How good an item is has little to do with the quality of the craftsmanship, but rather with how well the item has been taught its purpose.
A farmer who uses their scythe every day for twenty years will find that gradually it begins to scythe through the wheat with greater and greater ease, whilst inheriting the tools of your forebears is seen as a great boon after the lifetime of accumulated intent.
There are those who are more in tune with the purpose imbued into items, who can instill purpose more quickly, bend the purpose of what they use, or even break it.
Those people are called Shapers.
Class Feature: Willpower
Shapers gain Willpower equal to (psyche/2) rounded up.
Each 'Shaping' costs one willpower to perform.
Willpower is restored at the end of each encounter.
Class Feature: Unity of Intent
Once per adventure, if an item does not have a designated user, you may give it one.
When being wielded by the intended individual, it gains the following ability:
If lost, your item will find its way back to you over the course of the next couple of encounters.
Optionally, you may perform this as a downtime action instead.
Class Feature: Instillment
Items being used by Shapers grow in power more quickly than when wielded by others.
Every 3 adventures, you may gain a Quality on one of your items.
For guidance on what effects can be instilled see the Qualities page.
The instilled quality should be in line with how the item has been used.
Shaping
Lv 1
Weight of Mountains
Your weapon gains a STAGGER or REPEL on its next melee blow.
Divine the Purpose
You can attempt to sense the history of any crafted item.
By touching an item you can tell what the item's purpose is and may learn of significant acts that have been undertaken with it.
If the item was Shaped, you may learn something of the mindset of the Shaper(s) who worked it.
Other information is at GM discretion.
Exemplar of Form
You may make an item better at its primary purpose.
This lasts for the rest of the encounter.
This is designed as a utility skill. To make weapons or arms better, look to the Shapings with explicit mechanical effects.
Lv 2
Inspiration
Give an ally a WOUND, STAGGER, REPEL on their next melee blow.
Sense Intent
You may reach out with your mind to detect items shaped towards a particular end.
You may specify a particular purpose: ('items made to kill'; 'Items made to heal') or may specify a particular class of item ('doors'; 'walls'; 'roads').
Consult a GM. They will give you a sense of the direction and distance of the nearest such item that meets these criteria, and may supply additional information at their discretion.
Lv 3
Glorious Raiment
You may alter the appearance of items freely, making them look particularly impressive or muted and generic depending on your whim.
A single use of this ability is sufficient to alter one person's equipment for the rest of the encounter.
For a combat application of this ability, you or an ally may either:
Gain a MASS FEAR.
Forge of Intellect
You can create or repair basic items in the field using shaping.
This requires two free hands.
This takes 60s of appropriate roleplay per item and appropriate materials.
Consult a GM. The amount of time this takes varies. As a rule of thumb, creating from scratch takes the following time spent performing appropriate roleplay, as well as the ability to source relevant materials:
Something you can hold in your hand - 5 minutes
Items up to the size of a person - 10 minutes
Items up to the size of a small room - 1 hour
Items the size of a small house - a day
Larger structures - several days or more
Repairing broken items usually takes at most only half as long, as the Shaper may restore the purpose that still lingers.
In downtime you may create a single structure or complex item, as long as you are able to source relevant materials.
Seeking the approval of the relevant local authority is necessary when building in Rastaban.
Lv 4
Sharp as Will
Your weapon gains a WOUND on its next melee blow.
Bulwark
Gain a RESIST.
You may use this ability reactively.
Alternatively, you may use this ability to grant an ally a RESIST, instead.
Lv 5
Twist the Purpose
Call DOUBLE STUN on a target wearing or using items within 5m.
You should check with a GM before the encounter starts to see if this the case.
Adaptive Arsenal
Whenever you take a call which you could RESIST, you may use this ability:
You may call IMMUNE to that call whenever that call hits your weapon or shield, for the rest of the encounter.
