ROBERT

DONOGHUE

BRIAN
ENGARD

MIKE
OLSON

BRENNAN
TAYLOR

MARK DIAZ
TRUMAN

MATTHEW
GANDY

EHP0005

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SYST E M TO O L K I T
ROBERT DONOGHUE
LEAD DEVELOPMENT WRITING

BRIAN ENGARD BRENNAN TAYLOR

MIKE OLSON MARK DIAZ TRUMAN
WRITING

FRED HICKS
WRITING LAYOUT INTERIOR GRAPHIC DESIGN
ART DIRECTION COVER DESIGN PRINT PRODUCTION

MATTHEW GANDY
EDITING

PETER FRAIN

FRONT COVER ART INTERIOR ART

KURT KOMODA

BACK COVER ART INTERIOR ART

TAZIO BETTIN
INTERIOR ART

SEAN NITTNER
PROJECT MANAGEMENT

CHRIS HANRAHAN CARRIE HARRIS

BRAND MARKETING

ROBERT
DONOGHUE

BRIAN
ENGARD

MIKE
OLSON

BRENNAN
TAYLOR

MARK DIAZ
TRUMAN

MA
G

An Evil Hat Productions Publication

www.evilhat.com feedback@evilhat.com
@EvilHatOfficial on Twitter
facebook.com/EvilHatProductions
Fate System Toolkit EHP0005
Copyright 2013 Evil Hat Productions, LLC.
All rights reserved.
Mark Diaz Truman would like to thank Rob Wieland,
MarissaKelly, and Jim Crocker for their help and inspiration.
Mike Olson extends a special thanks to Jeffrey Build Points Fuller.
Fred Hicks and everyone else at Evil Hat Productions would like to
thank 10,103 people individually but there just isnt space for it.
First published in 2013 by Evil Hat Productions, LLC.
10125 Colesville Rd #318, Silver Spring, MD 20901.
Evil Hat Productions and the Evil Hat and Fate logos are
trademarks owned by Evil Hat Productions, LLC. All rights reserved.
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-61317-050-2
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-61317-067-0
ePub ISBN: 978-1-61317-068-7
Printed in the USA.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior express permission of the publisher.
That said, if youre doing it for personal use, knock yourself out.
Thats not only allowed, we encourage you to do it.
For those working at a copy shop and not at all sure if this means
the person standing at your counter can make copies of this thing, they can.
This is express permission. Carry on.
This is a game where people make up stories about wonderful, terrible,
impossible, glorious things. All the characters and events portrayed
in this work are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, fantasy
adventurers, wizards of the arcane, supernatural cops in a China-colonized
Hong Kong/America that never was, cybernetic super-intelligent apes,
or squirrel mechanics is purely coincidental, but kinda hilarious.

CONTENTS
Foreword: A Not The............5
INTRODUCTION....................... 7
Why Were Here............................8
Rules vs. Rulings...........................8
The Bronze Rule.......................... 9
ASPECTS.................................. 11
Aspects.......................................... 12
Invoking for Effect........................ 12
Scaled Invocation.......................... 13
Detonating Situation Aspects..14

THE BIG GAME.......................39

Gimme Some Drama!.............. 40
Character Generation
Options.................................... 40
Professions and Races............... 40
The Origin Story........................... 44

Pre-Compels as Adventure
Design.......................................45
Aspect Events............................46
Power Level................................. 47

Gear Aspects............................... 16
Conditions..................................... 18

Skills...................................................47
Refresh..............................................47
Stunts................................................47
Stress.................................................49
Aspects.............................................49
Examples.........................................49

SKILLS..................................... 21
Change That List!...................... 22
Using Skills as Written............. 23

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES. 51
Chases........................................... 52
Social Conflict............................54

Genre Aspects............................. 15
Low-Powered Aspects................ 15
Quest Aspects................................ 15

Adding or Removing Skills....... 23

Reskinning and Making
Alterations.................................. 23
Expansion and Compression.... 23

Other Solutions.......................... 24
New Skill Lists................................24
Professions......................................24
Approaches....................................24
Freeform Skills............................... 25

Structural Changes................... 26
Pyramid Alternatives...................26
Larger Steps...................................26
Aspects Only..................................26

Other Skill Functions............... 27

Skill Modes................................... 29
Ratings..............................................29
Reinforced Skills............................30
Improving Skills.............................30
Modes with Extras......................... 31

STUNTS...................................33
New Stunt Rubrics....................34
Flexible Stunts...............................34
Triggered Effects.......................... 35

Stunt Costs.................................. 36
Adjusting Starting Stunts..........36
Adjusting Starting Refresh........ 37
Adjusting Stunt Cost................... 37
Somewhere In Between............. 37

Motivations and Instincts..........54

Discovering and Modifying
Motivations................................. 55
Modifying Instincts....................... 55
Challenges, Contests, and
Conflicts....................................... 55

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS............59
Stress.............................................60
Consequences............................60
Zones............................................. 62
Moving Through Zones..............62
Tight Zones Can Create
Drama...........................................62
Dangerous Zone Aspects..........62
Mental or Social Zones...............62

Refresh.......................................... 63
Modifying the Setting:
Making Big Changes............64
Discover the Problems
Before You Solve Them.........64
Episode by Episode.....................64
We Need a Montage!..................65

Other Dice....................................66
D6-D6................................................66
Connect the Dots.........................66
3d6.....................................................66
4d6.....................................................66

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Scale............................................... 67
Sidekicks vs. Allies....................68
Permissions and Costs................68
Stress Tracks and
Consequences...........................68
Permanent vs. Temporary
Allies.............................................68

Wealth...........................................69
Wealth Stress.................................69

Weapons and Armor

Alternatives.............................70
Damage Floors and Ceilings....70
Armor and Weapon Aspects.... 71
Red and Blue Dice........................ 72

Supplemental Actions............. 73
MAGIC.....................................75
Introduction................................. 76
The Basics....................................... 76
What Is Magic?.............................. 77
Magic and Fate............................. 80

Systems......................................... 82
Stormcallers....................................82
The Six Viziers.............................. 90
The Subtle Art.............................. 101
Storm Summoners..................... 107
Voidcallers.......................................115

Making Your Own.....................128

Balance........................................... 128
Balance in Play............................ 130

Your Toolbox...............................131
Limits.................................................131
Effects............................................. 134

Pieces of Power........................138
Limitations.................................... 139
Effects............................................. 143

Functions and Flaws................. 154

Stunts.............................................. 154
Additional Flaws..........................155

Monsters......................................156
Instinct Aspects.......................... 156
Monster Abilities..........................157
Multiple Zone Monsters............ 158

Squad-Based Action...............159
Creating Squads......................... 159
Squad Skills................................... 159
Rolling Squad Skills................... 162
Squad-Based Combat.............. 162

