Earth – Challenges of the World

For those that embrace the beauty of Seln, near and far. Range far, range wide, and brave the lands where no others dare!

Harvesting

Any fool can chop a leaf from its stem; Harvesting is the delicate act of extracting the power of creation from its living root without harm or hubris.

You Challenge Earth to extract the power of nature and Harmony into forms ready for cultivation.

These Challenges come with additional danger. Disasters will inflict unique Conditions.

• Disaster – You are afflicted by the reagent’s unique Condition. These are listed with the mystical reagents in their appendix.
• Failure – You destroy the sample’s mystical potency. It is useless for cultivated purposes.
• Success – You Harvest the power from a material
• Flourish – As Success

When you harvest, you receive mystical reagents. Each is a sample chock ful of elemental power and Harmony.

• Mystical reagents are required for specific crafting recipes
• These reagents are not mutually interchangeable. You must exactly match what is specified

You may not always need the exact reagents that you find. In those cases, you will distill the reagent into a Crystal Core.

• Crystal Cores are fragments of pure elemental power
• Crystal Cores are fungible and suitable as both a cultivated currency and the raw energy input to crafting

Harvesting and harmony

When you Harvest, you are assumed to do so with consideration. If a tree sprouts powerful fruit, you leave a few stems to grow for the next summer. If a mineral vein hosts rich salts within the earth, you take the salts you can reach instead of strip-mining the entire hill.

Evil and ruthless cultivators that care nothing for nature can get stronger reagents faster by despoiling the world around them. You will just have to show them the error of their ways with a spirited dialogue. Or your fists. Whichever works.

Extracting Crystal Cores

Crystal cores are elemental fragments of creation such as “EarthFire” or “AirWater”. More than mere elemental batteries, these Cores represent fragments of creation and the raw materials from which cultivators incarnate their visions and talents into material form.

To extract a Crystal Core:

• You may use either Earth or Fire to Challenge; both elements can extract crystal cores
• Meditate on a mystical reagent for one hour to slowly manipulate its Ki into the desired form
• The purity of the resulting Crystal Core depends on your Standard Value in your chosen element (below)
• The resulting Crystal Core bears your Ki Signature; this Ki Signature lingers indefinitely, even through next Equilibrium and beyond
  • Indeed, some cultivators use Crystal Cores with their Ki Signature as a form of personal stamp!

Restrictions:

• There are no Circle 1 mystical reagents; Circle 1 includes only mundane materials not tracked here
• Circle 2 mystical reagents may be converted to crystal cores through simple meditation and Ki manipulation
• Circle 3 and 4 mystical reagents require the use of an Alchemical Forge at your Hearth

Naturally, the elements you harvest must already exist in the sample you target! If the reagent is EarthWater, you may only extract Earth, Water, or EarthWater.

Different types of reagents blend different elements.

• Leaf: Always include Water
• Sinew: Always include Fire
• Mineral: Always include Earth
• Perfume: Always include Air
• Metals: Always include Earth
  • Metals are almost always more valuable as reagents than as crystal cores

You may carry small amounts of crystal cores (under a dozen) without any consequences. If you carry large numbers (dozens), then the storyteller may gift you extra elemental reactivity.

Harvest and Crystals

Crystal towering / High wards gleam with land power / Safe at last

Harvesting wild crystal

On occasion, you may encounter wild crystals. You may Harvest directly from these crystals, gaining crystal cores immediately. These wild crystals are by their nature unstable and require a Challenge to Harvest.

