A character carries traits: an illness, a temperament, a mood, a wound, an office. They appear on your Account page under What you carry, and some of them appear on your public record for anybody to read. This chapter is about how they come and go, and which of them the world shows.
Every trait is either public or private, and the world decides which. There is nothing you can do about it: no setting, no action, and no way to hide a public trait or reveal a private one.
Your Account page lists what you carry under two headings, Public traits and Private traits, and leaves out either heading when there is nothing under it. Another player opening your character record sees the public list and nothing else: not the names of your private traits, not when you gained them, not that you have any at all.
| public | private |
|---|---|
| the epidemic, while you have it | immunity to it |
| pious, religious leader, archprelate | every mood: happy, sad, angry, depressed |
| optimistic, pessimistic, fiery | gay, until you are 18 |
| wounded, and every lasting injury | |
| dishonoured | |
| hale, frail, fertile | |
| rooted, restless | |
| child, baby | |
| every deed, and born in the purple |
One trait crosses the line: gay is private through childhood and becomes public on the year you turn 18. That happens on its own, and it happens only once.
Some traits come at birth. Every newborn rolls for each of them, whoever their parents are:
| trait | chance at birth | passed on by a parent? |
|---|---|---|
| gay | 5 in 100 | never |
| optimistic | 10 in 100 | yes |
| pessimistic | 10 in 100 | yes |
| fiery | 10 in 100 | yes |
| hale | 5 in 100 | yes |
| frail | 5 in 100 | yes |
| fertile | 5 in 100 | yes |
| rooted | 5 in 100 | yes |
| restless | 5 in 100 | yes |
On top of that, each of these traits a parent carries, gay apart, has a 1 in 4 chance of passing to each of their children, from each parent, on top of the birth roll. A child born with a trait and inheriting it too carries it once. Gay never passes from a parent: a gay parent's children have exactly the same 5-in-100 chance as anybody else's.
These are for life. Nothing removes them.
Hale and frail. A hale character's chance of dying in any year is four fifths of what it would otherwise be; a frail character's is a fifth more. Like every health trait, it matters most when you are old, since that is when the chance is large. Nobody is both: a child who would be born with or inherit both keeps one of the two, either equally likely.
Fertile. A fertile character's yearly fertility chance is 85 in 100 rather than the usual 70. It counts alongside gay, so somebody who is both has 35 in 100. It never makes a sterile character fertile.
Rooted and restless. Two temperaments, and nobody is both: a child who would be born with or inherit both keeps one, either equally likely. A rooted character works and trains for 2 health less while standing at their household's manor, so 5 rather than the household's 7. Anywhere else, or with no manor in the family, rooted does nothing. A restless character pays 3 health less for every move, wherever they go, so 7 rather than 10. Neither ever makes anything cost less than 1.
Gay and children. Fertility is rolled for each spouse every year, and a gay character's yearly chance is 20 in 100 rather than the usual 70. It lowers a family's size rather than ruling one out: over a whole married life a couple with a gay spouse has well under half the children of one without. See dynasties for how children are born.
The three temperaments do nothing themselves. What they do is produce moods. Each year, for a character who survives it:
| if you are | you may become | chance that year |
|---|---|---|
| optimistic | happy | 5 in 100 |
| pessimistic | sad | 5 in 100 |
| fiery | angry | 5 in 100 |
| already sad | depressed | 15 in 100 |
You hold one mood at a time: gaining one replaces the one you had, except that sadness never lightens a depression. Becoming sad while depressed leaves you depressed. Rolling a mood you already hold starts it afresh. A sadness you gain this year cannot deepen into depression until a later year.
Losing someone. When your spouse, a child, a parent or a sworn companion dies you have a 30 in 100 chance of becoming depressed, and where that does not happen, a 70 in 100 chance of becoming sad. The odds are the same whoever it was, adopted children and parents included. One death grieves you once, even if they were both your parent and your companion, and your log names the closer of the two. Either mood replaces whatever mood you held (a depressed survivor made sad stays depressed), and a grief gained this way holds for the rest of the year: your own temperament does not roll over it until the next. A character who dies because their player was banished is mourned by their spouse alone.
Moods are private, and they change nothing. Not your health, not your fertility, not your strength, not a duel. They are what your character sheet says about how a life is going, and no more.
Moods pass. Each year, after any new mood has been rolled, a mood you have held since an earlier year may lift, leaving you with none:
| mood | chance it lifts that year |
|---|---|
| angry | 50 in 100 |
| happy | 30 in 100 |
| sad | 30 in 100 |
| depressed | 10 in 100 |
So anger is gone in about two years, happiness and sadness in about three, and depression lingers for about ten. A sadness rolls to deepen before it rolls to lift, and a mood gained this year, a grief included, never lifts in the same year. Your own log tells you when a mood has passed.
Two marks of a family say only where somebody is in life, and change nothing.
| child | baby | |
|---|---|---|
| carried by | every character born into the world | a mother, after a birth |
| until | the year they turn 18 | one player year after her latest birth |
Fighting on a front can wound you. When a front closes, every character who swung on it, on either side and however many times, has 1 in 101 chance of coming away wounded. A character already wounded is not wounded again. Standing in the region without fighting is not fighting. Fighting in an uprising does not wound anybody: the world keeps no record of who swung there.
