Your ideals drive your character. They help define your character’s personality, provide context for their actions, and help you—the player—roleplay social encounters.
There are eight ideals, listed below. Choose one or two that exemplify your character more than the rest.
Fellowship
You value community, generosity, respect for others, and self-sacrifice. You may feel an especially strong responsibility to protect your family, friends, hometown, culture—or even all sentient life. Or you may be devoted to your closest allies, or even just one person.Freedom
You wish to be unfettered—from oppression and tyranny, or perhaps from something less high-minded, like duty, law, or social obligation. Maybe you’re an explorer, a freethinker, or a creative soul. Or maybe you just want to go where you want to go and do what you want to do.Glory
You seek renown, without fear—of battle, of loss, of the unknown that awaits beyond the horizon. Perhaps you’re driven to bring glory to your family or culture. Or maybe you simply want history to remember your name. Honor
You follow and seek to uphold a strict code of conduct. This code may reflect the laws of society, the ways of a particular culture, your family’s traditions, or your own set of ethics. Justice
You cannot abide those who do wrong and get away with it. Perhaps you want to restore balance to the teetering world, or perhaps you’re an agent of the Empire or other authority seeking to uphold its vanishing laws. Vigilantes and vengeance-seekers are also driven by the ideal of justice. Order
You seek to uphold stability, rules, and structure. Perhaps you serve an authority which you believe gives order to the world—or which you believe should be reordered to reflect the proper state of things. Or maybe you believe that your life, or all life, is part of a grand plan.Power
You understand that, to some extent at least, might makes right. Perhaps you seek to gather power for yourself, so you can sit atop the hierarchy—or simply so you can become the master of your own destiny. Truth
You seek knowledge above all else. Perhaps you’re a scholar, seeking out the true history of the Skysea. Or maybe you’ve dedicated your life to uncovering the lies of the powerful.Most characters have a pair of ideals, with each providing context for the other. For example, you might be driven to explore the world and find lost artifacts far from the confines of civilization. This drive can be expressed by a combination of the ideals Freedom and Truth.
Or, you can choose a single ideal. Achilles, the legendary ancient Greek hero, would probably have one ideal: Glory. Such characters come off as single-minded and perhaps even obsessed.
Invoking Ideals
You can invoke your character’s ideals to empower your actions and resist certain kinds of magical effects. Invoking an ideal takes -1 spirit and grants you a special advantage die, the ideal die.
The Guide determines the ideal die’s size—d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or rarely, a d20—based on how appropriate and dramatic your invocation is.
"In the name of fellowship, I will stand fast in the threshold!"
"Freedom cannot be bought, imperial scum!"
"Generations will sing tales of my glory!"
"Upon my honor, the empire will never fall to the likes of you!"
"You can crouch behind your shield, but you cannot hide from justice."
"Destiny guides me to preserve the order of Tel-Kanan!"
"My spirit overflows with a power that you cannot see."
"Truth is coveted for its own intrinsic beauty— except, perhaps,
by those who have never tasted its sweetness."
When the Guide determines the size of an ideal die, they're making a snap judgment call. How apropos is this ideal to the situation? How does the ideal fit the action? How dramatic is the moment?
The answers may not be obvious, and they'll vary from Guide to Guide. They might even vary from situation to situation in the same game, run by the same Guide. As a hero, accept their decision and roll with it!
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