You must take the call for this to work (i.e. you can't call 'IMMUNE' to the initial call that activates this ability).
Using this ability a second time overwrites the previous immunity.
Shaper Skills
Level 1
Signature
When you purchase this skill, gain 'Knowledge (Famous Shapers of Rastaban)' for free.
When creating or instilling an item, you may choose to leave your signature upon it - a symbol or mark of your own devising.
Other Shapers that study this mark (with Divine the Purpose) gain access to what is, in effect, a short autobiography (which you can curate) and an overall impression of who you are (which you cannot).
Favoured Item
Nominate a favoured item. You have spent a considerable amount of time studying this item - holding this item, drawing this item, imagining this item - meditating upon the essential nature of this item.
Gain the general skill, 'Knowledge (favoured item)', for free.
Using Forge of Intellect or Greater Forge of Intellect to create or repair your favoured item takes half as long, and you may use even poorly-suited materials at hand to do so.
Bend the Purpose
Three times per adventure, you can temporarily force your will upon an item.
This can do the following.
You can make objects act like basic tools. (spade, hammer, chisel, needle).
You can give objects simple properties (heavy, light, strong, fragile).
Changing the state of a complex item or part of that item (door locked → unlocked; puzzle light on → off)
At the end of the encounter its purpose reverts to normal.
Level 2
Echoes of Purpose
Even as your body fails your blade continues to cut.
You may continue fighting for the first 3 seconds of your death count. After this, you begin to bleed out as usual.
Level 3
Call to Power
Once per adventure, you may call a TIME FREEZE.
You and each of your allies HEAL X, where X is the number of instillments on items you wield.
You and each of your allies sgain (X/3) RESISTs (rounded up), where X is the number of instillments on items you wield.
You and each of your allies gain (X/3) STUNs (rounded up) by melee, where X is the number of instillments on items you wield.
You may use this ability even when unconscious or on your death count.
Extension of Will
Pre-Req: Bend the Purpose
Once per adventure, you can give an item truly unnatural proprieties such as levitation, permeability or perpetual motion.
At the end of the encounter the dissonance catches up with the item and its purpose reverts to normal.
Level 4
Domain
When in a structure or area you have built or spent an extended duration of time in (e.g. a house you have lived in for years) you are empowered as the very walls themselves rise to your aid.
When in such a structure you may, for example: open, close and lock doors or windows as you see fit; sense other living beings within; cause the walls and floors to attack your foes.
In combat you gain 4 uses of STAGGER at range and 4 uses of STASIS at range.
Once per adventure you may attempt to temporarily lay claim to a structure or small urban area. This may lead to a psychic combat.
Tempered for Eternity
Items and structures which you make can only be destroyed by the concerted and powerful effort of a sentient entity who is specifically trying to destroy that target.
Once per adventure you may also give this property to an item you have not made.
They will stand strong against the tides of time otherwise.
Level 5
Awakening
Once ever, you may awaken one instilled item.
This may only be done as the item is used to accomplish something of significance.
The exact effects of this are poorly understood.
Talk to the GM / Call a TIME FREEZE when you wish to awaken something.
World of Clay
Pre-Req: Extension of Will
Once per adventure, you may bend the world around you to your will, creating a structure or complex item out of the surrounding environment. You should specify what the primary purpose of the creation is when you do so.
This takes 30 seconds of concentration and appropriate roleplay at which point you should call a TIME FREEZE.
This structure is permanent and well made but otherwise mundane unless further action is taken.
Architect
Structures and complex items you build may be especially impressive, ambitious, beautiful or esoteric in their working. Towers that pierce the clouds, kinetic sculptures, breathtaking pieces of art.
This is achieved by making individual components of the item preternaturally good at what they do. For example, support columns that carry more weight than they should, or bearings that are completely frictionless.
Consult a LARPO with an idea and we'll let you know what's possible.
shaper.txt · Last modified: 2018/08/01 20:32 by gm_seb