This Means War:

MassCombat.........................163
Basic Training............................... 163
Unit Actions.................................. 163
Unit Quality................................... 165
Unit Aspects................................. 166
Building Units............................... 166
Zones............................................... 166
Leaders............................................167
Sequence of Play.........................167
Winning...........................................167

Swashbuckling Duels............. 168

Vehicles....................................... 170
Incidental Vehicles..................... 170
Personal Vehicles........................ 170
Group Vehicles..............................171
Quick and Dirty Vehicle Rules.172

Supers...........................................173
Origin Stories................................173
Super Skills.....................................174
Creating Super-Powered
Stunts..........................................174
Villains and Sidekicks.................175

SUBSYSTEMS........................ 147
Kung Fu...................................... 148

The Horror Paradox.................176

Using Existing Skills................... 149

The Kung Fu Skill........................ 149

INDEX.................................... 179

Cyberware....................................151
Prostheses vs. Augs.....................151
Types of Augs...............................152
Example Augs...............................152
The Downside of Augs..............153

Gadgets and Gear................... 154

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

The Elements of Horror.............176

FOREWORD: A NOT THE

This book isaFate System Toolkit. It is notTheFate System Toolkit.
What do we mean by that?
This Fate System Toolkit began as a stretch goal for the Fate Core System
kickstarter. Originally, it was only the magic system section of the book. As
the funding for that campaign grew, so did this book. And close on its heels,
far outstripping the capacity of this book, came the requests for what should
gointothis book.
It was damn flattering to think folks thought we could take on all those
topics. Impossible, mind youbut damn flattering.
That said, we knew we had to fulfill thespiritof all those requests, even if we
couldnt match theletterof them. And so, expanding outward from our magic
toolkit, is this Fate System Toolkit.
True to its name, our Toolkit is not a device that does exactly what you
want right out of the box. But it is a collection of ideas, approaches, and other
fiddly bits that can get you there. To put it another way, when folks asked us
for the moon, we decided instead to offer them a variety of methods for building rockets. (We build rockets now. Rockets are cool.)
When looking for the right fit for your game, dont get suckered by appearances. Say something in here talks about handling giant monsters as maps
or as collections of characters, rather than as a single scaled-up character.
While it says on the tin this heres a method for handling giant monsters,
thats just how the idea was packaged. Italsooffers you a method for how to
handle boss fights in general. Or a strafing run against an orbital death satellite. Similarly, ways to take on the topic of superheroes in your Fate game are
covered by a variety of concepts and sections within this bookonly one of
which is labeled superheroes.
This is not to say that every tool out there could be in here, but there
are enough ideas and hard surfaces to push off of that youre sure to find
something that gets you going. And when you do find yourself with a new
idea, please dont keep it to yourself. There are many places where great,
excited conversation is happening right now that could use your voice and
ideas, whether its the FateRPG Yahoo Group, the Fate Core community on
Google+, the tabletop gaming forums on RPG.net and RPGGeek, or elsewhere online or off. Fates audience is thousands strong and full of smart
people, a whole passel of whom are way smarter than the folks who made Fate
in the first place.
More than anything, this Fate System Toolkit is a training guide for your
brain. In this kit youll find dozens of ways to add something new, something
else, something different to your Fate Core game. In a few cases it will be
exactly the right thing. In the vast majority of circumstances, it will be a starting point for further tinkering. Roll up your sleeves. Youve got a master collection of tools to work with here. Now lets see what you can make with them!

Fred Hicks
July 15, 2013
FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

WHY WERE HERE

Think of Fate as a machine, built to produce a specific outcome. Like many
machines, Fate can be adjusted to produce other outcomes; it contains a
system of dials, a network of rules that can be adjusted up, down, and to the
sides to achieve the result youre looking for. Its robust, flexible, andmost
importantlyhackable.
What does that mean, that its hackable? First, it means that you can
change rules. This is true of any gameif youre playing Monopoly, allowing
players to collect money when they land on Free Parking would be a hack. It
changes the nature of the games economy and makes the game a little more
forgiving, so its a little harder to lose the game early due to lack of funds. Fate
is like thatit can be altered. Do you want the GM to have more fate points?
The players to have higher skills? Want to change the way aspects work? All of
these things are possible with a little effort on your part.
The second part of being hackable is that Fate doesnt resist your changes.
In fact, its adaptable enough that it can take smaller changes in stride without
anything breaking, and even major changes require only a few tweaks to other
parts of the game. Its not just that you can hack Fate, its that Fate is easy to
hackif youre willing to do the work.
To get the feel you want, some changes may be necessary. Fate is a system
of dials, and Fate Core presents default settings for all of those dials. Maybe
those settings arent right for your game. Maybe you need to adjust some of
those dials or even add new ones, but youre not sure what changes to make,
or what other parts of the system those changes might impact. Dont worry
thats why were here.
The Fate System Toolkit is a book about how to hack Fate, what happens
when you do, and what you can do when you start monkeying with the way
stuff works. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then this book is for you.

RULES VS. RULINGS

Sure, you can hack Fate, but should you? Sometimes the answer is yes. If
youre playing a supers game, youll need to add some super powers. If youre
playing a game about street racing, it might be good to have a few rules regarding vehicles.
Sometimes you dont need a new rule, though. Sometimes all you need is
a ruling.
A ruling is a decision that your playgroup makesusually guided by the
GMabout how something works in your game. Rulings cover special cases
that arent explicitly covered by the rules of the game, cases that require some
interpretation. A new rule, on the other hand, is a change to one or more of
the sub-systems within the game, or the addition of a new one. Where a ruling
is an interpretation of how the game works, a new rule is a change to how the
game works.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

INTRODUCTION

For example, when you tell a player that his character cant take that longrange sniper shot because the boat hes on is bobbing up and down too much,
youre making a ruling. When you explicitly state that no one can make longrange sniper shots from a boat, youre adding a rule. See the difference? One
affects the current situation and may have ramifications later on, the other
affects all such situations.
So when do you use one or the other? Use a new rule if youre addressing
something that comes up a lot. Whether youre finding something problematic or you want to be able to do something new, if it happens a lot, its often
a good case for a rule. Use a ruling if youre not sure a situation will come up
again, or if you think itll be rare.
If you make a new rule for every situation, youll wind up with so many
rules that you cant keep track of them all. If you make rulings for the edge
cases, on the other hand, youre freer to change them later. Sure, you can
change a rule later, but some players will call foul on thisand rightly so!
Worse, you make your rules even harder to remember and keep track of, especially if youre changing them all the time.
Heres the secretrulings can become rules. If you make a ruling about
sniper shots on boats, and you find that situation comes up again and again,
turn it into a rule. If youve made a ruling multiple times, your players will
probably remember it, so theres less chance of a rule that just gets forgotten.

