The Gaming Den

All living creatures are born in a violent explosion of raw Prana, gathering and condensing into an Ether Body or soul, which exists on the Etherial Plane. The Ether Body houses all of the Prana necessary for a living creature to sustain itself for the duration of its life. Prana is often called by different names depending on the culture: mana, Qi, seidr, essense. But whatever it is called, it refers to the same thing; a creatures vital life energy.

The Ether Body is in direct contact with the physical body via a network of channels, invisible leylines called the Etheric Stream. The Etheric Stream delivers a flow of Prana from the soul and connects to the physical body at special points of spiritual strength, called Chakras. There are 3 Orders of Chakras, Upper, Lower, and Central. Each of the 3 Orders consists of 7 Chakras. Every creature with a soul has the 7 Central Chakras. Those Chakras are Muladhara (red), Swadhisthana (orange), Manipura (yellow), Anahata (green), Vishuddha (light blue), Ajna (dark blue), and Sahasrara (purple).

While all living things have the 7 Central Chakras, commoners often lack the introspection and spiritual awareness necessary to utilize them. As a general rule anything that is meant to be a challenge to the player characters has access to at least 3 of their Chakras. Player characters on the other hand have full access to all 7 of their Central Chakras right from the get go.

The game is divided into 2 tiers. At Heroic tier normals and magic-users still exist on a level playing field. Entering into the Mythic Tier requires a certain level of spiritual awareness. By necessity, this means that all Mythic Tier creatures are supernatural in nature. Players retain full access to all 7 Central Chakras, as well as Lower or Upper Order Chakras. Gaining a level within a tier is a very small and linear increase in vertical power and a larger increase in horizontal power (players become more diverse instead of gaining incremental bonuses). The exception is the level at which you pass from one tier to the next. This is meant to be a big step up before returning to small vertical jumps in power.

Creatures (whether its a PC or not) have access to four types of abilities: Lesser, Greater, Asha, and Mundane. Lesser Abilities require an investment of the players life energy. To do this he must channel his Prana from one of his 7 Chakras. Channeling requires an action (a standard action, half-action, or whatever). Lesser abilities can be activated as long as they are channeled. A Lesser ability includes things like fireballs, 50-foot high jumps, and going invisible.

Greater abilities are channeled the same way that Lesser abilities are but cause a great deal of spiritual turbulence and become unchanneled when they are used. This means that a player or NPC must spend an action to re-channel a stronger ability before he will be able to use it again. Greater Abilities are things like turning into a tornado or conjuring weapons made of solidified Justice.

Normally the difference between one chakra and another is non-existent. There is no difference between a fireball channeled to Anahata and one that is channeled to Sahasrara, for instance. That is, until you begin to gain Ashas. An Asha is a spiritual enhancement to one of the 7 chakras that provides a constant passive bonus to the player for having a certain type of ability channeled (by type I mean fire, travel, shadow, that sort of thing). I haven't thought out exactly what sort of things these will be, but I want this to be the primary source of passive magical bonuses so that way the game will have a natural, built in limiter on how many effects a person can have on them at once without feeling like an arbitrary restriction (even though it still totally fucking is Arbitrary). If you have access to more than one Asha effecting the same Chakra, you must choose which one to benefit from BEFORE you channel.

Mundane abilities do not require Prana to function and do not need to be channeled. They can be used infinitely as long as the character has the means to perform that action. Mundane abilities are things like disarming an opponent, running fast, dodging attacks, farming for mud, etc.

When a player enters Mythic tier, Heroic tier abilities that were once Greater abilities become Lesser Abilities, and the former Lesser abilities become mundane.

There are two types of magical items in the world. Normal magical items grant Lesser and Greater abilities that may not be on your classes list. They must still be channeled to be used. Relics are more powerful magic items that have their own special kind of Chakra called a Void Chakra. When a living creature channels an ability into a Void Chakra the Relic grants truly plot altering levels of power. However, the Void Chakra will begin to vampiricly siphon your Prana. Channeling a Void Chakra is taxing and can cause hunger, thirst, and exhaustion very quickly and can even cause you to begin aging so must be used wisely as it can only be sustained for very short periods of time. Even more frightening is that the Void Chakra might develop a hunger for your Prana. While it has no means of sating its hunger on its own, it makes each successive use of the relic more dangerous than the last. Whenever a player activates a Relic he must make a check (I have no Idea what this will be yet) that determines whether it will be safe for him to activate the Relic again in the future.

Normal magical items are meant to be rare and interesting. Heroic tier players will have access to one or two, while mythic tier players will have access to four to six or so. Relics on the other hand are meant to be game changers with plot altering powers. They are story items with a built in limiter.


Lower Chakras appear in creatures who have no Ether Body but are physically still active and is tied to Naraka (hell). As creatures without souls there is no flow of Prana given to the Physical bodies of demons and undead by an Ether Body. But without Prana a creature cannot exist. No exceptions. This means that they must force Prana into their bodies to sustain themselves. Unlike the Etheric Stream, which is like a river, constantly delivering Prana to the body, the Necrotic Stream is a chaos of invisible draining tentacles attached to the Lower Chakras that leach the final residual remnants of Prana off of the souls that have been severed from the physical body. The most abundant source of souls is of course Naraka, the realm of the dead. Because they require Prana to sustain themselves and because Prana fuels their powers and makes them stronger (which in turn increases their standing in Naraka), Undead and Demons are always on the look out for more. This gives them a reason to constantly kill. The Lower Chakras are Atala (Fear), Vitala (Anger), Sutala (Jealousy), Talatala (Madness), Rasatala (Arrogance), Mahatala (Lust), and Patala (Hatred).

