Reality Origins
Not classes. Not backgrounds. These are scars. Choose one at character creation. It reflects the zone that changed you, not the Sovereign you serve.
Iron Dominion
The Dominion's reality leaves a mark of understanding. They have learned that calm is a weapon. They have learned that the way to defeat a system that predicts you is to become something the system cannot predict, which means first understanding what the system is predicting.
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Reality Origin
Calcinate Defector
Passive
Pattern Recognition: When you take a moment to study a creature's behavior, tactics, or weaknesses before acting (as established in the fiction), you gain Advantage on your first roll against that creature this scene.
Reality Burst
Predictive Override: For one scene, once per round after you successfully affect a creature, you may spend 1 Hope to either remove Disadvantage from yourself or impose Disadvantage on that same creature's next roll against you.
"You don't guess. You calculate."
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Reality Origin
Suppression Marshal
Passive
Arcane Interference: When a hostile creature within Close range spends Hope to empower a magical effect, you gain Advantage on your next roll against that creature this scene.
Reality Burst
Field Lockdown: For one scene, the first time each round a hostile creature within Close range would gain Advantage on a magical roll, they must spend 1 additional Hope to do so. This does not affect allies.
"Magic destabilizes. I stabilize."
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Reality Origin
War-Forge Veteran
Passive
Industrial Conditioning: You gain Advantage when resisting effects that would frighten, intimidate, or overwhelm you.
Reality Burst
Defensive Formation: For one scene, while you remain within Close range of at least one ally, you and that ally cannot suffer Disadvantage from fear-based effects.
"Steel stands together."
Emerald Wilds
The Wilds establish a relationship. These Stormbound learn patience in its true form: not waiting, but the readiness of a predator that knows its moment will come. They learn that the world is not background. It is participant.
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Reality Origin
Spirit-Tethered Hunter
Passive
Predator's Patience: You gain Advantage on attacks against creatures who are wounded.
Reality Burst
Apex Invocation: For one scene, when you reduce a creature to 1 HP, you gain Advantage on your next attack made within Melee or Very Close range.
"The jungle finishes its prey."
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Reality Origin
Rootbound Shaman
Passive
Spirit-Favored Ground: When standing on natural terrain (living ground, forest, unworked earth or stone), you gain Advantage on your first roll each encounter.
Reality Burst
Verdant Intercession: Once per scene, when an ally within Close range would suffer Disadvantage from environmental effects, spend 1 Hope to cancel it.
"The roots hold us steady."
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Reality Origin
Temple-Born Survivor
Passive
Living Terrain: You ignore Disadvantage caused by natural obstacles, overgrowth, unstable terrain, or environmental hazards of organic origin.
Reality Burst
Overgrowth Surge: For one scene, the first hostile creature each round that enters Melee range with you suffers Disadvantage on their first attack against you that round.
"Nature decides who advances."
Aether Republic
The Republic's reality leaves a mark of motion: a three-dimensional awareness, a reflexive belief that the current position is not the only possible one. They have learned that altitude is information. They have learned that the right words in the right moment are worth more than any weapon.
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Reality Origin
Sky-Marshal
Passive
Vector Mastery: When you take a moment to study a creature's behavior, tactics, or weaknesses before acting (as established in the fiction), you gain Advantage on your first roll against that creature this scene.
Reality Burst
Gravity Shift: For one scene, once per round, spend 1 Hope to move yourself one additional range band in any direction after taking an action. This movement can be vertical.
"Up is optional."
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Reality Origin
Raygun Pioneer
Passive
Calibrated Shot: Your first ranged attack each scene gains Advantage, as long as you have not yet moved this scene when you make it.
Reality Burst
Aether Overcharge: When you spend Hope on a ranged attack roll, extend that attack's effective range by one band: Close becomes Far, Far becomes Very Far. Cannot extend beyond Very Far.
"Precision wins wars."
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Reality Origin
Protectorate Diplomat
Passive
Stabilizing Authority: When you spend Hope to assist an ally within Close range (using any ability or action that benefits them), they gain Advantage on the roll you are assisting.
Reality Burst
Order Restored: For one scene, creatures within Close range of you cannot gain Advantage on rolls caused by chaotic, unpredictable, or environmental effects. This does not affect Advantage granted by abilities or training.
"Progress creates calm."
Infernal Marches
The Marches do not make people harder in the way that suffering makes people hard. They make people clearer. They burn off the ambiguity about what you are capable of, because they force the question until it is answered, and then they let you carry the answer.
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Reality Origin
Crucible Knight
Passive
Declared Rival: When you openly challenge a creature within Close range, announcing your intent to fight them specifically, aloud, you gain Advantage on your first attack against them this scene. The challenge must be genuine and witnessed.
Reality Burst
Burning Resolve: For one scene, whenever you are reduced below half your maximum HP, you gain Advantage on your next attack roll. This can trigger only once per encounter regardless of how many times you cross the threshold.
"Prove your strength."
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Reality Origin
Ashen Legionnaire
Passive
Battle-Hardened: You gain Advantage when resisting effects that would move you against your will, knock you Prone, or remove you from a position you have chosen to hold.
Reality Burst
Stand in the Fire: When you are reduced to 0 HP and make a Last Hope roll, you gain Advantage on that roll. If you succeed, you immediately deal your base weapon damage to the creature that downed you before performing your Death Move.