THE BRONZE RULE

Theres one more thing you should ask yourself before you make an entirely
new rule for somethingcan I represent this with the Bronze Rule (Fate
Core, page 270)?
In Fate, you can treat pretty much anything as if it were a character. Your
gun? Sure. The storm outside? Absolutely. The scene itself? Why not? You can
give anything aspects, skills, stunts, and stress boxes, and heres the thing that
makes this technique really coolthey dont have to be the same ones the PCs
get. It doesnt make sense for the storm outside to have Fight and Physique,
but what about Cold and Sleet? Your gun doesnt need a physical or mental
stress track, but what about an ammo stress track? And scenes already have
aspects all over the place!
If you can represent a new thing as a character, its typically easier to do that
than to create a new rule out of whole cloth. Not everything works this way,
and there are some things you might not want to represent this way, but its a
powerful tool that you can apply to a wide variety of situations.
Theres another extension of this techniquenew rules for characters can
be represented using the existing components of a character. You can represent
magic through skills, super powers using aspects or stunts, and being corrupted by an ancient and seductive force with a stress track.

CHAPTER 1

ASPECTS

ASPECTS

ASPECTS

Aspects are what make Fate go. Theyre the clearest, most interesting method
for describing who your character is, and they form the basis of the fate point
economy. Invoking an aspect gives you a certain amount of control over your
destiny, a way to mitigate the caprice of the dice. Compels are the GMs best
friend when it comes to creating story and situation, injecting drama into a
scene, or just plain throwing a wrench into the players plans.
Fate Core gives you the basic ways to use aspects and, for most groups,
those will be enough. If youre looking to squeeze a little more out of your
aspects, crank up the complexity, or just do something different, read on.

Invoking for Effect

Fate Core talks a little bit about this concept, explaining that what was previously known as invoking for effect is just a fancy compel. Thats true, but
maybe thats not all it means to invoke for effect.
When you invoke for effect, youre spending a fate pointor a free invocationto create a specifically defined mechanical effect, something other than
what a typical aspect is capable of. When you create an aspect, look at it and
decide whether or not it needs a special effect attached to it. Maybe your
earth mage can invoke One with the Earth to avoid falling down or being
moved against his will, or maybe your psychic detective can invoke Mental
Eavesdropper to read someones surface thoughts.
Mechanically, an aspect effect should be worth the fate point youre spendingthe equivalent to two shifts worth of potency, just like any other effect
of invoking an aspect. Aspect effects should do something, like in the examples
above, rather than provide a static bonus. A regular aspect invocation already
provides a bonus, so you dont need a special effect that does that, too. An
aspect effect is a bit like having an extra rules-exception stunt that you always
have to pay for, both in terms of what the effect can accomplish and the
amount of complexity it adds to your character.
HOW MANY EFFECTS?
Speaking of character complexity, GMs need to decide how many
of these effects each player character gets. The simplest way to
use this rule is to allow each player to add a special effect to her
high concept, since thats the aspect thats most likely to be big
and character-defining. You can give PCs more aspect effects, but
give them too many and its like having too many stuntstheyre
not all going to get used and the volume of choices can lead to
analysis paralysis.
NPCs can have aspect effects too, but its best to give them only
to your main NPCs and maybe a really important supporting NPC.
In both cases, its best to limit the number of aspect effects per
character to one or two at most.

12

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Aspect: Always Armed

Effect: Spend a fate point to reveal a small, concealable weaponlike
a knife or a holdout pistolsecreted away on your person somewhere,
even if youve recently been disarmed.

ASPECTS

In terms of cost, its okay for PCs to have one or even two of these effects for
free. Theyre on par with a normal invocation in terms of power, and theyre
more situational so theyre less likely to be used often. GMs, more than that
and youre within your rights to ask PCs to spend refresh on additional effects.

Aspect: Ninja of the Serpent Clan

Effect: Spend a fate point to vanish from sight, even if people are looking at you. This gives you justification to make a Stealth roll to hide.
Aspect: Sharp-Eyed Elvish Scout
Effect: Spend a fate point to be able to see distant thingsup to a mile
awayclearly and in great detail, even at night.

Scaled Invocation

When you invoke an aspect, it provides you with a +2 bonus or a reroll. This
is fine most of the time, but it provides no mechanical advantage for invoking aspects that apply particularly well to a situation, nor does it provide any
disincentive for invoking aspects that apply only tenuously. Another option is
scaled invocation.
Scaled invocation divides aspects into three categoriestenuous invocations, relevant invocations, and perfect invocations.
Tenuous invocations only barely apply to the situation at hand, like invoking Strong Like Bull in a drinking contest or using a Pile of Garbage to break
your fall from a second-story window. If an invocation is tenuous, you can
only use it for a reroll. This means youll never get to use it to increase your roll
beyond what youd be able to roll on the dice, but you can use it to mitigate
a truly disastrous roll. It also means that multiple tenuous invocations arent
usually all that useful.
When you make a relevant invocation, youre invoking something that
clearly applies to the current situation without requiring too much justification. Maybe youre using Fastest Gun in the West in a gunfight, or maybe
youre hiding behind a Concrete Wall for cover. It gives you exactly what an
invocation normally woulda +2 or a reroll.

CHAPTER 2

13

ASPECTS

A perfect invocation is one that makes everyone say Awesome! or smile

and nod enthusiastically when you announce it. Its perfectly suited to the
situation, clearly the right choice in that instance. Theres little else that might
motivate your character as strongly as invoking Udru Khai Killed My Family
when youre trying to tackle him as hes getting away. When you invoke a
perfect aspect, you automatically succeed on your action, no roll necessary. If
you invoke after the roll, just ignore your roll. If you need to know how many
shifts you generated, assume you generated 1. This does mean you can invoke
a second aspect to succeed with style, if its relevant.
The exception here is an attack. When you invoke a perfect aspect on an
attack, you dont have to roll. Instead, your attack is set at your skill rating
plus 3. Thus, if you were attacking with your Good(+3) Fight and invoked
a perfect aspect, your effort would be a Fantastic(+6), which your opponent
can then defend against. If youve already rolled, and invoking a perfect aspect
would get you a better result, take your result and add 1 to it.

