HEROES  ⟩  CALLINGS

Arbiter

← Light Magic  ✧  Code of Fellowship →

  • Requires: Will ✦    
  • Start with:  5 Life, +1 Awareness, ✪ Soulgaze 
  • Choose Code:  Fellowship, Freedom, Glory, Honor, Justice, Order, Power, or Truth

Arbiters practice the "deep magic" of souls. While others might conceive of souls as invisible abstractions, Arbiters use a magical ability called ✪ Soulgaze to see souls as clear as day. Their magic is further empowered by the specific ideals they hold.  

What Souls Look Like

Against the background laminar flow of the undifferentiated Rephaim, souls appear as collections of distinct whorls and eddies superimposed over the bodies of conscious beings. 

A soul’s whorls and eddies are connected in a way that resembles the polyps of some colonial organism from the depths. Some whirl-polyps distend to form long tendrils and antennae—the soul’s intentions— probing the space in front of their bodies before causing those bodies to act. Others form more complex structures within the colony—the soul’s memories and ideals. 

The Magic of Arbiters

Arbiters can do more than just see souls. With careful thoughts and willful pronouncements, Arbiters can project tendrils of their own souls outward—inspiring the souls of allies, or grasping and dominating the souls of their enemies. 

Many Arbiters trace their calling back to the Code of the Clay King. This lore tradition records the laws and magical techniques of the Shinarian king Amurah. The term Arbiter itself comes from the title given to Amurah’s magisters who settled disputes in his name.

No matter their background, Arbiters are deeply attuned to their ideals. All Arbiters intuitively “see” ideals as the dynamos of souls.

Ask the Guide

Starting Ability

You start with the ✪ Soulgaze ability and its four spells: 𐎺Penetrating Gaze, 𐎺Abjuring Gaze, 𐎺Withering Gaze, and 𐎺Commune. 

You also start with one additional code ability based on an ideal you hold, which grants two additional spells. The ideal code abilities are described in the next sections. 

✪ Soulgaze

✦ Will  Take -1 awareness and roll Compel to gaze into a character’s soul. You can only Soulgaze one character at a time, and you and that character must be able to see each other. ✦ Success: You gain soulsight equal to your roll*, which you can immediately use to cast an Arbiter spell as a free action. You also learn the character’s ideals and mental stats (Will, Intellect, Awareness, and Spirit).⬖ Struggle: The character can take -1 spirit to rebuff your gaze. Otherwise, you gain 1 soulsight, but can't take a free action.ⓧ Failure: The character rebuffs your gaze: no effect.* If you know the Code of the Clay King lore, you gain additional soulsight equal to your Intellect. Soulsight is the degree to which you can magically sense and affect the soul of the character you targeted with Soulgaze. This character feels mesmerized by your gaze. Depending on your demeanor and ideals, they may also feel disturbed, enchanted, panicked, or some combination. Spells. You can expend soulsight to cast one of the following spells, or another Arbiter spell you know. Unless otherwise noted, all spells are directed at the target of your Soulgaze. Reaction. When a character you can see makes an attack or maneuver against you, you can Soulgaze them as a free action, before their action is resolved. You can't cast a spell as a free action after Soulgazing someone this way—though you can cast 𐎺Abjuring Gaze as a reaction to better defend yourself against the incoming attack or maneuver. 
Subtle Soulgazing Normally, Soulgazing is decidedly not subtle. But if you successfully Soulgaze a character, you can attempt to cover up your magic by making a free Deceive compel in place of casting a free spell. 

𐎺 Abjuring Gaze  |   SOULSIGHT  1

As a reaction, inflict compel disadvantage on the character's attack, brace, or maneuver against you. You can always cast this spell after Soulgazing a character, even reactively.

𐎺 Penetrating Gaze   |   SOULSIGHT  1

Gain compel advantage on an attack, brace, or maneuver against the character, which you can take as part of casting this spell.

𐎺 Withering Gaze   |   SOULSIGHT  2

Roll Compel to magically mesmerize, beguile, or dominate the character into dropping their guard. ✦ Success: Inflict -2 guard.⬖ Struggle: Inflict -1 guard.ⓧ Failure: The character rebuffs your magic. 

𐎺 Commune   |   SOULSIGHT  4

Roll Compel to magically send a statement, question, belief, or brief memory directly into the character’s soul. If a character shares your combination of ideal(s), you automatically succeed. ✦ Success: The character unambiguously understands or experiences whatever you send them, even if they don’t share a language with you. If they choose, they can respond by magically sending a similar statement, question, belief, or memory into your soul.⬖ Struggle: The character can take -1 spirit to rebuff you.ⓧ Failure: The character rebuffs your magic. A nonhostile character may allow you to succeed—though few would wish to have thoughts and experiences inserted into their own mind without a good reason.  As long as you don’t have the Truth ideal, you can use this spell to send a character a false belief or memory. Roll Deceive as a free action after casting the spell to determine if they believe your deception is genuine.

