Blood 5, additional super-predator forms can be bought for three Experiance Points in downtime.

Humans are included in this Background. The notes on variety apply to the appearance and ethnicity of humans. If you have Heart's Blood 1 and live in the Central South, you probably have a couple of dark-skinned individuals in your Library. If you had Heart's Blood 4, you'd have dark-skinned individuals of every shape and age, plus a choice selection of olive-skinned sailors and some Scavenger Lands folk. If you feel your character wouldn't be eating people with such alacrity or levity, you don't have to have those forms.

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