Detonating Situation Aspects

Some situation aspects imply destructibility or finite use, such as Pallet of

Propane Tanks or Rotted Support Columns. They can have an effect on the
narrative but not necessarily a mechanical effect. If youd like such aspects to be
mechanically distinct from aspects like Inky Darkness or Cover Everywhere,
you can allow PCs to detonate these situation aspects.
When a player detonates a situation aspect, he declares his intent to do so
and explains how hes using that aspect such that no one will be able to use it
again. If he can do this to everyones satisfaction, he gets to invoke the aspect
once for free.
Once hes done invoking the aspect, it goes away and the situation changes
for the worseor at least the more dangerous. Detonating an aspect creates
a new situation aspect, which represents how the old aspect was destroyed,
and how it wrecked things. That last bit is the keyit has to wreck things, to
complicate things. Its no fair to detonate that Pallet of Propane Tanks and
replace it with something boring like Scorch Marks. Replace it with something big and flashy and destructive, like The Building Is on Fire! or The
Ceiling Is Collapsing!. The new situation aspect must always make things
more tenuous for everyone, and should always be an imminent threat.

14

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

There are times you might want to reinforce something about your games
genre. Creating issues that underscore the genres themes is a good way, and
you can get a lot of mileage out of encouraging your players to create characters tied to the genre. Sometimes you want something mechanically unique,
though.
When you use genre aspects, youre making a change to the way aspects
work in order to reinforce your chosen genre. Sometimes youll apply these
changes to all aspects in the game, while other times youll want to restrict
these changes to a specific subset of aspects, or even a single specific aspect.
The ways in which you can change aspects are too varied to simply list here, so
instead well provide a few examples.

ASPECTS

GENRE ASPECTS

Low-Powered Aspects

This is a sweeping change to all aspects in the game, and its good for emulating genres where the PCs are weaker than the forces arrayed against them,
such as in horror or noir. The change is simple: when you invoke an aspect,
you can reroll the dice you rolled or you can get a +2 to the roll, but you
cannot choose the +2 option more than once per roll if you invoke multiple
aspects. This means that an aspect only increases by a small number the maximum effort a PC can exert. This is going to cause failure to be more common,
which means that failure needs to always be interesting, and it needs to move
the action forward just as much as success does.
If you want to allow the PCs to get multiple aspect bonuses in certain situations, consider tying such things to a stunt, such as:
Keen Senses: When you invoke aspects on a Notice roll, you can invoke any
number of aspects, provided you have the fate points to cover the cost.

Quest Aspects

This is a small change, but one that can reinforce the PCs shared goals. It
works well in fantasy settings, or any other setting where the PCs act as a
group toward some sort of large goal, such as slaying the dragon or rescuing
the village from bandits.
Whenever the PCs accept a quest, the group works together to create a good
aspect representing that quest. For example, if the PCs are trying to save the
village from a bandit king, the group might create the quest aspect Martin
Half-Heart Must Be Stopped!. Any PC in the party can invoke this aspect,
and it can be compelled as if it were on each PCs character sheet, earning
everyone a fate point.
If the PCs resolve a quest aspect, its a milestone. The scope of the milestone
depends on the difficulty and length of the quest. Check out page 256 of Fate
Core for more info on milestones.

CHAPTER 2

15

GEAR ASPECTS

ASPECTS
16

In Fate, gear is in the background. Your skills take center stage when it
comes to what you can do; gear is simply there to enable you to
use your skills. Do you have a high Shoot? Then youve got a gun!
Did you prioritize Drive? Youve probably got a car. These things are
assumed, and have no mechanical effect. The Extras chapter in Fate
Core tells you how you can give gear mechanical teeth, adding Weapon
ratings or giving a piece of gear its own aspects or skills. Theres a middle
ground, though, one that doesnt require any reduction in refresh and that
allows all significant gear to be significant.
If you want to tread that middle ground, keeping gear simple and in the
background but increasing its mechanical weight, you can use gear aspects.
In this method, most gear behaves like it does in default Fateit enables skill
use and provides justification for actions. However, if a piece of gear has the
potential to be significant to the story at some point, it becomes an aspect.
A gear aspect can be as generic or as descriptive as you desire. If youre the
sort for whom guns are important but interchangeable, maybe you just have a
Revolver or a Sniper Rifle. If you want to get a little more specific, maybe its
a Pristine Colt .45 or a Silenced XM21. Want to drill down even more? Give
yourself My Fathers Service Revolver or My Well-Used, Modified XM21.
The point is that, if its important, it gets an aspect. Things like your jacket
and shoes, your sunglasses, your car keysmaybe even your cardont need
aspects, unless they become important to the story.
A gear aspect functions like any other aspect: you can invoke it, and other
people can compel itor invoke itagainst you. You can invoke a gear aspect
any time it would be useful: invoke your 25 Karat Watch when you want to
flash a little bling and impress someone, or invoke your Press Pass to get a
little closer to that crime scene.
Theres one final rule when it comes to gear aspects, GMsyou can take
them away. If a PC is starting to rely a little too much on a piece of gear, or
if it just feels like time to shake things up, find a reason for that aspect to go
away. Doing this is a compel, so the player can refuse itand thats fineyou
dont want to take away your players favorite parts of the game. Also, getting
rid of the aspect doesnt necessarily mean that the player loses that piece of gear
permanently. A Press Pass can lose its aspect when the PC gets suspended, and
a Revolver can be shut down when it runs out of ammo. In both cases, theres
a narrative way to get the aspect back, and sometimes that can kick-start an
adventure on its own!

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

ASPECTS
TOO MANY ASPECTS?
If each PC has five aspects and maybe four or five gear aspects,
plus there are scene aspects and consequences and what have
you, isnt that too many aspects? It sure can be! Heres a secret:
gear aspects are basically portable situation aspects. As such,
they can do a lot of the heavy lifting that situation aspects can,
if you feel like theres too much going on in a scene. You dont
want to eliminate situation aspects altogether, but if each PC has a
number of gear aspects, start with fewer situation aspects.
Its also a good idea to limit the number of gear aspects each PC
has. Not every piece of gear needs its own aspect, so limiting PCs
to three, two, or even one signature piece of gear is perfectly fine.
Finally, in a game focused on gear rather than PC relationships
or previous adventures, gear aspects might replace the phase
trio aspects (page 38 of Fate Core).

CHAPTER 2

17

Superb (+5)
Great (+4)
Good (+3)

CONDITIONS
Fair (+2)
Average (+1)

ASPECTS

Consequences are a great way to handle injuries, emotional scarring, and

STUNTS
other persistent conditions
within the fiction of your game. Theyre not for
everyone, though. Some people have trouble coming up with good consequences on the fly, while others want something more defined and concrete.
Still others just want something different.
Conditions are like consequences, except that theyre pre-defined, like this:

hysique)

CONDITIONS
FLEETING

1
1

Angry
Frightened

Goes away when you get a chance to

catch your breath and calm down.

STICKY

2
2

Exhausted
Hungry

Stays checked off until a specific

event occurs (get sleep, eat food).

LASTING

4 4
4 4

Broken
Wounded

Takes a recovery action to begin removal.

