Commoners
Page 81 of Core Rules, expanded and errata'ed.
Common Mortal
Bonus Points Table
| Trait | Cost |
|---|---|
| Attribute | 4 |
| Ability | 2 (1 if a Favored or Caste Ability) |
| Background | 1 (2 if the Background is being raised above 3) |
| Specialty | 1 (2 per 1 if in a Favored or Caste Ability) |
| Virtue | 1 per dot (Willpower is independent of Virtues) |
| Willpower | 1 |
| Intimacies | Characters may begin with up to (Willpower + Compassion) Intimacies without spending bonus points.* |
| Essence | 7 |
| Charms | 4 (3 if in a Favored or Caste Ability)* |
*Latest errata
- Usually just a simple Motivation.
- Attributes: 4/3/3
- No Attribute can be raised higher than 5 even with bonus points.
- Abilities: No Caste Abilities nor Favored Abilities; 18 dots to distribute.
- Maximum initial Ability is 3 before spending bonus points.
- Specialties: As per errata: you receive four specialties to distribute amongst your character's Abilities. Characters with a specialty in an Ability add a bonus die or dice to pertinent rolls. Unless specified otherwise, specialties cannot add more than three dice to a roll. You can have up to three specialties per Ability - even the same specialty three times.
- Virtues: As usual: distribute 5 points, none may be higher than 4 without bonus points.
- Backgrounds: 5 points. (Nek Dæn Campaign has special rules concerning Backgrounds.)
- Willpower: Mortal characters begin with Willpower rated at 4 and it can be increased at a cost of 1 bonus point per dot, up to 8 points at character creation.
- Essence: 1, not upgradeable with bonus points.
- Merits and Flaws: Normally not allowed. See Nek Dæn Campaign.
- Bonus Points: 21.
Sample Concepts:
- Animal Tender - beekeeper, herdsman, kennel keeper, shepherd, stable boy
- Beggar - blind, crippled, diseased, mentally ill - might be faked
- Enterpreneur - barber, bathhouse keeper, boardinghouse keeper, brothel madam, fisherman, herbalist, hunter, lumberjack, scribe
- Worker - farm worker, maid, spinner
- Craftsman - baker, basketweaver, blacksmith, bonecarver, bootmaker, bowyer, brewer, butcher, candlemaker, carpenter, cooper, fletcher, furrier, leatherworker, mason, potter, ropemaker, shoemaker, soapmaker, stoneworker, tailor, tanner, taxidermist, thatcher, weaver, wheelwright, woodcarver...
- The five ordinary Craft Abilities are:
- Craft (Air): calligraphy, jewelry-making, creating precision instruments and glassblowing (making small, decorative or high-precision items)
- Craft (Earth): masonry, stone cutting, creating earthworks (creating buildings and large objects with stone or earth)
- Craft (Fire): blacksmithing, making ceramics (forging and casting large metal objects and creating objects using fire)
- Craft (Wood): carpentry, weaving, paper-making, flower arranging (carving, weaving and manipulating natural materials)
- Craft (Water): cooking, brewing, leather working, pharmacy and poison-making (boiling and cooking plants, chemicals and animal materials)
- Outsider - actor, bandit, burglar, entertainer, smuggler, thief
Young mortals are more likely to be apprentice craftsmen rather than masters.
Heroic Mortal
- Needs a heroic Motivation.
- Attributes: 6/4/3
- No Attribute can be raised higher than 5 even with bonus points.
- Abilities: No Caste Abilities; 25 dots to distribute.
- Maximum initial Ability is 3 before spending bonus points.
- One Favored Ability, complete with the discount. This must be equal to or greater than every other Ability the character possesses. (Exalted are not restricted like this.)
- Specialties: As per errata: you receive four specialties to distribute amongst your character's Abilities. Characters with a specialty in an Ability add a bonus die or dice to pertinent rolls. Unless specified otherwise, specialties cannot add more than three dice to a roll. You can have up to three specialties per Ability - even the same specialty three times.
- Virtues: As usual: distribute 5 points, none may be higher than 4 without bonus points.
- Backgrounds: 5 points.
- Willpower: Mortal characters begin with Willpower rated at 4 and it can be increased at a cost of 1 bonus point per dot, up to 8 points at character creation.
- Essence: 1, not upgradeable with bonus points.
- Bonus Points: 21.
To transform a heroic mortal into an Exalt, add four dots to Attributes and two to Abilities and Backgrounds; mark down Caste Abilities, select four more Favored Abilities, choose 10 Charms, increase Essence to 2, choose a Virtue Flaw, and adjust the character's health levels accordingly.
Derived Traits
Essence
Mortals don't really have Essence pools, but calculate them nevertheless.
- Calculate your Personal Essence: [Essence x 3] + Willpower.
- Calculate Peripheral Essence: [Essence x 7] + Willpower + [the sum of Virtues].
- (Normally using Peripheral Essence is impossible for you, though. But it might be drained or something!)
