Vislae aren’t like other people. They’re not just normal folks who happen to know a few spells (and for that matter, “knowing a spell” is much more than waving your hands the right way and saying some magic words). Strangeness follows them, even by the standards of a world that might be characterized as already being full of strangeness, or in a world where “strange” is normal. Some of this is good, and offers vislae advantages that others do not have. Some of this strangeness is an outright danger, the sort of thing that makes even people in Indigo sometimes avoid them or never attempt to learn the art of magic in the first place.
Some of the more significant bits of strangeness in a vislae’s existence include the following.
✦✦ Vislae know a secret language that only they can speak.
✦✦ Vislae houses are usually haunted by spirits or infested by magical pests.
✦✦ Vislae houses often end up with a secret room that even the vislae didn’t know was there (at least at first).
✦✦ As time goes on, the appearance of some vislae changes drastically. Powerful vislae don’t necessarily look human—or in some cases organic—unless it suits their desire.
✦✦When a vislae dies, they often have the ability to return as a ghost, or restore themselves back to life.
✦✦When a vislae dies, their body often reflects some aspect of their nature. The body of a corrupt mage full of despair might be found swarming with beetles. The body of a more pure-hearted vislae might crumble into a series of sacred relics.
Creating a character involves a number of steps, and at each step, you must make choices. This process isn’t just to determine how hardy your character is and how many skills and spells they can use. It’s also to develop a character with a background, a personality, and goals. A character with a life.
Everything in the Invisible Sun game revolves around the characters and their character arcs, so characters are intricate and complex, just like real people. Developing a character’s background, home, connections, rivals, and so on—all of which are called a character’s foundation—is such an important part of the game that the first session is always a group experience where all such information is created. In other words, a player creates their character, but the group helps create the context around that character in a formal (and fun) process that begins a narrative.
Vislae are tied to the Invisible Sun and its guardian, Visla. Hence the name. They draw their magical power from the Invisible Sun, and thus a fundamental part of their very nature is wrapped up in the connection with it that they take with them everywhere they go. All vislae carry an object that represents this connection. This object is called the Testament of Suns and looks like a stylized hand with six fingers.
Because nothing can ever mean just one thing, however, the Testament also describes a vislae’s unique individual nature. Each of the fingers represents a different aspect of the character. In the secret language of the vislae, those six aspects are tor, da, tu, ka, la, and ver. Translated, those mean order, heart, forte, soul, foundation, and arc. Character creation involves determining each of these six aspects, in that sequence. So the
Testament of Suns is a guide through character creation and an icon representing the finished character. (As it also represents the Invisible Sun, it figures prominently into the use of the Sooth Deck.) Apostates, of course, must be different from everyone else. Apostates are vislae who reject the orders of magic, and thus reject the Testament of Suns. They carry their own object, which they call the vertula kada. This name comes from all the aspects of a character other than order, because they eschew orders. A vertula kada is a more abstract, angular, multi-piece object of glass, crystal, or metal. But since most vislae use the Testament of Suns, and since you don’t know what order to choose before character creation begins, we will use the Testament as our guide through the character creation process.
Once character creation is complete, each vislae can be described in a sentence: “I am a blank blank of the Order of blank who blanks.” Four of the character’s aspects determine the parts of that sentence. So a character is a [FOUNDATION] [HEART] of the Order of [ORDER] who [FORTE]. The Black Cube provides blank versions of the four-page character tome a player uses to record all their information.
Alternatively, some players might choose to have the heart be an adjective rather than a noun in their sentence, making the name of their order the noun. (Each of the heart names are also, handily, an adjective.) This makes the sentence instead: “I am a [FOUNDATION], [HEART] [ORDER] who [FORTE].” So a character might be an Itinerant Galant of the Order of the Vance who Revels in Beauty, or they might be an Itinerant, Galant Vance who Revels in Beauty.
