Connections

All characters, whether player or NPC, have four Connections: Self, Social, Nature, and Magic. These shift according to character type, character decisions, game events, and the passing of time.

Connections are scored 0 to 10, to determine their strength. They do not require balancing, but do affect the Balances. Needs to go into depth about how Connections are formed – how do you buy up a Connection? Are there penalties at low values?

The Rule of Zero

If a character’s Connection ever loses its last point, and drops to zero because of a Burn, a blowback penalty, or other action or consequence, the character goes into crisis. If C:Self:Body hits zero, the character dies. If C:Magic drops to zero, the character loses access to the magic of their Profession, and cannot connect to their Season or Element. They cannot be affected directly by magic, both healing and damaging, but will be affected by physical effects such as fire.

The character and/or their support network must take immediate, drastic action if the Connection is to be restored. If it can’t be, the character passes to the control of the GM and becomes a problem the community will have to solve, one way or another. If the character is redeemed through community action, revived by healing magic, woven back into the fabric of magic through their Connection: Nature, or what have you, the player has the option of regaining control of the character.

Self

This represents the character’s anchoring to their physical, mental, and emotional form. Self has three tracks, Body, Mind, and Spirit, each of which represent an aspect of health. Player characters start with 7 points in each of the three tracks.

• Body: Take physical damage, and Connection: Self: Body drops. If a character loses their Connection to their Body, they die.

• Mind: Psychic damage, such as magical feedback, reduces Mind. Lose too much and the character stops being able to function, and may go insane, feral, or catatonic.

• Spirit: Emotional trauma reduces Spirit. Lose Connection to Spirit and the character loses control of their emotions and their soul, possibly losing empathy, becoming a berserker, or losing their Season alignment and with it their connection to the magic.

Social

Dividing into Family, Community, and Tribe, these are the character's ties with others. Using Connections: Social can gain the character goods, services, and assistance, but will reduce the Connection score, which must be restored by helping others. Player characters start with 15 points to distribute across the Social tracks. Most people will have more points in Family than Community, and more in Community than Tribe, but this will of course vary according to the character’s backstory.

• Family represents the character’s relationship with their immediate blood or adopted relatives - parents, children, siblings, and other relatives out to one remove, such as aunts, uncles,and cousins. This is the character’s immediate social support, lack of which can cause serious emotional harm, up to and including loss of Connection: Self: Spirit. If a character lacks Family Connection, they’re probably carrying some trauma around it. An Order can substitute for blood relatives, and form the Family, if the structure of the Order allows it. Not all Orders will raise children within their communities.

• Community represents the larger social grouping, such as the people of the character’s home village or neighborhood. These are close friends, people the character grew up with, people in the same trade guild, not blood relatives but folks that the character can rely on in a pinch.

• Tribe represents those people whom the character identifies with that surpass Dunbar’s Number, the generalized cloud of people out there that the character has something in common with – birthplace, nationality, whatever. These people will recognize the character as One of Ours, but are unlikely to feel any special relationship with them.

Nature

Critical for survival, Nature represents the character's ties with the physical world. Connection: Nature influences the character's impact on the world as well as their ability to put it to use. A low Connection: Nature will result in bad things happening to the environment as results of the character's actions, not necessarily intentionally but from lack of awareness. Losing this Connection prevents the character from communing with nature to shift their Focus toward External, among other dire effects. Player characters start with 5 points in the Nature track.

Magic

Ties with mystical forces and entities, this will wax and wane according to the Seasons for those with Soul alignments, reducing or boosting their ability to work magic. While the Aseasonal do not have Seasonal variations in their Connection: Magic, their work with the Deep Knowledge can be much more expensive in terms of Connection points than Season magic. When Connection: Magic drops, working magic may require Pushing Focus and Mystic much more strongly toward Internal to compensate. Losing Connection: Magic entirely cuts the character off from one of the basic forces of the world, costing them aspects of their Profession as one of the minor effects. Player characters start with 2 points in the Magic track.