Second box may be checked only if the first isnt.

There are three kinds of conditions: fleeting, sticky, and lasting. A fleeting condition goes away when you get a chance to catch your breath and
calm down. In the example above, Angry and Frightened are fleeting conditions. A sticky condition stays checked off until a specific event happens. If
youre Exhausted, youre Exhausted until you get some sleep. If youre Hungry,
youre Hungry until you get a good meal. Wounded and Broken are both
lasting conditions. These stick around for at least one whole session, and
require someone to overcome an obstacle with a passive opposition of at least
Great(+4) before you can start to recover from them. Lasting conditions have
two check boxes next to them, and you check them both off when you take
the condition. When recovery begins, erase one check box. Erase the second
one (and recover from it fully) after one more full session. You can take a lasting condition only if both of its check boxes are empty.
You suffer from a condition when the GM says you suffer from a conditionusually as a result of your narrative situationbut you can also use
them to soak stress. When you take stress, you can reduce that stress by 1 if
you check off a fleeting condition, by 2 stress if you check off a sticky condition, or by 4 stress if you check off a lasting condition. You can check off as
many conditions as youd like for a single hit.
Once youre suffering from a condition, that condition is an aspect on your
character sheet like any other. In this way, conditions are a lot like consequencesyou can invoke them, and they can be invoked or compelled against
you. As with a consequence, when you take a condition, someone else can
invoke it against you for free once.

18

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

CORE SYSTEM

S (Physique)

(Will)

ASPECTS

SKILLS

If youreSuperb
going (+5)
to use conditions in your game, one thing you can do to reinforce the theme or style of your game is to come up with your own conditions.
Great (+4)
You dont have to stick to the same spread of two fleeting/two sticky/two lastGood here,
(+3) but you should stick to the same total number of shifts
ing as presented
of stress-soaking:
14. Also make sure to follow the guidelines for the different
Fair (+2)
types of conditionsfleeting
conditions go away quickly, sticky conditions
Average (+1)
require a narrative trigger, and lasting conditions require treatment. The conSTUNTS
ditions above are non-specific
enough to be used in a wide variety of settings,
but tailoring conditions to your setting can be an effective way to make the
characters feel more like a part of that setting.
As an example, here are alternate conditions from Jason Morningstars
Fight Fire (found in Fate Worlds: Worlds on Fire):
CONDITIONS
FLEETING

1
1

Winded
Bruised

1
1

STICKY

Panicked

Dehydrated

Disoriented

Goes away when you get a chance to

catch your breath and calm down.

Stays checked off until a specific

event occurs (drink enough water).

LASTING

4 4
4 4

Injured
Broken

Takes a recovery action to begin removal.

Second box may be checked only if the first isnt.

CHAPTER 2

19

SKILLS

CHANGE THAT LIST!

SKILLS
22

The skills in Fate Core are designed to offer a wide range of actions, broadly
applicable to a number of different settings. That said, the skill list is the thing
we expect you to change first. Your skill list should be rooted in your setting
and should reinforce it; if the default skill list works for this, youre in luck! In
some cases it might mostly work for you, but you might have to add a skill or
two, take one out, or rename a few. If youre looking to make more extensive
modifications to the skill listor even the system itselfthen this chapter is
for you.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

USING SKILLS AS WRITTEN

The easiest thing to do in most cases is to simply tweak the skill list to reflect
the needs of your specific game, and there are a few ways to approach that.
Is making stuff not an important part of your game? Get rid of Craft. Do you
want people to be able to maneuver in zero-G? Add a skill to do that. This is
one of the easiest ways to hack the skill list because all youre doing is going
skill by skill and deciding what isnt necessary and what needs to be added.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind here. First, if you subtract too
many skills then the players might have access to too much of the skill list. If
theres too much overlap between PCs, you can wind up with PCs getting too
little spotlight time. Conversely, if you add too many skills you might wind
up with PCs who dont have access to enough of the skill list, meaning theyre
often missing a critical skill in a given situation. An easy fix is appropriately
increasing or decreasing the number of skills each PC gets during character
creation.
Consider that Fate Core has 18 skills. As a rule of thumb, the pyramid
allows a character to really stand out in 3 of them and have rankings in 7
more, leaving 8 unaccounted for. Its not a precise ratio, but its worth keeping in mind when deciding if you need to change the pyramid. See Structural
Changes on page26 for more details.
Finally, keep in mind that changes to skills have repercussions on stress
tracks and turn order.

SKILLS

Adding or Removing Skills

Reskinning and Making Alterations

If all of the default skills work for you from a mechanical perspective, but
some of them dont quite work with the themes of your game, change a few
details. Lore might become Academia or Knowledge, Drive becomes Ride or
Pilot, and so on. Doing this might also alter what a given skill can do. For
example, if you reskin Lore to become Arcana and then determine that its the
skill for spellcasting, suddenly it makes sense for you to be able to attack or
defend with it.

Expansion and Compression

One handy trick for altering the skill list is to look at the skills in terms of their
sphere of activity and how important they are to your game. If a particular
sphere is less important, then you can compress the skills within that sphere
into a single skillin a non-violent game, you might compress Shoot and
Fight into a single fight skill. On the other hand, if a particular sphere is very
important, you might want to split that skill into finer gradients. If martial
arts are important to your game, you might want to expand Fight into multiple skills, perhaps Armed, Hard Styles, and Soft Styles. The advantage of this
approach is that the general guidelines for the skills are still in effectyoure
just adjusting the level of focus.

CHAPTER 3

23

OTHER SOLUTIONS

SKILLS

Sometimes the skill list as presented just wont work for you. Maybe you want
another list entirely, or maybe youre looking for a different approach. The
good news is that even if you do something drastically different, the guidelines
of the existing skills can still be helpful to you, because the underlying action
can still work the same way as the original skill. Whether the skill is called
Fight, Kung Fu, or Existential Badass, the basic mechanics of punching someone are going to remain more or less the same.

New Skill Lists

If youre looking to make another skill list in the same style as the existing
onesimply with new skillsthen the guidelines are going to depend a lot
on why youre making the change, and no ones going to know that better than
you. The guidelines for adding and removing skills are your best reference for
this.

Professions

While skills normally reflect what you do, professions reflect who the character
is, and infer capabilities from that. If, for example, the professions are Fighter,
Scholar, Woodsman, Thief, Craftsman and Diplomat, then you might roll
Fighter in situations where you might roll Fight or Shoot, Thief where you
might normally roll Stealth or Burglary, and so on. Profession lists tend to be
shorter and more open ended than skill lists, which may mean a very reduced
pyramid. Its possible to use a fixed list of professions, or use them in in a freeform manner, which well get into below.