Base Difficulty: The Standard Value (above) for the target Crystal type

• Obviously, you must declare the crystal core you want before Challenging
  • For example, between “EarthWater” or “Earth”

Difficulty Modifiers:

• In a hurry: +2
• In a combat situation: +10
• Crystal contains your Bane: +3
• Rank of the Crystal is less than Circle of the Crystal Core: +5 per step
  • For example, to get a Fire Crystal Core (Circle 4) from a rank 2 crystal, add +10

Result:

• Disaster: You destablize the crystal. The storyteller will check for elemental effects and storms. (Covered in the storms section)
• Failure: You fail to Harvest
  • The crystal balance is disturbed, and another attempt at harvesting is not possible for at least a week
• Success: Harvest a Crystal Core matching the crystal’s elements; reduce the crystal’s rank by 1
• Flourish: Harvest a Crystal Core matching the crystal’s elements; reduce the crystal’s rank by 1

Harvesting your crystal

If you have a Hearth and exclusive access to its crystal, you may automatically harvest crystal cores.

• Once per season, one cultivator within your Hearth may harvest a crystal core matching the crystal’s elements
  • As players, choose the best candidate among your stable of characters
  • Harvesting from a Crystal requires several hours of delicate work and your full concentration. The act causes (mostly harmless) fluctuations in the crystal’s power and is blindingly obvious to everyone within the Hearth.
• Do not reduce the crystal Rank
• This does not require a Downtime

The power of Harmony enforces ownership. You may not harvest from crystals outside your Hearth; neither may your enemies harvest from yours.

Animal handling

Using animals as proxies

You may use animals as proxies for your own actions. For example, you can order a rat to sneak into a room for you. These animals respond for short periods of time and are not loyal. (For loyal pets, see Taming below).

Treat these animals as a consumable good for a single Challenge.

When you Challenge via animal proxy:

• Use your own Ki pool
  • This includes your Bonus Dice or Boosts; these are consumed by the Challenge as usual
• The animal proxy does not gain the benefit of your Attributes
• The storyteller may add relevant Penalties for dangerous orders or acts outside of the animal’s usual nature.

Opponents may Challenge your Earth to detect the animal’s unusual behavior.

Setting Traps with animals

Similarly, you may use animals as a form of Trap. This is also a one-use consumption effect.

Challenge Earth when attempting to manipulate the animals this way. Your Result becomes the Stealth defense of your trap.

Your Trap chooses from one of these options:

• The animals startle, alerting you to a disturbance
  • When the Trap triggers, you may Challenge Earth against the opponent
• The animals stampede or swarm, helping you with Pursuit
  • When triggered, you automatically gain one step in the Pursuit
• The animals distract, making your own escape or stealth easier
  • Gain a Bonus Ki to your own escape attempt

However, should the opponent detect your Trap, they may Challenge Earth against you to undermine your plan.

• Disaster: They accidentally trigger the Trap
• Failure: No effect
• Success: They take a Bonus Ki to their next Challenge against you
• Flourish: As success

Degrading a Camp

Nothing says a bad trip like twenty-five thousand stinging Fire ants…

You may use surrounding wildlife to degrade a Camp defense over time. Consider this option when facing a fortified location.

First, remotely Challenge Earth against the Camp defense.

• Disaster: Your foolish attempts alert the location as to your location and intentions
• Failure: Nature ignores you
• Success: Reduce the Camp defense by 1 point for every 5 points that you exceeded the Result
  • Your targets automatically Challenge in response to notice the weakening of their defenses
  • On a Success, they realize the weakness but do not identify you
  • On a Flourish, they recognize the deliberate sabotage and your general location
• Flourish: As Success, but your opponents do not reflexively Challenge in return

This form of Challenge takes extensive time; expect each roll to represent about a day’s work.

You may reduce the Camp’s defense by up to ½ this way. Once you have reduced the Defense to ½, you must choose to either:

• Degrade it again; the opponents will automatically recognize your sabotage after the last Challenge and are likely to retaliate
• Stop in the hopes that the subterfuge remains intact and proceed with your other plans

Taming

During downtime, you may attempt to tame an animal.

For mundane animals, you automatically succeed. You may then sync a Chakra with the animal and travel with your new companion.

However, what of difficult and powerful creatures? One-of-a-kind companions?