With the Testament in mind, you create a vislae in six steps, listed below. Some of the steps are simple, and others are involved. All exist so that you can develop a deep and dynamic character. Six is the number of death and is generally regarded as ill-favored, so we shall include a seventh step, which involves the bonds a character has with their closest friends. But seven is the number of change and transition, and eight is the number of rebirth and new beginnings (and in so many ways, vislae returning from Shadow are, in a very real sense, experiencing rebirth). So there are, in fact, eight steps to character creation that we will number 0 through 7. (0 is numbered as such because it is optional and exists outside the aspects of a character, dealing more with the player.)
You can do steps 0 through 4 on your own, although doing them in conjunction with the game master (GM) is not a bad idea. Steps 5 through 7 should be done in conjunction with the other players, and will likely be handled when you get together for the first session of the game. Steps 1 through 7 all have their own dedicated chapters in this tome to help guide you through the choices involved.
Step 0: Choose a roleplaying style.
Step 1: Choose an order.
Step 2: Choose a heart.
Step 3: Choose a forte.
Step 4: Choose a soul.
Step 5: Build a foundation.
Step 6: Choose a character arc.
Step 7: Create bonds and an initial group desideratum.
Why a “step 0?” Well, because it’s sort of optional. This choice doesn’t shape your character in any way. However, it accomplishes two things. First and foremost, it gets you thinking about how you want to proceed with the other steps. Second, it informs the GM of your desires and intentions, which is helpful and important for them to develop the game you’re all going to play. In fact, the GM sections of The Gate reference these styles many times in relation to events, goals, and experiences in Invisible Sun.
There are four roleplaying styles, all extremely broad: builder, explorer, attainer, and achiever. They don’t speak to the kinds of encounters you enjoy playing or how you approach different challenges. Instead, since the game encourages you to be very proactive, they cover what motivates your character.
BUILDER
A builder adds to the world. They look beyond themselves and see the bigger picture, and they want to be a part of it. They want to make their mark on the world by creating something new: a home, an organization, a book of lore, or anything else. This drive to create could be altruistic, or it might be selfish. Either way, builders are organized dreamers with big plans.
EXPLORER
Explorers look for new people, places, things, and experiences. They seek understanding. Knowledge. Nothing is more intriguing to the explorer than what lies behind a locked door, within the pages of a forbidden book, or in the mind of an intriguing nonplayer character (NPC). Anything else in the game is just a means to the end of answering every question, solving every mystery, and exploring every nook and cranny.
ATTAINER
An attainer is inwardly focused. They amass power and seek self-improvement. They want more spells, more skills, more abilities, more cool gear, and more money. They might have plans for what they amass, or they might just be gathering it all for its own sake. Either way, they are focused on the tally sheet of what they have, what they know, and what they can do.
ACHIEVER
An achiever is story-focused. Goals are important, and success at achieving them is paramount. Achievers set specific goals for themselves, and then develop plans for how to reach them. Alternatively, achievers are the ones who grab hold tightest when a story hook is placed before them. They want to see a story completed. All the rest is just a part of the larger tale being told.
Step 1 is choosing your order because it is likely the most fundamental choice you’ll make. Every character is broadly defined by creating a sentence about them. In the character sentence, the order is the noun. While it’s not the first part of the sentence, it’s probably the most important.
Understandably, then, while a player makes many choices, none is more important than their order. An order is an organization that they belong to and can advance within, and that determines the way they express their magical talents. There are four (no, five) orders: Vances, Makers, Weavers, and Goetics. There are also Apostates, who eschew the orders. The different orders approach the use of magic in entirely different ways—each has its own “system” of magic. The character tomes are individualized based on order, so there is a different version tailored to each.
When referring to their order, Vances say, “Order of the Vance.” Weavers and Makers just say, “Order of Weavers” and “Order of Makers.” Goetics sometimes say, “Order of Goetics” and other times use the more formal “Order of Goetica.” Apostates just say, “an Apostate.” Collectively, all vislae are sometimes referred to as the Invisible Church, again showing their connection to the Invisible Sun and its patron/warden, Visla.
In brief, Vances are sorcerers who prepare and cast spells they learn from books, and they believe that spells are, in their own way, intelligent in and of themselves. Makers, as the name suggests, use magic to create powerful items. Weavers cast spells with a very fluid and improvisational sort of sorcery. Goetics use their magical skills to summon demons and other creatures to do their bidding. Apostates dwell outside these categories and find their own paths. For more on orders, see Order.