A wound is public, and it lasts until it heals. Each year a wounded character has a 1 in 4 chance of healing; on average a wound lasts about four years. Healing is not always clean: 3 in 10 healed wounds leave one lasting injury, chosen by weight:
| injury | share of lasting injuries |
|---|---|
| scarred | 40 in 100 |
| one eyed | 25 in 100 |
| one handed | 15 in 100 |
| one legged | 15 in 100 |
| incapable | 5 in 100 |
An injury you already carry is never chosen again: the weights are shared out across the ones you do not have. A veteran can carry several different injuries, one of each at most, and a veteran carrying all five simply heals.
Lasting injuries are permanent and public. None of them passes to a child.
A wound and every lasting injury except a scar weaken you in a duel, and only there. Each takes a share off the prestige a duel's odds are calculated from:
| taken off | |
|---|---|
| wounded | 10% |
| scarred | nothing |
| one eyed | 10% |
| one handed | 20% |
| one legged | 20% |
| incapable | 30% |
They add up, and the result is rounded down. However badly hurt you are, the duel reads at least a tenth of your stored prestige. So a one-handed, incapable character with 100 prestige is fought as if they had 50; one carrying everything is fought as if they had 10.
The duel reads the reduced figure for everything it decides. The chance, and the prize a win pays or a loss costs, are both worked out from the reduced figures, so beating a wounded champion pays what beating somebody of their reduced figure pays. What is won is then moved between the stored figures, and your stored prestige is otherwise what it was. Your Account and every character record show the figure a duel reads beside the stored one whenever they differ, with the share responsible. See dueling.
Challenging somebody to a prestige duel while they carry heavier injuries than you do marks you dishonoured. The rule, the cost and the exemption for claims and duchies are in dueling; this is what the mark itself does.
| public? | yes, on your record for anybody to read |
| passed to a child? | never |
| changes your odds? | no: not a duel, not your health, not anything |
| lapses? | 3 player years after the last dishonourable challenge |
The whole cost is paid at the moment of the challenge. The mark afterwards changes no number: a dishonoured character is fought at exactly the odds their prestige and injuries give, and is neither easier nor harder to beat for it.
It lapses on its own. Three player years after your last dishonourable challenge, the yearly pass lifts it, with no roll and no chance involved, and your own log says so. Another dishonourable challenge before then restarts the three years from that challenge, so somebody who keeps at it is marked for as long as they keep at it.
Three more permanent marks come from the church's orphanage, and the rules are in religion; this is what the marks are.
| orphan | eunuch | terrible | |
|---|---|---|---|
| granted when | your last parent dies before you are 18 | a faith's leader acts on you as its ward | you make a ward a eunuch, 5% each time |
| public? | yes | yes | yes |
| passed to a child? | never | never (there are none) | never |
| what it does | until 18, says which faith's orphanage you are in | you can never have children | nothing at all |
None of the three is ever removed, and none is born with. A eunuch keeps every title, claim, house and inheritance right; the only thing sterility closes is the yearly fertility roll, for both spouses of any marriage the eunuch is in.
Celibate is the mark of the vow, which a follower of 20 or older takes by their own choice. It is public, permanent, never born with or passed on, and, like eunuch, closes the fertility roll. Unlike eunuch it also bars marriage, ends one the vower is in, and is what every office of the church asks for.
Some traits say what a character did, or what the world was doing when they were born. They are earned at the moment it happens, by that alone, and the moment is written in your own log. Nobody is born with one by chance, none passes to a child, and none ever fades.
| deed | earned by |
|---|---|
| dragonslayer | landing the killing blow on the Elder Dragon |
| wayfarer | having stood in all 25 regions in one life |
| veteran | having dealt damage on fronts of 3 different wars |
| relic bearer | having held a relic, by any means |
| turncoat | changing faith for the 2nd time |
| plague born | being born in a region with an epidemic |
| storm born | being born in a region under a thunderstorm |
They change nothing. Not your health, your fertility, a duel's odds, or any cost. They are what your record says about a life, for anybody to read.
How each is counted. Striking the Elder Dragon without killing it earns nothing, however much damage you did, and killing any other monster is not slaying the dragon. The region you were born or founded in counts as one you have stood in, and each region counts once however often you return; a region changing hands under you is not a journey. Many fronts of one war are one war, and either side counts. A relic you found or inherited makes you a relic bearer, and you stay one after it leaves you. Joining a faith while you hold none is not a change of faith, so only conversions count. Plague and storm are read in the region a child is born in, at the birth, and a child may be both.
Born in the purple. A child whose mother and father each hold a kingdom at the birth is born in the purple, and the whole world hears of it. One crown is not enough. It is the one honour that changes a number: like hale, it makes the yearly chance of dying four fifths of what it would otherwise be. It is not in hale's group, so a child may be both, and then the two compound.
Characters alive when deeds came into the world were given those their recorded past had already earned: dragonslayer, wayfarer, veteran, relic bearer and turncoat. Births before then were not marked.
A character on a bond with a living sworn companion carries sworn companion, once however many bonds they have. It is public, never born with and never inherited. It goes when their last bond to a living character ends, at that death. It changes no number of its own; what a bond does is read from the bond.
The recovered design had more, and it is recorded here so nobody reads its absence as a promise. None of the following exists in the game.