Approaches

If the normal skill list is what you do and professions reflect who you are,
approaches reflect how you do things. That is, instead of more typical skills, a
character may have a rating in Forceful, Graceful, Clever, and Resolute, and
which he rolls depends upon the situation. In a swordfight, are you hammering at your opponents guard (Forceful!), swinging down from a chandelier
(Graceful!), feinting and maneuvering as you seek an opening (Clever!) or
biding your time until your opponent makes a mistake (Resolute!)?
Fans of Fate Accelerated Edition will recognize this method as the one
FAE uses, with the approaches Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, and
Sneaky.

24

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SKILLS

Freeform Skills

So, what if there were no skill list at all, and players were able to simply name
their skills? It might seem a little bit chaotic at first, but most likely youd see
a lot of familiar patterns, with new and interesting names. Such an approach
is absolutely playable, with only one real caveateveryone needs to be on the
same page regarding what skills mean. Otherwise its possible that one player
may end up with a super-skill thats useful in every situation, leaving the rest
of the group out in the cold.
The easiest way to avoid this is make sure everyone understands the difference between a skill, a profession, and an approach. Most problems will
emerge if you have one player choosing skills while another is choosing a
profession or approach, because professions and approaches are much more
broadly applicable than individual skills. Approaches and professions might
be a little more interchangeable, but it is still something to tread carefully
with.
In addition to opening up opportunities for player creativity, this approach
allows for a particular trickusing aspects as skills.

Skills and Aspects

If youre using freeform skills, one of your skills could share a name with one
of your aspects. If youre a Knight of the Chalice and also have Knight of
the Chalice: Good(+3), theres a certain sense of completeness to that. Its
far from mandatory, but sometimes it just feels like the right choice. Its also
possible to use aspects to forgo skills entirely, but thats a bit more fiddly, and
well get to that further along.

CHAPTER 3

25

STRUCTURAL CHANGES
So far all of these systems still assume something that looks like the current
skill list in most important waystheres a list arranged in a certain way,and a
progressive set of bonuses. But those assumptions need not be universalyou
can do some crazy stuff by stepping outside of the normal bounds.

Pyramid Alternatives
SKILLS

The most obvious hack is to replace the pyramid, with a column systemas
is used in advancementwith a point-buy system, or even something like
skill packages from specific backgrounds. This is really something you can
change quite freely, but before you do, just be sure you understand why the
pyramid is in place. It is fast, it demands characters be capable (the apex) but
well-rounded (the foundation), and it makes sure that not every character
can do everything (the skills you cant buy). Its not unreasonable to change
thesea superspy game, for example, might have characters with very broad
skill basesbut make sure you know what problem youre solving when you
make the change.

Larger Steps

Nothing says skills need to progress smoothly. Suppose that each rank of a
skill was actually two steps on the ladderyou might now have a pyramid
of 1Superb(+5), 2 Good(+3) and 3 or 4 Average(+1), and if youre feeling
mean, move the default down to Poor (-1).
Why do this? Suppose you have a small skill list, as you might for professions or approaches. You get a heroically potent pyramidmore so than the
default, evenfor a smaller list. It also strongly separates the tiers of skill
level, something that may be thematically appropriate in certain genres.

Aspects Only

If you want to take a very extreme step, you can forgo skills entirely, and
use aspects for everything. This requires a single change to the way aspects
work. Now, in addition to everything else, they provide a passive +1 bonus in
situations where they apply. Thus, if my aspects are Acrobatic, Ladies Man,
Strong, and Swordsman, I can count on a +2effectively a Fair skillin most
sword-fighting situations involving strength, which bumps to a Good(+3) if
I do something acrobatic.
If taking this tack, some extra thought will need to go into aspect selection
so that everyone has a good understanding of when their aspects are and arent
applicable. The first instinct of many players will be to gun for broad, simple
aspects, like strong or smart, because theyre so easy to apply in most situations. However, the real advantage will go to players who take the time to put
a bit more story into their aspects. Knight covers a lot of ground, but Knight
of the Stars covers even more, and Renegade Knight of the Stars covers even
more. As is so often the case, the most interesting characters will be the most
mechanically potent.

26

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Skills already let you do a wide range of things, but they can be even more
flexible than they initially appear. If you take a look at the skill list, you can
see that every single skill has the overcome and create an advantage actions
checked. This opens a lot of possibilities, even for skills that dont seem to have
a lot of interesting uses.
If a character has a high rank in a skill, Good(+3) or higher, this means
that they are an expert in that particular area of endeavor. They possess deep
knowledge within the narrow range covered by the skill. This knowledge
covers the tools and trappings used by the skill and knowledge of other people
who use the skill at the same high level.
The three attack skillsFight, Shoot, and Provokeare most often used in
combat. That doesnt mean combat is the only situation where these skills are
useful. A character with the Shoot skill can identify ranged weapons, knows
details about their care and maintenance, and knows where to obtain them.
The same goes for Fight, regarding hand-to-hand weapons.

CHAPTER 3

SKILLS

OTHER SKILL FUNCTIONS

27

SKILLS
This opens up lots of possibilities for overcome or create an advantage
actions. A Shoot expert could use their skill in an overcome action to find
a gun seller in a new place, for example. Shoot could be used to create an
advantage by identifying the type of gun by the sound of its shot and filling in
details on the limitations of the model, or by noticing that an enemys weapon
has not been properly cared for and could possibly malfunction.
Provoke might seem to be a harder skill to expand, but with Provoke, an
expert could create an advantage to discover an opponent is bluffing, or to
identify which person in a group of opponents is the biggest threat.
You can use other skills in a similar way. Burglary experts can find tools or
other practitioners of the trade, or even identify the trademark techniques of
other burglars they know by the traces they leave behind. Drive experts can
identify vehicles and use create an advantage to talk about the subtle edges or
disadvantages a particular make has when compared against another vehicle.
Skills that normally do not allow you to attack or defendBurglary, Crafts,
Investigate, Lore, and Resourceshave lots of options for additional actions,
and in the right circumstances might be used to attack or defend. In the right
situation, Crafts could be used to create an attack through the construction
of a dangerous trap, for instance. Burglary could be used for defense, if a
character sets up countermeasures based on their detailed knowledge of security precautions. These should be very specific and very limited applications,
but it can be quite rewarding to allow players to use these skills in a way that
stretches their capabilities a bit.
Creativity is the order of the day. In almost any skill, a high level of ability
opens up many possibilities. As a GM, its important to allow flexibility and
logic to guide you, as your players are sure to surprise you. They should get the
chance to feel exceptionally competent in their characters area of expertise.
When a player tries something new with a skill, consider the option carefully,
and be open to a creative interpretation of the skill. As a player, let yourself try
new things with your skills. If a situation arises where you think you would
be able to use your skill in an unusual way, give it a shot! Fate is more interesting when the unexpected arises and players use an unexpected method to
overcome the situation at hand.

