You'd have to be pretty naive to want to be given a special purpose by the gods. Those poor doomed bastards are in for the ride of their lives, and they can never get off it.
Chosen is an archetype for those players who either want a more monomythic play experience or who wish to drastically change their campaign world by loading a plot-gun with a powerful adventurer-bullet. It requires a fair amount of back-and-forth cooperation between player and referee in order to work properly and thus might not be a good fit for every group dynamic. If everyone agrees it seems pretty fun, though, then knock yourselves out.
| Chosen | You have a destiny to fulfill. | |
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| caret-right | Guide | Receive directions. |
| caret-right | Magnetism | Compel help from others. |
| caret-right | Road of Trials | Experience quest success. |
| caret-right | Secret Origins | Your past holds a secret. |
| caret-right | Sidequester | Your fate's less rigid. |
| Protection | plus-circlePawn of Fate: Whether by prophecy, divine meddling, family inheritance, shadowy plotting or sheer bad luck you happen to be The Chosen One. You have a grand destiny to fulfill (whether you want to or not), and almost nothing can keep you from it. Pick a grand task to serve as your destiny, or if you're not sure you can use the Destiny Table below for inspiration. As usual, your referee has the ability to veto your proposed destiny. plus-circlePlot Armor: Unless and until your destiny is fulfilled, you cannot die or be killed. If you would normally die as part of your normal adventuring, you somehow miraculously survive instead and show up alive with 1 Flesh as soon as the immediate danger is past. minus-circleBook of Tears: Make a list of things your Chosen adventurer loves, like “my husband”, “my secondhand furniture business”, or “my ability to speak.” Try to put down at least three or four things. Every time you survive something that should have killed you, you lose one of these things permanently and irreversibly (either directly as a result of your survival or as a seemingly cruel coincidence). The referee gets to choose what exactly you lose. If your list doesn't have anything impactful enough on it (or you've burned through everything on it already), the referee can come up with something else up to and including more abstract valuables like “being recognizably human” or “my ability to feel love”. plus-circleNo Cascade Tragedies: No matter how many times you cheat death, you need only pay the sacrificial price a maximum of once per session. minus-circleTragic End: Fate is uncaring and exploitative. When the Chosen manages to finally succeed in fulfilling their destiny, they die (either as part of their success or immediately afterwards). Dead Chosen cannot be returned to life by any means. minus-circleFate is Calling: You can only gain XP during/after a session if you did something during that session directly related to fulfilling your destiny. |
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| Sidebar: Destiny Table |
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| 1. Become ruler of the land. 2. Avert a catastrophe. 3. Defeat a great evil. 4. End an ancient conflict. 5. Bring about a new era. 6. Recover a long-lost artifact. 7. Set right a great injustice. 8. Reveal an ancient secret. 9. Topple an empire. 10. Awaken a slumbering force. 11. Lead your people to victory. 12. Do something long thought impossible. If you need more inspiration (or don't want a destiny you can accomplish too quickly), roll twice. You have to do the first thing in order to cause the second. |
| Utility | plus-circleWise And Helpful Guide: You know your destiny, but not necessarily how to accomplish it. Luckily for you, Fate has furnished you with a guide (such as a talking squirrel, portable AI interface, absent father reachable by cell phone, or simply just a voice in your head). You can ask your guide what you should do next to help accomplish your destiny at any time and the referee will straight-up tell you the answer. minus-circleSometimes Cryptic: While the referee will always tell you the truth (or at least their best guess at the truth) they don't necessarily have to explain their reasoning. If your destiny is to slay the Chode-Beast which can only be finished off with the Mystic Megaspoon which is hidden in The Crypts of Wankadoodle, then your guide might say “seek out the Crypts of Wankadoodle” without actually mentioning why they are relevant. Fate rarely stops to explain itself, and Chosen often have to trust blindly in the path being laid out before them. |