Health Levels
Your character is highly likely to have just one -0 health level, two -1 health levels, two -2 health levels, one -4 health level and one Incapacitated health level (image to the right). See Health Levels and Attacking for more information.
Marking Damage
| Bashing: use a slash | ⧄ |
| Lethal: use an X | ☒ |
| Aggravated: use an asterisk | ⧆ |
This way, if damage is converted from a lesser to a more serious type, you don't have to erase first.
Mortal Character Notes
All of these limitations may be momentarily surpassed through the use of Charms, spells, artifacts or effects or permanently through a number of methods, including some artifacts, the spirit Charm Endowment or other Charms, Celestial-level Sorcery or certain Merits or Flaws.
- When rounding for static values such as DVs, mortals and heroic mortals round downward. This does not include dividing Stamina for the purposes of determining base lethal soak, as everyone rounds down for that.
Mortals are exceedingly susceptible to poisons and toxins — most exposures will kill them near instantly, and even minor toxins are very difficult to resist (double the difficulty listed for Exalts, and it is the Storyteller's discretion if the mortal can even roll at all).- Nope. Toxins - even fantastic ones - aren't that powerful. So, Houserule: mortals roll at the same difficulty.
- Mortal characters have an Essence of 1, but no way to gain access to their Essence pool.
- Mortal characters cannot detect the flow of Essence, determine the presence of sorceries or the use of Charms or otherwise influence Essence patterns without the use of a thaumaturgic spell or ritual, except in the most extraordinary of cases.
Mortals cannot attune to any of the Five Magical Materials or to any artifact that has a continuing committed Essence cost. They may make use of artifacts that require no committed Essence or that have some other cost (Willpower, health levels, etc.). Similarly, mortals cannot attune to Manses or Hearthstones.(See below.)- Mortals are obviously not subject to the Great Curse and they don't have a Virtue Flaw nor Limit Break condition.
- Still, if you wish, you may take a flaw and limit break condition for your primary Virtue. There isn't any sort of compensation for this. It's just your character's nature.
- Mortals are only able to learn Terrestrial Martial Arts and Terrestrial Circle Sorcery as Charms. That is the limit. GodBloods of various types are exceptions, however. There are no mortal Excellencies.
On Heroic Mortals
- Heroic mortal characters gain two successes on 10s.
- Heroic mortal characters resist infection from wounds, diseases, etc. as mortals, not as Exalted.
- Heroic mortal characters cannot normally gain extra health levels, but they have the full normal mortal complement and damage against them should be rolled, rather than assuming one damage success per three points of damage beyond soak.
- Heroic mortal characters can stunt, but they cannot regain Essence unless they have access to their Essence pool. Heroic mortal characters who perform a one-die stunt only gain the ability to do the normally impossible. Storytellers should be less lenient with mortal characters than with Exalted on determining stunt bonuses — two-die stunts should be garner a single die, three-die stunts gain two dice, and only the most extraordinary actions should give the performer a three-die bonus.
On Mortals and Essence (Houserules)
- Houserule: mortals (heroic or not) can now attune to minor artifacts and use motes of Personal Essence to activate them.
- That's about all they can use their Essence for, unless they learn sorcery or there's some other highly unlikely circumstances.
- They may not use Peripheral Essence.
- They cannot attune to Manses, Hearthstones, nor to any Artifact ••• or higher, unless specifically designed for mortal use.
- Mortals do not have an anima banner.
- Although it is usually irrelevant, Mortals now do recover Essence, at half the rate of Exalted:
- Four motes per hour when completely relaxed (for example, sleeping or receiving a massage).
- Two motes per hour if at ease but not completely relaxed (such as when watching an artistic performance, taking a leisurely stroll or debating with a Realm courtier).
I Have Moral Objections!
Someone, somewhere is even now saying that it's terrible that some people in Creation are inherently better than others. The reasons for this are twofold.
The first reason is that they're just mechanically less important. The world of Exalted is an epic tale, and they are the many who strive and die without directly affecting the narrative. Just because she's an extra doesn't mean that Auntie Jade is any less a person. It just means she's never really likely to change the world. She is not a robotic drone or a superficial caricature of a person. She is merely a normal person unable to run up walls or withstand multiple sword blows. In this, she is not unlike the reader.
Certainly, there are individuals in Creation, especially among the Exalted, who are bigoted and mistreat those of lesser destiny and Essence. Others are not so hard hearted. The Immaculate Philosophy dictates that those with power strive to protect and govern these individuals precisely because they are wholly human and normal and mortal. They are merely far less able to protect themselves than an Exalt or hero.
The second reason is that they're not really facing these inequities at all. These are, in fact, fictional people encountering fictional inequalities in an entirely fictional world. The cosmology of their world is, in fact, inherently unfair in handing out power. People who are important to the "story" of history are in fact vastly more powerful and talented than the average rice farmer merely by nature of being important.