Power Sources
A power source is just that: a source of power. Whereas skills describe actual training and knowledge accumulated by the character, and powers are just a special subset of skills, power sources are more esoteric: they represent some sort of innate, special access to power possessed by the character.
Short version:
- Costs 1 BP per level to level up a power source.
- Max PS level = your level (duh)
- Possible diminishing returns if multi-PS-ing
- Each campaign setting may add to these base, generic power sources
Idea Bin
- Hero Points are generic versions of uber-PS-points. The latter can do everything the former can do (including power abilities requiring one) and more.
Quick and Dirty Workspace
Holy
- Virtues: in exchange for vows (chastity, peace, etc), you gain powers commensurate with the difficulty of maintaining the vow. If you break the vow, you lose the power (atonement varies by offense).
- Good Works: doing genuine, difficult, selfless works will slowly accumulate rewards; after a long career of such things, you will be more powerful than any hellspawn drawing upon dark power.
Infernal
- Power: free, limitless power, whenever you want it. But there's a price.
- Taint: using hellfire accumulates Taint. The more you have, the more you become a demon, and lose your free will.
- Vice: you can "feed the demon" by satisfying vices such as lust, wrath, or greed. Of course, this only addresses the symptoms of taint...it can't save you from your fate.
- Soul Dealing: you can "buy out" your Taint by securing more souls for the infernal legions. In some cases, you might be able to foist Taint directly on another through clever manipulation of will.
Shadow
- Malevolence: bad luck just accumulates around you. The more things go your way, the more likely you are to suffer in the end. However...
- Hex: you can foist bad luck onto others...the karmic debt is settled, and you are unscathed.
- If you accumulate too much bad luck without releasing it, bad things will simply start happening around you without you having a say in the matter.
- You eventually gain the ability to sense bad luck, and the movements of fate, in general, giving you a sort of prescience.
Arcane
- You begin with a triangle. You must "slot" knowledge into each point. Knowledge can be a new power, technique, or feat. It might even be an item you gained. Once slotted, the rune grants power, flavored somewhat by exactly what you slotted.
- When you fill the triangle, you gain access to a square. Then, a pentagon. Then, a hexagon, etc etc. Each new rune is thus harder and harder to fill. You are rewarded for the accumulation of knowledge, but find you must look ever broader and deeper in the universe of knowledge to continue gaining power.
Blood
- Vitae: it's all about essential life energy. Vitae comes in three flavors:
- White: good will. Love, compassion, general well wishes. When someone feels this toward you, you gain vitae. This is pretty much the essence of being a High Elf in Oathkeep. Also creation, imagination, art, music, etc. Positive energy.
- Red: blood. The essential, primal component of vitae. Nothing to do with feelings, it's all about the body. You gain more by investing in your body...or divesting others of theirs.
- Black: ill will. Basically Malevolence, but you wield it quite differently than a Shadow user. It's a tricky art to master, because it's only natural for such energy, when directed at you, to hurt you, not help you. You're using the same essential technique as a Shadow user, redirecting malice away from you and toward your enemies. Think Grudge.
- Felicity: like the Arcanist, you too gain power from knowledge, but it is not the knowledge of without...rather, it is the knowledge of the real, of the physical reality of the world. The more you learn of it, the more innate understanding you gain of magic, and tangible benefits thus arise.