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| Social | plus-circleHeroic Charisma: Others subconsciously know that you have a grand fate to keep and tend to help as best they can. You can leverage this to compel them to do you favors along the way. plus-circleFreebies: If you desire a minor favor that carries little or no risk to the subject (like getting a bouncer to let you in or convincing a bored guard not to inspect your cart's contents too closely), Magnetism compels the target to do it for you freely and automatically. minus-circleReluctance: If you desire a favor that carries some amount of risk or sacrifice for the target (such as convincing a beggar to hide you from your pursuers or getting a police officer to lend you their spare uniform) then you must spend 1 Mojo to compel the favor. minus-circleDoom: If you desire a favor that could easily ruin/end the life of its target (such as getting the senator to vouch for you or convincing the guard to leave the back gate unlocked) you must spend 3 Mojo to compel it. minus-circleNo Loose Threads: You can only use Magnetism to compel favors that arguably help you in fulfilling your destiny. Random other nonsense favors cannot benefit from this ability. minus-circleConfrontation: You cannot compel favors from anybody that is personally invested in your failure to fulfill your destiny. If your destiny is to overthrow a wicked king, for example, then the king himself and his closest circle of confidantes will likely be immune to your magnetism. |
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| Utility | plus-circleIrresistible Force: You are drawn inexorably towards your final confrontation, and all the challenges and obstacles in your path are fated to fall before you. You can choose to turn any trigger die result into a 12 immediately after you roll it regardless of what you actually rolled. minus-circleSpinner's Fee: Every time you change a trigger die result to 12, you must spend 1 Mojo. minus-circleNo Side Streets on the Road of Trials: You may only use Road of Trials to change trigger die results that are directly related to you fulfilling your destiny. |
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| Social | plus-circleNo-So-Humble Beginnings: At any time after taking the Secret Origins ability, you can declare something hidden in your backstory that becomes 100% canon and undeniable to all (such as being the true lost heir to the throne, being the only living student of the ancient master to survive, being a clone of the space tyrant grown by his enemies in secret, or some other similar kind of thing). The referee can veto anything that's absolutely strictly impossible, but is encouraged not to. minus-circleMo Money Mo Problems: If your backstory carries any kind of potential complications, then they will inevitably show up. If you're the King's bastard son, expect assassination attempts from your scheming half-siblings. If your mother was a dragon, she might come calling later. Stuff like that. minus-circleOne Twist Per Customer: You can only use Secret Origins to add an unusual fact to your backstory once, ever. You are not required to do so immediately upon getting the ability and can freely wait as long as you want to reveal your big secret. You are also not obligated to decide exactly what your big secret is right away and can wait until you come up with something you like/would be helpful. |
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| Utility | plus-circleInheritance: Once you reveal your secret origin, you immediately learn the root ability in a new archetype of your choosing that is related to your origin somehow. For example, if you turn out to be the last surviving scion of an ancient line of demon hunters that was thought to be extinct, you could immediately learn the Helsing archetype. This archetype doesn't count against your normal limit of one known archetype/ability per level and does not need to be a archetype that has previously been unlocked in your campaign. plus-circleFree Growth: You can freely learn advanced abilities from the archetype provided by Secret Origins when you level up as normal for learning new abilities. Unlike normal level-based ability learning, doing so does not require a keystone. |
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| Utility | plus-circleVengeance: Working to avenge the loss of something that was taken from you as a result of evading death in the past counts as working to fulfill your destiny for purposes of being eligible for XP rewards during a session and using all Chosen archetype features. plus-circleSatisfaction Achieved: If you manage to properly avenge something you've lost in a satisfying way, you immediately gain +5 XP. plus-circleFraternity of Fate: If another adventurer in your party also has levels in the Chosen archetype, then working to fulfill their destiny also counts as working to fulfill your own destiny for purposes of being eligible for XP rewards during a session and using all Chosen archetype features. |
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| Utility | plus-circleEpilogue: Your ultimate fate need not be terrible. If you successfully fulfill your destiny, you may choose to immediately retire (and reap all associated rewards/benefits) instead of dying. | |