Not all undead are intelligent. But all undead are part of a dark subconscious or ego that informs their needs and shapes their basic nature. Zombies aren't intelligent. They don't understand that it is not necessary for them to actually eat the flesh of the victims they kill. They don't know that they are even consuming any Prana at all or even what Prana is. What the zombie does know is that it must kill and it must eat.

Ghosts and Wraiths and other Etherial creatures without a physical body are not undead. Being undead means that you fuel your continued (physical) existence with the Prana of other creatures. Ghosts do not have a physical body nor do they fuel their existence with Prana. Spirits do not defy death, they are dead, fully and completely. They simply haven't passes on to Naraka.

Central and Lower Order Chakras rest upon the body at the end of the Pranas path from one plane to the next. Upper Chakras on the other hand exist in a ring above the body and act as radiant fountains of Prana that pour down on the physical body like rain (though direction is subjective. If you are upside down it flows up toward you). The Upper Chakra forms a halo that acts as a spiritual gateway into the Astral Plane. However, the Etherial Plane does not connect to the Astral Plane. The Central Chakras act as an anchor and stretch out producing a silvery cord that allows the spirit body a way back to the Physical body when traveling on the Astral Plane. Celestial Beings that live on the astral plane, such as angels, do not have Central Chakras, only Upper Chakras. This means that in order to go to the physical plane a celestial being must manifest a physical projection of themselves into the world. This can be very difficult to maintain for prolonged periods of time.

Once a player enters Mythic tier he will be forced to make a choice. He can follow the Lower Path or the Upper Path. Neither path is right or wrong. They are diametrically opposed but not because one is good and one is evil. Demons use the Lower Chakras because that is what one uses when you do not have a soul, not because it is evil. And Angels use the Upper Chakras because that is the only way one can exist on the Astral Plane not because it is good. The difference is entirely thematic. Once a choice is made it cannot be unmade so it should be thought about carefully. Afterwords the player will gain access to that Orders Chakras. He will still only be able to channel 7 abilities at once, however, over the course of the Mythic tier he will eventually gain the ability to channel up to 10 abilities at once. Certain Mythic tier abilities will have slightly different effects depending on which Order they are Channeled to, otherwise, they are mechanically identical.

Anyway that's about it. This is what I have been tossing around in my head for use in a new system I have been working on. You could reduce the number of "ability slots" from 7 down to 5, if that were more desirable, by re-flavoring this into a more Egyption themed model, where instead of the 7 chakras you divide a persons essence into 5 parts: the Ren (name), the Ba (soul), the Ka (spirit), the Sheut (shadow), and the Ib (heart).

Alternatively, you could increase the number of slots from 7 to 10 by using the 11 states on the Sepheroth of Kabbalah. The ten states on the Tree of Life would be Kether (1), Chokhmah (2), Binah (3), Chesed (4), Geburah (5), Tiphareth (6), Netzach (7),Hod (8), Yesod (9), Malkuth (10). This version has a method for how players can become a gods or immortals built into it via the eleventh state Daas (11).

Cool idea. What problem does it solve?

fectin wrote:Cool idea. What problem does it solve?

None. Not intentionally anyway. When I started work on my system one thing I did not want was a vancian "per-day" system for keeping track of abilities. I'm also not a fan of spell-point/mana systems either. My design goals were to...

A.) Create a mechanic that feel like it comes naturally from the setting itself. This came from my hatred of 4e's arbitrary magic item restrictions.

B.) Create a system that doesn't have strange limitations on abilities that don't make any sense. For example, why can barbarian only get angry a certain number of times per day in 3.x?

C.) Create a system that is easy to teach and to learn, fast at the table, while still giving myself enough complexity and depth to do something really interesting and a little different.

So what sort of setting does this support then?

fectin wrote:So what sort of setting does this support then?

The setting doesn't have a name. Its more of an implied setting built from the assumptions that the mechanics make. In this setting there are 4 planes, the Physical, Etherial, Astral, and Land of the dead. Living creates have life energy and can use Chakras to fuel supernatural abilities regardless of their class. Celestial being don't interfere much in the goings on of the world because its hard (giving a reason for heroes to be the ones saving worlds). Demons and Undead kill because thats how they sustain their existance.

This has a lot of implications. For example, this world probably doesn't have consumable magic items like potions and scrolls. There is no such thing as a high level dude who is a bad ass normal. Mages don't run out of spells per day. We can also assume that do to the nature of how supernatural power is acquired that both good and evil creatures who have levels are fairly introspective and spiritual.

Could you clarify some of this for me?
So in order to use a lesser ability, you first use an action to channel, then use another action for that ability? And while that channel exists, you can continue to use that ability or any other lesser ability which uses that channel?
To use a greater ability, you use an action to create the channel, use another action to use the ability and then the channel goes away?

After using any ability you lose some Prana? Is Prana an analog of hit or mana points, or some other concept?

Blasted wrote:Could you clarify some of this for me?
So in order to use a lesser ability, you first use an action to channel, then use another action for that ability? And while that channel exists, you can continue to use that ability or any other lesser ability which uses that channel? To use a greater ability, you use an action to create the channel, use another action to use the ability and then the channel goes away?

After using any ability you lose some Prana? Is Prana an analog of hit or mana points, or some other concept?

Sure, no problem. Basically, you have seven ability slots. You can spend an action to equip an ability. If that ability is a lesser ability, like shooting a fireball, than you can just keep on tossing around explosions forever or until you choose to equip something else. If that ability is a Greater ability, than it becomes un-equipped after it is used and must be re-equipped. When your character hits Mythic tier he starts to gain a few more slots from either the light path or the grimdark path. When he level caps he will have 10 ability slots.

Prana is very much an analog of mana, but in game terms it doesn't do anything. Its just a flavorful explanation of what is actually fueling your powers. You don't need to keep track of Prana Points or any thing like that.

Hope that helped.