Rules Changes and Rulings

Character Creation

• You do not need to use all 25 of your starting points when you first create your character. Points can be saved for later on. There are a couple reasons you might choose to do this:
  1. You want to make the final changes to your character after you have a better idea of how the game is played.
  2. You want your character to develop in some of the opening stories. While additional character points can be earned later on, most character advancement will be in the form of social connections and added talents the characters earn while playing. A story arc will probably not result in more than a point of general character points. If you want to be able to gain abilities faster, you will need points left over from creation.
  3. You have finished your character concept with fewer points and don't feel spending additional points would add anything at this time.
• Nobles may take Mystery Cults of their own. (Normally, this is a benefit reserved for Imperators.) A Multitudinous cult is worth 1 character point while a cult that is Empowered is worth 2. You do not get a character point for a Corrupted cult - a Corrupted cult is a flaw and gives you mp when it works against you. If you do not choose to spend points on a Mystery Cult, you can still have a cult of followers, but they will be rare and weak - not terribly useful.
• Regarding Rites. There are probably thousands of Rites in the Ash for different purposes and with different costs. Each day new Rites are discovered and sometimes old ones are forgotten. No Power knows them all. For this reason we are going to ask characters to keep track of the Rites they know. Rites are not particularly hard to learn but most must have a teacher. Searching for a teacher or performing one's own research for a Rite may be one goal of your Power during a chapter of the game.
  In any case, Nobles know a finite number of Rites. At the beginning of the game, all Nobles know the following Rites. You should record this. (If you would like to know some other Rite of your own design, you may submit it. Kisha and I may let you start with it, or maybe you have been doing some research and have some leads.)
  • The Servant's Rite - Create an Anchor.
  • The Witch Hunt Rite - Allows a Noble to detect traces of miracles. Knowing this Rite is a prerequisite for being able to cloak one's miracles using flowers or whatnot.
  • The Redtooth Rite - Steal MPs or part of the Estate of a dead Noble.
  • The Rite of Last Trump - Move MPs from one attribute to another.
  • The Rite of Passage - Spot hidden paths to chancels or other worlds. (Those with the Worldwalker gift already have this ability and much more...)
  • The Nettle Rite - Steal MPs from a Noble or Excrucian.
  • The Flower Rite - Steal part of another Noble's estate and add it to your own. There must be a plausible link. For example, the Noble of Night could steal power over bats from the Noble of Mammals, but could not steal power over cheese or pollution since there isn't an obvious connection. This is similar to the Rite performed by Excrucians to remove a part of an Estate from existence.
• Finally, not so much as a rule change as a suggestion - feel free to discuss gifts with Kisha or myself. If we like the idea, we may be willing to bend the rules a bit.

General Rules

• Anchors (more clarifications than anything)
  • Nobles may communicate with their Anchors mentally at any time and distance.
  • The above notwithstanding, you still have only one soul. Since the soul is what powers miracles, you can only perform one miracle per turn. If you are using 4 Anchors at some moment plus your own body, only one of these 5 bodies may be the source of a miracle that turn.
  • You can manually control every movement for all your anchors and your own body simultaneously with no loss in ability. (Anchors hate that...)
  • Anchors have a level 0 Auctoritas at all times. You may actively place your soul in a single body (Anchor or your own) at which point it has your natural Auctoritas. (This happens automatically whenever you perform miracles from a particular body.)
• 1st Edition Rules kept:
  • Becoming a Noble does not automatically mean one can speak every language in existence. If you feel your character would have learned a particular language, that is fine. However, unless you have a fairly high aspect and have made it your mission to speak the tongue of every human society, there will be lots of languages you cannot speak.

    That said, virtually all Nobles exert themselves to learn the Angelic tongue since this is the language most spirits naturally speak in. Fortunately, it is a fairly simple (the Angels would say "elegant") language so this can usually be done within a few months of commencement for even the least linguistically inclined Nobility.