FrivYeti/RadiantSorcererXP
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The Essence Gates
It is understood that there are five Essence Gates that define a person. As a sorcerer advances through each Essence Gate, she unlocks more of her innate potential, until her power is greater than that of the gods. However, these Gates were not intended for the use that they have been put to, and the magic that flows through a sorcerer requires her Essence flows to shift and alter, slowly turning her away from the weaknesses and attachments of humanity.
In game terms, increasing Essence causes a sorcerer to damage her Virtues, injuring her ability to relate to others. This is not required, but not doing so requires a much more careful path which ultimately cuts off higher Essence Gates from ever opening by forcing them to do double duty, routing too much power for their own good.
When a sorcerer first reaches Essence 2, their player chooses a Virtue to be 'injured'. This Virtue has its rating halved, rounding up. It may never be raised above 3, and costs Current Rating x6 to increase. During character creation, the Virtue requires twice as many Virtue points or Bonus points to increase. Finally, the character must test for Virtue when trying to do something that said Virtue is in favour of; if they fail, they must spend one Willpower to surpress it and act according to the Virtue.
Every time that a character's Essence increases, she must either choose an uninjured Virtue to injure, or Destroy a Virtue. If a Virtue is destroyed, it is set immediately to 0. All Virtue tests are automatically failed, including those required for a damaged Virtue. In situations where most people would succeed automatically, the character may make a 3-die roll to do so (avoiding any oppurtunity to hurt someone, for example, or to indulge in the most horrible of vices without a second thought). In the case of normal Virtue checks, the character must spend two points of Willpower to act; in the case of horrible vices, the character must spend one Willpower to succeed if she fails her Virtue roll.
Characters may choose not to damage a Virtue track. If they do this, the maximum that their Essence can ever reach drops by one, and they must pay an extra 8 experience. However, they are still sane human beings. Characters may mix and match, provided that their maximum Essence does not drop below the rating that they are trying to increase their Essence to. It is therefore impossible to reach Essence 4 without damaging at least one Virtue track.
