Fey Seekers

Those who use fey magic to investigate, seek, find, explore, range, hunt, transport, travel, or communicate.

---

Allspeaker

Type: Messenger

Allspeakers know the First Language and can wield its power via spoken word and written language.

Merely writing the words of the First Language generates some power, but to truly capture that power and wield it, one must use it not only to communicate something, but to do so in such a way that conveys more than is said. Poetry, subtlety, irony, clarity, wordplay, metaphor, and so on are all potent. Most allspeakers are masters of figurative language, of theme and narrative. It is imperative that the idea is conveyed.

The artistry of language is critical to the use of the First Language. Every word has its own unique power, and every word has power related to other words. Sentences, paragraphs, stanzas, verses all have meaning and power. The obscurity of words gives them power, as does their commonality. Some words, however, do not have the power to affect their targets. A common, simple word ("the") has no effect on most mortal beings; a complicated, ancient word conveying meanings long forgotten may affect even the Divine. Even skilled allspeakers will struggle to find the latter words.

The one common power of the First Language is that any who hears it spoken understands the speaker, though they do not then learn the language without study. What can be done with the First Language varies by user, but the typical allspeaker can profoundly alter those they speak to. Some common effects include the following:

• Increased understanding: the listener will gain points in a skill or lore based on what they are told.
• Disrupted understanding: the listener will cease understanding something, or everything, temporarily, losing points in a skill or lore.
• Delayed understanding: the listener will come to understand what they were told in a deeper way later.
• Lateral connection: the listener will learn something from what is unsaid by making a lateral logical leap.
• Barrier removed: the listener will understand despite not knowing the language, or the words, or some other barrier.

Lies can be written, but lies in the First Language have their own power (disrupted understanding). These effects cannot be undone, even by other uses of the First Language. Furthermore, the reader may interpret differently than the speaker intends, altering the power of the Language upon them - but only the most nimble minds can do this (AWA vs. the power of the words). A lack of ability to comprehend the First Language can also be an impediment. Though the language can break past barriers, some are impenetrable (notably, an inability to understand language at all). An unliving rock will never be affected by the language. Some beings are beyond the reach of the First Language, but most are not if they are alive. It just takes finding the right words, and the right words are sometimes very hard to find.

The skill an allspeaker has in writing or speaking the First Language is determined by their research and study of it. Finding sources to learn it is very difficult.

PRO -1 ATH -1 STR -2 AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS -1 STH /

---

Cardbearer

Type: Seeker

A wanderer who gathers stories in magical cards. Cardbearers are travelers who learn how to draw power from the story of their own journey. They often find out via trial and error on long journeys that there is a certain magical presence at various moments of the journey, but without the right tools, they are unable to capture and wield it. Thus, they seek out someone to share the lore with them. This either leads them to an experienced cardbearer or to the fey. If the latter, they need to make a deal to share some of their power with the fey to learn how to wield it, but if the former, they are usually just taught how to find and use the power.

To wield the power of their journey, they must learn to recognize the moments on the journey that generate magic. Those moments are usually turning points, moments of struggle, moments of kindness, moments of support, moments of conflict, or milestones. If they learn to recognize them and the magic they create, they can draw that magic into cards made of special materials, storing it for use later. The materials needed are of fey origin and must be gathered from the fey, but an experienced cardbearer can use their magic to simply duplicate their own materials for others to use.

Once the moment is stored in a card, it can be released later to be wielded magically. Effects vary by moment, but some examples include the following:

• Journey’s beginning: a catalyzing moment, this magic allows for refreshing the cardbearer.

• A gesture of support: a moment of support may replicate that support later.

• 100th mile: a major milestone in a journey can give bonuses to the cardbearer in stats that were vital in reaching the milestone.

• Choosing a new path: a turning point may allow the cardbearer to take an alternative path later, literally allowing them to reverse a decision and make it again within a reasonable timeframe.