"Pain refines us."
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Reality Origin
Relic-Bearer
Passive
Oathbound Presence: When you swear a vow aloud tied to an immediate, specific goal (as established in the fiction), you gain Advantage on the next roll made directly to fulfill that vow this scene. The vow must be genuine.
Reality Burst
Radiant Challenge: For one scene, choose one hostile creature within Close range. That creature has Disadvantage on attack rolls against any target other than you while you remain within Close range of them. The challenge ends if you move beyond Close range.
"Stand before the flame."
Velvet Shadow
These Stormbound are not cynics. The Nocturne's literacy produces precision: the exact knowledge of how agreements work, how information moves, how the space between what people say and what they do can be navigated. It is the knowledge that makes it possible to find the people who mean what they say.
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Reality Origin
Hexed Detective
Passive
Read the Room: Once per encounter, you gain Advantage when making rolls to uncover lies, hidden motives, or concealed information, whether through conversation, investigation, or observation.
Reality Burst
Cornered Confession: Once per scene, when you have isolated a creature socially (separated from allies, cornered in conversation, or established clear informational advantage), they cannot gain Advantage on rolls to deceive you for the rest of the scene.
"No one hides forever."
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Reality Origin
Contract Enforcer
Passive
Binding Clause: When a creature breaks a deal, agreement, or stated commitment made with you or in your presence during this session, you gain Advantage on your next roll against them. The GM determines what constitutes a broken commitment.
Reality Burst
Invoke the Ledger: Once per scene, when a creature within Close range fails a roll, you may immediately gain Advantage on your next roll against that same creature. The failure has been noted.
"You signed it."
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Reality Origin
Shadow Runner
Passive
Fade to Gloom: When you disengage from Melee range, deliberately breaking contact to create distance, you gain Advantage on the next action you take before the end of your turn.
Reality Burst
Vanishing Act: Spend 1 Hope to impose Disadvantage on all attempts to detect, track, or target you until you make an attack or are directly engaged in Melee. Movement does not end this effect. Being in clear line of sight does not end this effect…something about how you move makes you not quite register.
"Rain hides everything."
Bioforge Continuum
The Loom leaves marks. Not always visible ones. Always real ones. What these Stormbound have gained is biological literacy: an understanding of their own body's capabilities that most people never develop because most people's bodies are not actively studied by a planetary-scale optimization system.
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Reality Origin
Adaptive Survivor
Passive
Reactive Mutation: You gain Advantage when making rolls to identify the weaknesses, vulnerabilities, or biological properties of organic creatures, through observation, examination, or informed inference. Once per scene per target.
Reality Burst
Rapid Evolution: For one scene, you ignore the first condition imposed on you (Restrained, Slowed, Frightened, or similar) as your body adapts around it. The condition does not apply. This can trigger once per scene.
"Stress accelerates improvement."
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Reality Origin
Gene-Architect Adept
Passive
Bio-Analysis: When a hostile creature within Close range spends Hope to empower a magical effect, you gain Advantage on your next roll against that creature this scene.
Reality Burst
Adaptive Surge: Once per scene, spend 1 Hope to reroll a failed physical roll made by you or an ally within Close range. You must use the new result, even if it is worse.
"Evolution is iteration."
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Reality Origin
Sporewalker
Passive
Toxic Resilience: You gain Advantage when resisting poison, disease, organic environmental hazards, and the biological effects of Biozone spore dispersals. Your body has learned to process what others cannot.
Reality Burst
Bloomfield: For one scene, the first hostile creature each round that enters Melee range with you suffers Disadvantage on their first attack against you that round. Something about your biological presence disrupts their approach.
"Life spreads whether invited or not."
Mortal Remnant
These Stormbound carry the mark of no singular logic. They have learned, through necessity rather than training, to operate without the kind of certainty that the Sovereigns provide. They have learned what it means to carry the full weight of an unresolved future, and to act anyway.
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Reality Origin
Remnant Scholar
Passive
Cross-Axiom Fluency: When you use a tool, technique, or approach drawn from a World-Truth other than your own origin (as established in the fiction through study, salvage, or observation), you gain Advantage on your first roll using it each scene.
Reality Burst
Borrowed Logic: Once per scene, declare that one of your abilities functions under a different World-Truth's axiom for this roll. Describe the reframing in the fiction. Resolve the roll as if that axiom were active.
"We studied their world. Now we use it against them."
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Reality Origin
Last Soldier
Passive
Unconverted: You gain Advantage on any roll to resist being transformed, compelled, rewritten, or fundamentally altered by a World-Truth environmental effect or Sovereign ability.
Reality Burst
Hold the Line: For one scene, you and all allies within Close range cannot be moved from their current positions by World-Truth environmental effects. Abilities that physically relocate creatures through direct action still function normally.
"This street. This corner. Not one step back."
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Reality Origin
Possibility Spark
Passive
Latent Potential: Once per scene, when you roll a 1 on any die, you may reroll it. You must take the new result.
Reality Burst
Surge of the Unwritten: Spend 1 Hope. Until the end of your next turn, you gain Advantage on every roll you make. After this burst resolves, Latent Potential cannot trigger until your next rest.
"The Sovereigns came for our potential. We kept some for ourselves."