Your heart defines your essence. It is the most basic building block of your character. It is a broad personality type, but it is also an essential marker for a character that ties them into how they interact with the ebbs and flows of magic. There are four different hearts to choose from in Heart: intuitive, quick thinking Galants; contemplative, thoughtful Stoics; emotional, personable Empaths; and passionate, hair-trigger Ardents.
Heart is what determines the starting values of your stats, Certes and Qualia. Look to Statistics and Skills for information on stats.
Forte plays a huge part in determining what your character does. This is why all fortes have names that are verbs rather than nouns. Fuses Nightmare to Fist, for example, or Breathes Runes. While order determines many of your capabilities and skills, forte is the all-important facet that makes your character unique. A Goetic who Dwells in Darkness is going to use his order’s summoning skills and spells very differently than a Goetic who Channels Strength and Skill. The former is likely to deal with demons to help uncover secret, hidden lore, while the latter will focus on summoning entities to complement the knowledge and abilities he channels from others. Look to Forte for dozens of fortes to choose from.
Later, your forte might gain an appurtenance that modifies it even more, but starting characters don’t need to worry about that.
All characters have a secret. Well, they likely have many, but the deepest secret anyone possesses lies within their own soul. All vislae have an allegiance to one of thirteen secret souls. These secret souls are governed by a group of beings called the Magisterium. Each has a Soul Guardian that a vislae can call upon in a time of need (for a hefty price that has little to do with money).
This means every vislae has a portion of their soul that is connected to the larger world. How this portion aligns with that same portion of other vislae’s souls determines a bit of significant information about the vislae.
Soul allegiances can help determine outlook and personality, to a degree, but they affect magic more directly, particularly for advanced characters. They are to be kept secret, and as such are never mentioned as part of the sentence that describes the character. To put it another way, secret souls are the unspoken part of the describing sentence. You’ll find more about souls in Soul.
Your foundation is your life. Where do you live? What did you do before? What did you do while in Shadow? Who do you know?
This is the first step that you should do at least partially in conjunction with the other players. In fact, The First Session offers a system designed so that they can help you.
Foundation defines:
✦✦ the vislae’s home (and neighborhood)
✦✦ the vislae’s Shadow skill
✦✦ the vislae’s Shadow memento
✦✦ the vislae’s personal quirk
✦✦ the vislae’s connections and NPC bonds
More information on developing a foundation can be found in Foundation.
Character arcs offer the main way for characters to earn the points that they spend to advance (called Acumen and Crux). They are a way for a character to have a goal and take steps to advance that goal.
You might start with a desire to find a mentor, learn a secret, or avenge the death of a friend, for example. The character arc tracks your progress as you attempt to accomplish one of those things. You start with a single arc. You can undertake as many arcs as you wish as the game progresses—many being suggested by the events of the narrative—but some character arcs have a cost to begin. However, the arc you choose at the beginning is always free.
More information on character arcs can be found in Character Arcs.
The very end of the character creation process requires the GM and other players. At this time, you develop the neighborhood around your house, choose the bonds you have with the other PCs, determine what ephemera you begin the game with, and devise the group’s initial general goal, called the desideratum.
When you build a character’s foundation, it becomes crystal clear that in Invisible Sun, PCs are individuals with their own agendas, their own homes, and their own lives. But roleplaying games are about groups of PCs working together, and (other than in Development Mode, which is a separate style of play) Invisible Sun is no exception. So why do the PCs work together?
Because they have bonds that tie them together, forming relationships. Bonds can define familial relationships, friendship, romantic interest, debt obligations, and more. What’s more, characters might gain both special advantages and drawbacks based on the bonds they choose.
Not every character needs to be bonded to every other character, but each PC needs to have a bond to at least one other character. PCs can also have bonds to specific NPCs or connections to groups and organizations as well. These are handled as part of a character’s foundation.
You will definitely want to work with the other players while creating PC bonds.
More information on devising bonds can be found in The First Session.