• Overcoming obstacles: the skills or powers it took to overcome an obstacle may be stored and used to give bonuses to those same skills or powers later.

• “Keep going”: encouragement can be stored and kept for when it is most needed.

• Journey’s end: the end of a journey may be stored and used to create barriers to others who seek to prevent a journey.

Each of these would have a more specific name and potential use because they would be personalized to a journey. For example, the journey’s beginning for a cardbearer is probably the moment they were cast out or made homeless, forced to live on the road.

PRO +1 ATH +2 STR +1 AWA +1 WIL +1 PRS / STH /

---

Fortune-Sailor

Type: Sailor

One who flies hot air balloons or kites on the winds of fortune.

Fortune is an energy that cannot be controlled, but it can be nudged. Tweaked. Maybe. If you're lucky. And it can be sensed. Fortune-sailors can sense the winds of fortune and have special materials that can react to them. Like anything to do with fortune, this ability develops by chance, usually when they are young, and it comes with a price. How they sense the winds varies - each fortune-sailor has a different way of interpreting it, and it is not unusual for them to have it slightly wrong. Being able to sense the winds is called "being touched".

Those who can sense and choose to follow the winds of fortune become subject to the whims of those winds, meaning they risk falling on hard times. For fortune-sailors, those hard times often leave them adrift in the skies. This is determined by the classic set up of triple rolls. A triple roll will alter the rambler's luck:

• Triple 1s: luck lowers by one level

• Triple 2s: luck lowers by two levels

• Triple 3s: luck raises by three levels

• Triple 4s: luck lowers by three levels

• Triple 5s: luck raises by one level

• Triple 6s: luck bottoms out

• Triple 7s: luck tops out

• Triple 8s: luck lowers by four levels

• Triple 9s: luck raises by two levels

• Triple 10s: luck raises by four levels

The levels of luck are as follows:

1. Calamity

2. Very bad luck

3. Bad luck

4. Neutral

5. Good luck

6. Very good luck

7. Miraculous

A person with calamitous luck will be unable to succeed at any roll and horrible things will happen to them. A person with miraculous luck will be unable to fail at any roll and amazing things will happen to them. With very bad luck, they will always take the low die on rolls and bad things will happen to them, while a person with very good luck will always take the high die and good things will happen to them. With bad luck, they will always take the low die, but no narrated bad things will happen to them. A person with good luck will always take the high die, but no narrated good things will happen to them. A person with neutral luck takes the middle die and has no narrated effects upon them.

Calamitous luck cannot be escaped except by tripling out. Miraculous luck will go away very quickly. The more extreme the luck, in either direction, the more improbable events become around them.

Flying with the winds of fortune has great risks and great rewards. It often means a long journey whether the fortune-sailor intends it or not.

For fortune-sailors, they sense the changes in the winds of fortune by noticing omens and signs, such as certain bird or cloud formations, certain symbols on the ground below, or a certain number of events happening in a row. These vary by individual.

They use these omens and signs to adjust their kite or balloon to react to the upcoming change in the winds of fortune, either bracing for bad luck or opening up for good luck. They follow the directions fortune sends them in rather than a set path.

Like anyone touched by the winds of fortune, fortune-sailors have insights and intuitions they cannot explain, brought on by straight rolls and some variants:

• 012 roll: flicker - sailor knows something important has happened or will happen, but not what.

• 050 roll: major intuition.

• 123 roll: mild intuition

• 234 roll: vague insight.

• 246 roll: major intuition.

• 345 roll: same as last straight.

• 369 roll: clear insight.

• 456 roll: vague insight.

• 567 roll: mild intuition.

• 678 roll: moment of distress - wild misunderstanding.

• 789 roll: thunderbolt moment - perfect understanding.

• 890 roll: clear insight.

Note on 0 rolls: a roll of 0 is a roll of 10, but because the classic d10 shows 0 as a zero, these can be interpreted as such when it comes to straights. A roll of 050 is not actually calculated for gameplay purposeds as 0, 5, 10, but still 5, 10, 10. However, it will still be considered a straight.