For these creatures, you may Challenge once per downtime against one of the four concrete elements. Each successful Challenge reveals more of the creature’s wants and needs.

Once you understand the four elements, you may then befriend the creature by tending its needs. Afterwards, you and the storyteller can collaborate to outline how the creature acts as your ally when synced to a Chakra.

Travel

Camp

When in the wilds, you will naturally want to avoid trouble. You want a defensible location, a secure perimeter, protection from the elements, and so forth.

These considerations coalesce into your Camp Defense. This is a shared Defense for the entire party that represents your combined efforts to protect yourself while traveling.

Opponents and effects that wish to discover your location, approach undetected, or force you to suffer ill effects Challenge Earth against your Camp Defense.

Outcome:

• Disaster – The attempt backfires spectacularly
• Failure – The foe cannot find your camp, or the effect passes harmlessly by
• Success – The foe breaches your camp’s defenses and can proceed with their nefarious plans
• Flourish – As success. Additionally, each participant takes a Bonus Ki on their first Challenge relating to the breached Camp

Sailing

Sailing as the act of manipulating the vessel uses either Earth or Fire.

Navigation uses either Air (to navigate by stars) or Earth (requires the use of landmarks).

At the beginning of any journey over water, a sailor faces a simple choice: to ask permission of the local Sirens or not.

A character may bribe Sirens through one of three mechanisms:

• Decorum and flattery (Water)
• Gifts of invention (Fire)
• Good old-fashioned bribery

If the sailor does not bribe the local sirens to their satisfaction or if no Sirens can be located, the sailor takes Penalty 6 to all Sailing Challenges for the duration of the journey. A successful bribe does not generate a Bonus Ki.

If particularly insulted, the Sirens may decide to organize a “rescue” of the sailor and his or her companions. Pity about the ship, though, and anything on board…

Pursuit

We can model a chase as a tug of war between the parties.

The chase begins at Neutral and has five states. Set a marker such as a die at Neutral.

• Contact – Close – Neutral – Distance – Escape

It concludes when the marker reaches either Contact or Escape.

Choose one character on either side to make the Challenges for the group.

• Both representatives Challenge Earth
• The Storyteller assigns out Penalties or Bonuses (see below)
• Add the representative’s Speed as a bonus to the Challenge for both sides
• Compare the Results and move the marker towards either Contact or Escape

The Storyteller narrates exactly how long passes between each round, such as ten minutes or an hour.

The fleeing party is likely headed for a refuge such as a safe haven, a fortress, or a shrine. If the fleeing party reaches that haven, the Pursuit automatically ends and the pursuers must confront this new barrier.

Exhaustion

A pursuit can oscillate between Close and Distance, especially when both parties are closely matched.

After the third round of Challenges, each group must start bidding additional resources or break off the chase as exhaustion sets in.

For each round starting with 4, one character in the group must take the Exhaustion Condition. This condition has:

• All Challenges take a Penalty equal to the round number
• Severity equal to the round number

Once everyone in the party has this Condition, the group is no longer able to maintain the chase and stop. The other side either escapes or catches up, as appropriate.

Taking a shot

When in Close, the pursuers have the opportunity to use ranged effects.

• This triggers each time the quarry enters Close
• Make a Challenge using a single ranged effect such as an Art or Attack
• The quarry automatically moves to Neutral afterwards if they are still capable of movement
  • The next round begins with the quarry at Neutral
• This is optional

Tracking

There is no requirement that the quarry be aware that they are being pursued.

If the quarry is particularly far ahead, the storyteller may choose to place them at Distant, giving the trackers only a single chance to catch up.

However, the quarry still gets to Challenge Earth against the pursuer. On a success, the quarry becomes aware of pursuit by subtle signs such as faint noises, disrupted birds, and fluctuations in the ambient elements.

Stealth

Here stealth will include all forms of concealment. Like the elemental challenges themselves, stealth has multiple approaches.

