Thousand Cities:Rules

New Rules

This section contains new rules used in the Thousand Cities campaign.

Divine Favour

Every action in the Thousand Cities takes place beneath the gaze of the Gods.

Every action has its consequences.

Concept

Divine Favour serves two purposes: it helps (or hinders) the actions of the heroes, and it gives them access to more potent Charms. Any major action will potentially anger one or more of the Gods - they are quick to anger, and the symbols they hold sacred are not always widely known. At the same time, the actions of the heroes may draw aid from those Gods who oppose the aggrieved deity.

System

Acting for or against the interests of a God will gain (or lose) the character points of Divine Favour. These act like secondary Virtues, and can be drawn on to help the character's actions. Divine Favour has a maximum rating of five.

• Asking for help

When calling on a God's aid, add a number of dice equal to the character's Divine Favour rating for that God. Unlike channeling a Virtue, this does not require a point of Willpower. However, the dice can only be used on an appropriate roll - defaulting to that God's domain, but a well described stunt can give justification for a character to use the bonus dice elsewhere.

A character can freely call upon each God once per session. Subsequent attempts cost them a point of Favour with that God to do so.

Negative Divine Favour dice can be used to oppose the character, wherever the Storyteller finds it appropriate.

• Learning Charms

Characters may only learn charms with a Minimum Essence equal or lower than their current Divine Favour rating with the appropriate God. Losing Favour after learning the Charm has no further effect, other than temporarily stalling their advancement in that group of Charms.

• Starting Play

Characters begin play with enough Divine Favour to have learned all their initial Charms. They may add up to three additional points of Divine Favour, by gaining an equal number of negative Favour points from other Gods. No more than one additional point (positive or negative) may be assigned to each God.

Gods and Domains

	Ability	Deity
Dawn Caste	Archery	Vergolte the Hunter
	Martial Arts	Gard, Champion of the Host
	Melee	Yedan, the Sword
	Thrown	Tardrace, Wrath of the Storm
	War	Roane, General of the Host
Zenith Caste	Integrity	Phoebe, the Judge
	Performance	Emrill the Child
	Presence	Klesthes, the Golden Queen
	Resistance	Humber, the Mountain
	Survival	Beyeate, the Green Mother
Twilight Caste	Craft	Vanar the Blacksmith
	Investigation	Ergonus, Keeper of the Underworld
	Lore	Grear, Keeper of the Tome
	Medicine	Dauvion the Drunkard
	Occult	Eicentia the Sorceress
Night Caste	Athletics	Parthos the Swift
	Awareness	Leith, the Three-Faced Oracle
	Dodge	Absence
	Larceny	Miris the Trickster
	Stealth	Cadre, the Messenger
Eclipse Caste	Bureaucracy	Paragon, Keeper of Order
	Linguistics	Cypher the Wanderer
	Ride	Farrow, Herald of the Plains
	Sail	Herneia, Mistress of the Waves
	Socialise	Seyanne, the Muse

Implications

Taking an extra dot of Essence at Character Creation becomes a little more useful - in the basic system, those bonus points are generally much more valuable elsewhere on the character sheet. In the Thousand Cities, beginning with Essence 3 (and purchasing some Essence 3 Charms) allows a character to begin with a higher Divine Favour rating, drawing greater divine attention to their deeds.

House Rules

Speed and modifiers

Any modifier to a weapon's Speed trait that would take it below 3, is instead applied as a bonus to the weapon's Rate.

This prevents Speed 1 or 2 characters from freely taking 3+ actions in the time their companions take to complete a single task. Extremely low Speed ratings are considered unbalancing as they allow charcters to perform more actions, more stunts, recover essence/willpower faster, and refresh their DV faster than characters with slower equipment. By instead increasing Rate, this rule allows those characters to perform larger Flurries while still operating at Speed 3.

Social Combat timing

Social combat operates on regular "ticks," in the same way as regular combat.

This prevents Join Battle from becoming a perfect counter to all social interactions, as epic rhetoric should stand alongside epic martial techniques in an Exalted game...

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