Codes of Ideals

When you start the game as an Arbiter, choose one Arbiter code, detailed in the subpages. This code must match one of your ideals. 

Each code includes a starting ability, which in turn includes two spells. You cast these spells by expending soulsight generated from Soulgaze. 

There are other abilities associated with each ideal you can learn with XP, but you must know the code ability before learning them. If you have a second ideal, you can learn its corresponding code and starting ability with XP—but you only start with one code. 

Normally, you can’t learn a code if you don’t have its ideal. But certain abilities offer a path to unlock the code from another ideal, enabling you to learn a broader array of magic without changing your own ideals. Alternatively, all Arbiters can gain one additional ideal by learning the ✪ Idealist ability.

Abilities to Learn 

.5xp new ability  |  10xp with attribute increase

✪ Idealist

✦✧ Will  You gain an additional ideal of your choice. 

✪ Resurgent Spirit

✦✧ Will  When you take -1 spirit to invoke an ideal, you regain the point of spirit if your ideal die result beats a certain threshold. That threshold depends on how many ideals you hold: 
  • 1 ideal: 5+
  • 2 ideals: 6+
  • 3 ideals: 7+
You only regain spirit this way based on the ideal die result, not the action die result. Also, this ability only works if you take -1 spirit to invoke the ideal. 

✪ Evil Eye

✦✧ Will  Your baleful gaze deters foes from harming you. When a foe under your soulsight attacks you and their result doesn’t beat your Will, treat the attack as a miss. 

✪ Soul Flow

✦✦✧ Will  You know the following two spells: 𐎺Drink Soul and 𐎺Osmosis.

𐎺 Drink Soul   |   SOULSIGHT  8

Roll Compel to absorb a character’s soul. You can only use this ability if:
  • You’re in a grapple with the character, AND
  • The character has a quarter or less of their Life remaining.
✦ Success: The character dies, and you fall unconscious for an hour.⬖ Struggle: The character can take -1 spirit to cause your spell to fail.ⓧ Failure: You fall unconscious for an hour.If you’re Shinarian or have a Vessel body, the character’s soul exists inside you indefinitely in its own canal circuit. When you awaken, you can access and communicate with the soul as described by the Second Soul ability in the Shinar origin section. You can absorb a number of souls equal to your Will in this way. If you have an organic body, when you awaken, you’re wracked by disorienting glimpses of the character’s memories. Your Awareness maximum is reduced to zero until you convalesce during Downtime. Afterward, the soul dissipates into your own consciousness, and your maximum Awareness is permanently reduced by 1.Regardless of your body material, you learn all of the character’s known lore, languages, and literacy (though not their lore abilities, which must be learned with XP), and you can recollect their memories. 

𐎺 Osmosis   |   SOULSIGHT  4

Roll Compel to absorb a character’s spirit. The character must not share any of your ideals. Your magic works by pulling spirit from where it’s concentrated in an ideal toward where it’s lacking. If you use this technique on a character who shares one of your ideals, it fails. The magic also fails if the character has no spirit.✦ Success: The character suffers -1 spirit and -2 awareness. You recover +1 spirit. ⬖ Struggle: The foe can take -1 spirit to rebuff your magic.ⓧ Failure: No effect.

✪ Code of the Arbiter

✦✧ Intellect  Requires ✪ Code of Justice and ✪ Code of Power. You have come to understand that Justice requires a code of Law to communicate, and Power requires a code of Law to wield. You gain +1 maximum Awareness. This ability yields additional benefits related to the Code of the Clay King lore. If you know the Code of the Clay King, this ability unlocks a deeper understanding of ideals, magic, and the world. You gain an additional +2 maximum Awareness, +1 maximum Spirit, and +1 maximum Life. You feel enriched by the wisdom of one who has traveled this path before. You can almost feel their presence within your own soul, like a cloudy but vivid memory of a teacher or parent—stern, but immensely wise, and inarguably fair in their pronouncements. You can speak to this presence if you like, and it can guide you to fulfill your destiny. If you don’t know the Code of the Clay King, this ability enables you to learn it during Downtime, along with the Shinarian language and literacy in Forms, without needing a teacher or the text—at which point you immediately gain the additional benefits described above. If you’re Shinarian, you can simply listen to a voice that seems to come from within your own body. If you’re from another origin, you feel drawn toward bare rocks, stone, and especially objects crafted of clay, the surfaces of which seem to be covered with ephemeral Forms which are only visible to you. Somehow, you learn to read these Forms, which spell out an understanding of the Code of the Clay King.