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Lord

rulescharacter-creationclass

  • Races: Human Glassians only (with rare Salamander exceptions)
  • Sex: Male only (occasional exceptions made for reasons of inheritance)

You have a porcelain mask. It covers half your face. It is traced with ruby & jade & sweeping gilded lines. You were given one at birth & have worn one since that day.

You have a duty. You are the miniature Kain of your domain. You are a poet, a judge, & a general. You are a murderer. You were born to rule.

And just might have, if the world hadn’t fallen to pieces.

If you start as part of this Class, you are part of a Governing House, descended from the Second Phoenix’s children through at least one tenuous familial link. The three main houses are Eagle, Beacon, and Arcades, but you may always invent a smaller Cadet House. There are many children of Kain.

Class Features

Roll once on the table per Rank obtained. If you roll a Feature you already have, you may choose a Feature from above or below it on the list that you don’t have yet.

2d6Class Feature
2–3Killer Instinct: If you can observe someone move or speak for at least 10 seconds, you can tell if they’ve killed nobody, somebody, or many people, & may have the GM tell you their most immediate, deepest intentions as expressed by a single word.
4Command: You may issue single-sentence commands to any non-Lord Glassian of lower Level & they will obey (possibly after hesitation) as if you were their unquestioned superior. If their Level is equal or greater than yours or your order contradicts a superior’s orders, you must make a Persuasion Save [[saves
5Defeat Means Respect: If you defeat a warrior in battle & afterwards treat their wounds or injuries, you may compel them (with the same rules as the Command Class Feature) to join you as Retainers or as Followers of a Faction. Units are affected as a group, by influencing their Leader if one is present.
6Cleaver: Your Strikes in an Attack can target any number of valid characters & if a target dies, you may retarget unspent Strikes to new valid targets within reach — and you may make a new Angry Step before each Strike if doing so would pull an otherwise out-of-reach character into your reach.
7Murderer: Gain an extra Strike per Attack.
8Courtly Influence: You can automatically obtain invites to balls & other public, semi-public, or closed events through fame, guile, or familiarity. Other Lords are obligated to grant you a court appearance if they aren’t Hostile to you.
9Blade Wind: You may take [Power] Damage to instantaneously move to any spot that can contain you within the greatest of your Speed scores, faster than anything can track or react to, so long as a taut rope could tie your current location to it. This Feature can interrupt any Move & might negate that Move thereby.
10Master of the Hunt: Your hand-held ranged weapons have no maximum range, provided you can see your target. You never take range penalties.
11–12Strength Training: Choose one [[damage-types

Class Backgrounds

If this is your first Class at character creation, roll once & write a Fact that describe a true lesson of your choice you learned from the experience: “Because I [was (a)…], I learned [lesson].” You can play with the phrasing so long as the background & lesson are both included.

1d6I was (a)…
1Pampered heir whose relatives were always trying to have me killed
2Never fond of the harpies my father kept as servants
3Known for firing windgun warning shots at annoying petitioners in court
4Generous host to perennially ungrateful guests
5Signed a treaty I couldn’t read to end a war I couldn’t win
6The Lord whose own people celebrated when I was driven out by bandits & robbers