• Hiding your physical presence through physical activity or manipulation of perception (Earth or Air)
• Misleading appearances, tailing in a crowd, and pickpocketing (Earth or Water)
• Forgery, lockpicking, breaking and entering (Earth or Fire)
• Cloaking one’s spirit and signs of Cultivation (LightEarth)
• Suppress signs of your living presence (DarkEarth)

Whichever tactic you choose, you will Challenge and set the Result into a Stealth defense. Associate that Stealth defense with a matching element from your approach.

• Example: Hiding your presence may be assigned to Earth or Air
• If you choose Air, foes Challenge Air to break your Stealth
• If you choose Earth, foes Challenge Earth

Once you set this Stealth defense, you may not change its element for the duration of its existence.

Degradation

Perfect Stealth is only possible if one has zero interactions with the outside world. Sadly, all living beings need to breathe. Stealth degradation represents all the small signs that betray your best attempts at stealth.

Every time you Challenge or otherwise interact with the world, you risk mistakes and evidence that lower your Stealth defense.

• Each time you Challenge, reduce your Stealth defense by 1d6
• In combat, your Stealth defense additionally degrades by 1d6 at the end of your turn
• If you share a zone with a foe, your Stealth degrades by an additional 1d6 at the start of their turn each round
  • This is per foe – try not to share an elevator with a phalanx of guards!

Limitations

Stealth requires a plausible mechanism for your actions. You cannot hide in the middle of a bright, empty room; nor can you credibly pretend to be the King in front of Aloran nobility. The Storyteller may choose to apply Penalties or to outright refuse an approach based on the logic of the Scene.

You cannot credibly hide in a situation where a rational observer can track your location. For example, if you hide behind a pillar during a fight, you are not usefully hidden. You have broken line of sight but your foes know your location. If you were able to teleport from behind the pillar to another location, then you could try to hide again as you would have broken the chain of logic to your current location.

Stealth does not remove a target’s Defenses. Even junior Cultivators are attuned enough to their surroundings to subconsciously sense the Killing Intent of an assassin.

Last, a word of warning: only the greatest of fools would pretend to be or act on behalf of the Grand Fae.

Targeting hidden foes

In general, any attempt to target a hidden foe fails. Even if you know the target’s last position, any ambiguity is enough for a cultivated opponent to avoid your effect.

You may use AOE abilities to target an area that contains a hidden foe. You choose the area to affect, expend any required resources, and Challenge to hit the foe(s) in that area.

This Challenge has two special clauses

• The storyteller does not have to provide any information on whether your effect was successful except on Flourish
• If the target is not in your affected area, your Challenge is treated as a Failure

Results:

• Disaster: Your ill-timed attempt grants the target additional cover. The target may roll Stealth defense again, compare to their current Stealth Defense, and apply the higher value as their new defense.
• Failure: Your attempt is wasted.
• Success: The target suffers the effect
• Flourish: Additionally, the target loses their Stealth defense and is revealed.

Targeting hidden allies

You as the player are aware of the location of your allies unless that ally explicitly requests to the storyteller to hide from your presence.

To your character, this awareness is the result of shared training, understanding, and cultivated senses. Rather than a literal tracker for ally position, this is the result of:

• Shared training and prior discussion
• Insight into your ally’s mindset
• Calculated predictions for your ally’s behavior

As a result, you are considered to have line of sight to hidden allies as long as no other obstructions or effects apply.

If an ally requests to hide from all awareness, you may Challenge their Stealth defense as usual to locate them. You may then aid, even if they whine about it.