28

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

A skill mode is a bundle of several skills that represents a broad area of competence. Modes are great for speeding up character creation even more than Fate
Core already does. Instead of picking and rating 10 individual skills, players
pick and rate three modes, and the skills come along for the ride.
Take a look at your games skill list and think about archetypes youd like
to see in your setting. For each of these archetypes, choose five or six relevant
skills. Each of these skill groups is a mode. Its okay if some skills show up in
more than one mode, but if any are so common that theyre in nearly every
mode, be aware that its going to lead to a certain sameness between characters.
Ideally, you want between four and eight modesenough for variety, but
few enough that picking three is still fast.

SKILLS

SKILL MODES

Ben is planning a classic fantasy game of dungeon-delving, treasure-grabbing, and the occasional dragon-slaying. This games skills
are Athletics, Burglary, Contacts, Deceit, Empathy, Intimidation,
Melee, Missile, Physique, Rapport, Stealth, Survival, and Will. Based
on that list, he comes up with four modes:
BATTLE

TALK

THIEVERY

WOODCRAFT

Athletics

Contacts

Athletics

Athletics

Intimidation

Deceit

Burglary

Lore

Melee

Empathy

Deceit

Notice

Missile

Rapport

Notice

Stealth

Physique

Will

Stealth

Survival

Ben notices that Athletics shows up in three of the four, but its
such a broadly applicable skill that he cant imagine any of those
modes doing without it, either. Besides, the tomb-robber PCs are
going to need it.

Ratings

The usual Fate Core skill pyramid doesnt apply to skills in modes. Instead,
each player picks three modes and rates themone at Good(+3), one at
Fair(+2), and one at Average(+1)and the modes rating becomes the default
rating for all of its skills. Skills at this rating are trained. Skills one step above
their modes level are focused, and skills two steps above are specialized.
One of Bens players, Will, wants to play a thief-type, so he picks
Good(+3) Thievery. This means Athletics, Burglary, Deceit, Notice,
and Stealth all start out trained, with a rating of Good(+3).

CHAPTER 3

29

Reinforced Skills

If two or three of a characters modes contain the same skill, its reinforced.
When this happens, write it down under its highest-rated mode, but not
under any other. No skill should appear more than once on a character sheet.
If a skill is reinforced oncemeaning its shared by two modesimprove it
from trained to focused. If its reinforced twiceshared by all three modes
improve it from trained to specialized.

SKILLS

In addition to his Good(+3) Thievery, Wills also picked Fair(+2) Talk

and Average(+1) Battle. Both Battle and Thievery have Athletics,
so it goes from trained to focusedfrom Good(+3) to Great(+4)
under Thievery. Likewise, Talk and Thievery share Deceit, so that
skills also focused under Thievery. So far, Wills modes look like this:
GOOD (+3)
THIEVERY

FAIR (+2)
TALK

AVERAGE (+1)
BATTLE

+5
+4

Athletics, Deceit

+3

Burglary, Notice,
Stealth

+2

Contacts, Empathy,
Rapport, Will

+1

Intimidation, Melee,
Missile, Physique

Improving Skills

After that, each player has 7 points to further improve skills.

IMPROVEMENT

COST

Focus a trained skill

Specialize a focused skill

Specialize a trained skill

No skill can ever be improved beyond specialized.

30

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

GOOD (+3)
THIEVERY
+5

Stealth

+4

Athletics, Deceit

+3

Burglary, Notice

+2

FAIR (+2)
TALK

AVERAGE (+1)
BATTLE

Contacts

Melee

SKILLS

Will wants to be especially sneaky, so he spends 3 points to specialize Stealth, from Good(+3) to Superb(+5). Hed also like to be
capable in combat, so he spends another 3 to specialize Melee as
well, from Average(+1) to Good(+3). With his last point, he focuses
Contacts, from Fair(+2) to Good(+3), so he can be a little better
connected.

Empathy,
Rapport, Will

+1

Intimidation,
Missile, Physique

Modes with Extras

Some modes offer access to extraseither because it contains a skill extra, or

because it unlocks an aspect extra. For each such extra associated with a mode,
the mode has one fewer skill than normal. For example, if standard modes
in your game have five skills, a mode with a skill extra would have only four.
Aspect extras are in addition to the usual number of aspects for your game.
Ben adds four modes to his list: Arcana and The Gods, for two different kinds of magic, and Dwarf and Elf, fordwarves and elves.
The first two have two extras eacha skill and an aspect, both
related to magicand the second two only have onean aspect.
ARCANA

THE GODS

DWARF

ELF

Lore

Favor

Intimidation

Athletics

Magic

Lore

Lore

Lore

Will

Will

Melee

Missile

Skill Extra

Skill Extra

Physique

Notice

Aspect Extra

Aspect Extra

Aspect Extra

Aspect Extra

CHAPTER 3

31

STUNTS

NEW STUNT RUBRICS

Stunts as presented in Fate Core provide numerous ways to customize your
character, adding fun mechanical tweaks to the game. You get a little more out
of each skill when you pick up stunts, and this can be a lot of fun. If you want
to tweak your stunts even more, this sections for you!

Flexible Stunts

STUNTS

This is the easiest option to implement, as its merely a shift in how you think
about stunts. In Fate Core, stunts are tied explicitly to skills. What if you
want your stunts to be skill-agnostic, or tied to multiple skills, or tied to something else entirely different, like an aspect or piece of gear or a stress track?
Some examples:
Allys Shield: You can invoke Dwarven Shield-Maiden when a nearby ally
suffers an attack. When you do, redirect that attack to yourself. Your defense
is Average(+1) against that attack.
Berserk Rage: When you suffer a physical consequence, you can invoke that
consequence for free on your next attack. If you suffer multiple physical consequences, you get a free invocation for each.
Useful Little Things: Your pockets are full of useful little things. Whenever
you need something, you have it, provided its not something too unusual
(like a map to Jimmy Hoffas body) or too large to fit in a pocket, belt pouch,
or backpack. When you say you have something, the GM should be likely to
agree.
This isnt really a mechanical change, just a shift in how you approach stunt
design. Any of the above three examples could be tied to a skillProvoke,
Fighting, or Resources, for instancebut not thinking about which skill to tie
your stunt to frees you up to be a bit more creative with your design, moving
beyond +2s and skill swaps.