Although they are important to character creation, some of the rules concepts mentioned in this book aren’t found here, but are discussed fully in other books. The main examples are briefly defined below. For more information on any aspect of the setting, see The Path.
The way you measure character advancement is through Acumen and Crux. These are points you earn for performing tasks or having significant experiences. The things that earn you Acumen or Crux might not be the same things that earn them for other characters, as each character has a different path, different goals, and different arcs. Crux are divided into Joy and Despair. Very generally speaking, you gain Joy when good things happen, and Despair when bad things happen. 1 Joy and 1 Despair, together, form 1 Crux, so you need some of both in your life. Generally, Crux allow you to gain greater abilities related to your order and your forte, while Acumen allow you to gain new ad-hoc abilities like spells, secrets, and skills.
When you attempt to do something, the GM will assign it a challenge. If it’s trivial (like walking across the room), the challenge is 0, which means there’s no die roll involved. Most of the time, you don’t even phrase it in terms of game mechanics. The GM just says, “Okay, then what do you do?” If it’s not trivial, the challenge is 1 or higher. Most of the time, challenges don’t go above 10 unless there’s something quite extraordinary involved. Meanwhile, the player puts forth a venture. Venture is the total amount by which you modify the action. You might add skill level, circumstance modifiers, or points you spend from your stats. All of this will be explained more fully later, but what you need to know now is that each time you add to your action (such as if a spell gives you +1 to persuasion attempts), you’re adding to your venture. When you have a total, you subtract the venture from the challenge. If the result is 0 or less, you don’t need to roll. If the result is 1 or higher, that’s the number you need to roll on your die to succeed.
Spells are magical workings performed by vislae to accomplish all manner of tasks. They can include rendering you invisible, protecting you from harm, or transporting you great distances. Spells have levels, and the higher the level, the more powerful the spell. To cast a spell, you must pay a cost equal to its level from your Sorcery stat pool (Sorcery is a part of your Qualia, described in Statistics and Skills).
Spells, of course, are only one type of magical working (the most common). There are also minor magical practices called cantrips, charms, signs, and hexes. There are long-form workings called enchantments, rituals, and invocations.
Characters learn new spells (and other workings) by spending Acumen, typically 1 point per spell level.
Secrets are things you can learn to “shortcut” reality. They provide ways to do things that you shouldn’t be able to do normally. For example, normally you can’t put more power into a spell to increase its effectiveness. Normally, you can’t know when someone speaks your name 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away. Normally, you can’t steal an idea right out of someone’s mind. But with secrets, you can do all of these things and more.
Like spells, secrets have levels. Unlike spells, it usually doesn’t cost you anything to use an ability unlocked through a secret.
Characters learn new secrets by spending Acumen, typically 1 point per secret level.
When you suffer damage, it comes in the form of Injuries. An attack that inflicts 2 damage gives you 2 Injuries. When you have 3 Injuries, they become a Wound (if the attack was physical) or an Anguish (if the attack was to your mind). If you suffer 3 Wounds or Anguish, you die.
Certain things will absorb or negate incoming damage. Some particularly horrific (usually magical) attacks skip Injuries and inflict Wounds or Anguish directly.
Ephemera objects and objects of power are items imbued with magic that a character will gain throughout the narrative. Ephemera are one-use items like a potion you drink or an amulet whose power you call upon and consume. Objects of power last longer—sometimes forever. Characters are limited in how many ephemera they can have at one time. Rather than a physical ephemera object, a character can meditate to learn fleeting spell-like practices called incantations. Powerful vislae can choose which incantations they have access to, but normally these are seemingly magical whims gifted by the universe, if the vislae is open to such things.
Like just about everything else, ephemera and objects of power have levels.
When something significant happens in the game, the GM will turn over a card in the Sooth Deck. Among other things, the card revealed will change the way magic works, making certain spells and effects more powerful, and others less so. These changes are frequent and usually fleeting, and they reflect the fact that the magical world is a complex, ever-shifting one. Since events that cause a card turn are usually magical, this shows that the more one uses magic, the more magic gets disrupted, like a still pond into which more and more pebbles are dropped, causing ripples that then interact with other ripples, and so on.