The storyteller determines whether any potential aid would cause a penalty to the ally’s Stealth. Here are general guidelines:

• Physical interaction between a hidden character and a revealed character causes the hidden character to drop Stealth
• Covert aid does not endanger the hidden character’s Stealth
  • For example, dropping an item so that the hidden character may pick it up
• Beneficial Arts and Path powers do not reveal a hidden character
  • If a character has Ki Reading or other forms of special sight, Challenge against the acting character’s effect element
  • On a success, the inspecting character may automatically Challenge the hidden character’s Stealth
  • On a Flourish, the inspecting character gains a Bonus Ki
• Strange or repeated behaviors grant a Bonus Ki to Challenges against the hidden character’s Stealth

Distractions

You may spend your Stealth score to generate distractions. This is in addition to the usual degradation.

First, decide how much Stealth to spend.

Then Challenge the relevant element, adding +1 to your Challenge for every 5 points of Stealth spent.

• Disaster: Your stealth immediately drops to zero as you are revealed
• Failure: Your diversion fails
• Success: You successfully draw attention.
  • Choose 1 hidden ally to roll Stealth again.
  • That ally takes the higher of their current Stealth or the new Result
• Flourish: As success, but choose 2 allies to reroll.

Group stealth

When you establish a Stealth defense, you may provide that defense to one ally for free. This ally must stay within arm’s reach and generally follow your directions to benefit from this defense.

• The ally must accept your help before either of you Challenge
• If the ally has already rolled, they must use that Result; you may not aid them

Consider investing in Stealth arts to learn how to hide more people and more effectively.

Suggested Penalties:

• Penalty 5 if the ally is wounded
• Penalty 5 if the ally is heavily burdened or wearing clunky equipment

Invisibility

Invisibility grants a Bonus Ki to Stealth Challenges.

However, it is not a perfect art. You still breathe, generate body heat, make small noises, and generate Ki signatures. Remember that your target always retains their Defenses.

Invisible eye-stabbing

There are no exceptions to the ability of a cultivator to sense killing intent. This ability triggers automatically, even if the cultivator is sleeping.

Spirits and Shades

Mundane means of stealth are useless against Spirits and Shades. These rarified creatures sense the Light or Dark within you, no matter how well you hide in the bushes.

To hide from a Spirit, Challenge Earth or Light to harmonize your Ki with the surrounding terrain.

To hide from a Shade, Challenge Earth or Dark to suppress signs of your life such as pulse and body heat.

Disguises

When you don a Disguise, you gain armor against being identified. When an opponent would successfully identify you, you instead consume the Disguise equipment and remain incognito.

Most Disguises are equipment and sync to a Chakra.

Some Arts can generate a Disguise as well. For Arts that can generate a Disguise, you must exit the current Scene before you can trigger a new Disguise.

Alertness

For more complex Scenes, the storyteller can track Alertness. This is the level of security and alarm in the Scene.

When trouble arrives, awareness spreads unevenly. Random noises may be dismissed; guards might slack at their posts; people hesitate to raise an alarm for nothing.

• Alertness scales from d0 to d12
  • D0 is complete ignorance
  • D12 is total alarm and usually signals the beginning of an encounter

The storyteller controls the starting level of Alertness. Starting from D0, here are some suggestions on how to increase or decrease the value.

You may choose to go loud during this Scene; you automatically succeed at a task at the cost of automatic alertness. For example, you might secure entry into a building by breaking a window.

Alertness works best as a trigger mechanism. Before the Scene, the storyteller decides on thresholds. For example, “if Alertness reaches d6, additional guards arrive.”

Some example thresholds:

• Objective moved – valuable objects are moved to more secure locations
• Checkpoint set-up – Guards set up a checkpoint at an important area
• Lights on – Lamps or other lights are used to increase visibility
• Tightened security – additional patrols start to sweep an area
• Increased foes – More enemies enter the area
• Prisoner check – Wardens take a count of their ward

When Alertness is below d8, you may choose to retreat. You abandon your objective and return to neutral territory. Once Alertness reaches d8, you have raised sufficient ruckus that you may be pursued.

Additionally, once Alertness reaches d8, you begin to leave evidence of your presence that foes may use to piece together your identity and motives. You leave one such piece of evidence for every step of Alertness from d8 onwards.