An insight is a clear understanding. An intuition is a certainty without understanding.

PRO / ATH +2 STR / AWA +3 WIL / PRS +1 STH /

---

Portalist

Type: Transporter

One who turns a threshold into a portal.

An portalist meets a powerful fey at a crossroads and midnight and offers something of great power, and the fey accepts and gives them the power of the crossroads, of thresholds, of transitory places. Usually, they give up an abstract quality such as a memory, a feeling, or a magical power, but it might also be something of notable power or interest to the fey. To meet a fey at the crossroads, however, they must first find an isolated crossroads - the fey won't appear on a busy city street, even at night - and then they must perform a ritual that will bring the fey out. This ritual requires performing a song, sacrificing an animal, invoking a name, and/or burying a body part (theirs or someone else's). Once the ritual is performed, they must answer the fey's questions adequately, then make their agreement.

Once they make their agreement, they gain some of the following powers:

• Reopening: if they close a door or window, they can reopen it to a new location within the same structure - ex. a door that opens into a house may be closed and reopened to a different room within the house, a chest of drawers may be closed and reopened to a different drawer, etc.

• Bonded thresholds: if an portalist marks two different thresholds with a special symbol, they will become portals to one another.

• Point of no return: if an portalist marks a threshold with blood, they will make it such that anyone who passes through cannot go back through it without completing some task.

• Unseen passage: if an portalist marks a threshold with a nail, anyone who walks through it backward will be taken to a place they have never been before.

• Infinite passage: if an portalist marks a threshold with a hand print while someone is crossing through it, the threshold will loop back on itself, and the person who is within it will be trapped there until the portalist releases them.

Other abilities are possible on the theme of thresholds. Consult the GM.

PRO / ATH / STR -2 AWA +2 WIL +2 PRS -1 STH /

---

Sidestepper

Type: Transporter

One who can teleport via nonlinear steps. Sidesteppers gain their powers from learning to think laterally, to see things from a nonlinear perspective, and to understand reality with different rules, rules that lack causality. Most sidesteppers find their way to seeing things this way via a mixture of questioning everything, accidentally stumbling upon some kind of magical effect that challenges their assumptions, taking lots of hallucinatory drugs, and learning of forbidden stories. Some then find their way to forbidden lore that allows them to wield the magic and some make a deal with a powerful fey to do it.

Because the process leading up to this requires changing their perception of reality, there are major side effects to it. Sidesteppers tend to see things happening elsewhere, have dreams of alternate timelines, and get confused about which version of reality they are in. However, this also means that they have the ability to take nonlinear steps.

A nonlinear step will take one of three forms:

• A controlled step taking them somewhere within visual range that is not the spot their step should take them if causality were in effect.

• An uncontrolled step taking them to a random location within 13 miles, up to the GM’s discretion.

• A partially controlled step that takes them to a place they have been before where they took a previous nonlinear step. This will be a roll of 1d8, going back as many nonlinear steps as they roll (it is imperative the player keep track of their eight most recent steps).

Sidesteppers can take others with them on these steps, but they must roll AWA to maintain control and keep those they take with them. The more people they take with them, the more difficult it is (+3 per person, base of 7).

Every 13th controlled or uncontrolled nonlinear step, they must roll a d100. If they roll 1-10, they end up in a different version of reality. This goes up every 13 steps by another 10. If they end up in a different version of reality, they spend up 13 seconds there the first time, 13 minutes the next, 13 hours the next, 13 days the next, 13 weeks, 13 months, 13 years, 13 decades, etc. If they were taking people with them, everyone ends up in the alternate reality, but they start at 13 seconds if they have never been before, no matter how long the sidestepper ends up being there. Partially controlled steps count against the 13-count of steps. If they make enough partially controlled steps to take the count below 0, they end up in a version of reality where everything is reversed and never escape.

PRO / ATH +1 STR -1 AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS -1 STH /