Modern Times
If you've been following our blog in recent weeks, you should be well aware of the imminent release of our new sourcebook for the WOIN ruleset: The Possessed. As promised, we continue our preview of this week with a brief look at character creation options.
The first key feature of the sourcebook is the introduction of a new attribute for characters. Each of WOIN's rulesets across the genres introduces a variation of some sort of power stat for the unique abilities that characters may be able to gain - OLD has Magic (MAG), NOW has Chi (CHI), and NEW has Psionics (PSI). In a setting based on supernatural horror and the battle against The Adversary, none of those seemed to fit perfectly with the genre's themes. So we have introduced Conviction (CON). To quote the sourcebook:
Conviction relates to a character’s faith in their religion or preferred method of organising the spiritual hierarchy of the universe, regardless of whether that takes the form of membership of the Catholic Church, the practice of Buddhism, following the teachings of Islam or venerating an internal code of unshakeable ethics and practices. Your CON acts as a negative penalty to demons when they are attempting to exert influence over you, such as through possession or mental control.
Characters in The Possessed are now perfectly armed to combat demons and the minions that worship! There is nothing stopping you keeping other stats such as MAG and PSI of course, especially if you intend mixing genres to fashion a setting along the lines of Constantine or The Dresden Files, but it was important to recognise that characters needed a base foundation to armour them against the demonic. In fact, demons still use PSI to power their abilites but more on that later...
Not everyone has Conviction, just as not everyone in the world has faith in their own abilities or greater powers, but each character can earn Conviction through character creation or play.
We also made some tweaks to the type of species you can choose. Rather than various types of species, and as this is set on a version of our own world, everyone is human. Instead of a species, characters can choose origin ranging from small town to extreme environment and gain bonuses to skills and attributes based on that. As before with attributes, you can still make all of the other species available if you choose, this is your game after all, we have simply provided the tools to ground the setting in a demon-infested reflection of our own world.
As a modern setting, a lot of career options from NOW and NEW fit nicely into the setting. All of these are listed in the sourcebook, although we have included new versions of detective and reporter that better reflect the setting. You may have seen the new origin that is available in last week's blog, but there are also several new careers in the form of Apostate of the Adversary, Demonologist, Exorcist and Priest or Nun to name a few.
Which brings us neatly to a close for character options! Check back next week as we take a brief look at how the mechanics handle the act of exorcism itself.