Aspected Stunts

For stunts which are tied to aspects, you might view some of their effects as
narrowly defined free invocations. Other aspected stunts might require an
invocation, as Allys Shield (above) does, but give something extra or particularly unusual when the aspect is invoked. Such effects should be more potent
than a vanilla invocation. You could even design a stunt that triggers under
particular kinds of compelsjust be careful you dont end up neutering the
downside with the resulting benefit.
Charge Like Ox: Because you are Strong Like Ox, once per scene, as a single
action, you may move two zones in a straight line then make a physical attack.
Teflon Troublemaker: When your Cant Keep His Big Mouth Shut aspect is
compelled to make you the target of an attack, you may immediately clear any
mild consequences you currently have, instead of taking a fate point.

34

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Triggered Effects

When you use this stunt mechanic, you create stunts that trigger under a
specific narrative condition, require a skill roll, and have a specific effect as a
result. Stunts like this are a great way to encourage players to do the kinds of
things you want to see them do in the game, as those stunts directly reward
doing those things.

Not to Be Trifled With: When you make it clear how dangerous you are, roll
Provoke against your targets Will. If you succeed, that target will not attack
you or willingly come near you unless you take action against him first. If you
succeed with style, neither will anyone with a lower Will than your target.
Whirlwind Step: When you assume the stance of the whirlwind, roll Athletics
against Fair(+2) opposition. If you succeed, you may run on vertical surfaces
and leap unlikely distances without making rolls to do so, until your next turn
ends. If you succeed with style, you may instead gain these benefits for the rest
of the scene.

STUNTS

A Friend in Every Port: Whenever you enter a settlement, you may declare
youve visited it before and roll Contacts against Fair(+2) opposition. If you
succeed, you have a friend there who owes you one favornothing costly or
life threatening. If you succeed with style, your friend will do any one thing
for you that is within his power.

You probably noticed that none of these stunts say what happens when you
tie or fail; this is deliberate. These triggered effects tend to be powerful, so
their drawbacks should be equally so. A tie should be similar to a success,
but at some sort of minor cost. On a failure, feel free to apply appropriate
repercussions.

Broad Stunts

If youre looking for more variety in your stunts than a +2 or its equivalent,
consider the idea of a broad stunt that offers a +1 to two or three things. These
could be three different actions within the same skill, or could branch across
multiple related skills. If youre going to allow broad stunts like this, watch out
for the overlaps in stunt combinations: you dont want two broad stunts giving
the net effect of three +2s for the price of only two stunts.

Combined Stunts

If you want to offer particularly potent stunts, consider bundling the benefit
of multiple stunts together to produce a single big effect. For example, you
could create a stunt that provides a monstrous 4-shift effectthats a combination of two stunts, and as such would cost two refresh. (You may recognize this as the method used for constructing the supernatural powers in The
Dresden Files RPG.) This kind of focused benefit can throw a game out of
whack quickly, though. Consider limiting access to such super-stunts, either
in quantitye.g., everyone only gets one double-stuntor in selection and
permissiononly these stunts are available to werewolves.

CHAPTER 4

35

STUNT COSTS

STUNTS

In Fate Core, you get three free stunts, three refresh, and you can buy up to
two additional stunts at the cost of one refresh each. This is the default way
to handle stunts, but it is by no means the only way. Each of these componentsnumber of starting stunts, starting refresh, and cost of each stuntis
a dial you can turn in either direction, making stunts more or less common as
you do. How you turn those dials will determine, in part, what kind of game
youre playing, as well as having an impact on Milestones.
More stunts means more powerful PCs. A PC with more stunts can bring
to bear larger bonuses on rolls, use her peak skills more often, and break the
rules more frequently. It leads to a more pulpy, larger-than-life, even fantastical feel. If thats what you want, great! Consider, though, that giving PCs more
stunts also gives them more conditional benefits and exceptions to the rules,
which makes for more complex characters. If the players arent used to this
complexity, this can slow down play at the table and make things less exciting
rather than more.
On the flip side of things, giving the PCs fewer stunts makes their characters simpler and easier to run at the table, but also makes them a little less
competent. A PC with only one stunt, for example, has one schtick that he
can call upon, one signature move. That can mean a grittier game or a game
where the PCs have clearly defined roles and a lot of niche protection, but it
can also bore players that like a lot of rules or disappoint players that want to
be good at a lot of stuff. PCs will still be competent, but not as competent.

Adjusting Starting Stunts

This is the easiest way to give PCs more or fewer stunts. Reducing it to zero
means that a PC starts with no stunts, and will have to pay a dear price for
each stunt she wants to pick up. This can make stunts feel more expensive, but
it can also make individual stunts more important to PCs. Adjusting it in the
other directiongiving PCs more starting stuntsgives players a lot of fun
choices to make about their characters right out of the gate at no cost. It also
brings up the baseline power level for each PC, making it more likely that your
PCs will be highly competent at a wider variety of tasks, or seriously good at
one or two. In addition, it has the effect of making stunts seem less expensive,
which can encourage players to take even more.
One thing to keep an eye on when youre adjusting starting stunts is what
your players want. Are all of your players okay with a less powerful baseline
character, or a more complex one? Not everyone wants to struggle for every
victory or make a dozen choices before play begins.

36

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Adjusting Starting Refresh

Adjusting Stunt Cost

Making stunts cost one refresh is one way to do things, but not the only way.
You can adjust this dial slightly by increasing or decreasing the amount of
refresh a player must pay for a stunt. Maybe stunts cost two refresh, or maybe
a single refresh buys the player two stunts.
There are other ways to fiddle with stunt costs, though. Maybe a player has
to give up a skill point in order to buy a stunt, lowering a Good(+3) skill to
Fair(+2) in order to pick up that stunt he wants. Maybe he has to give up an
aspect or devote an aspect to that stunt in order to get it. Having to tie an
aspect to a new stunt can make for stunts players are more attached to, and
sets a nice upper limit on the number of stunts they can have.
Another way to do it is to make stunts free or very low-cost, but build the
cost into each stunt. Maybe each stunt costs a fate point to activate, or requires
you to take stress, or costs an action to activate, or gives an enemy a boost. You
can build any number of costs into the use of a stunt.
Keep in mind, stunts are priced the way they are, giving the benefits they
do, because they permanently cost the character a fate point by reducing
refresh. Thats a fate point that cant be spent flexibly to get a +2 or similar
benefit during play. So if youre planning to change what stunts cost, you
should also think about tweaking the benefits gained to match whats been
lost to the cost.

STUNTS

Of these three options, adjusting refresh has probably the most profound
impact on gameplay, because it directly affects the fate point economy that
powers the game. Giving players more fate points each session means theyre
likely to resist compels more often and invoke aspects more often. It gives
players more control over the story, which can be a good thing, but also makes
it a little harder to challenge them.
Reducing refresh has the opposite effectplayers have less control over the
story, because they have fewer fate points on hand. They have to accept more
compels and they dont get to invoke their aspects as often. It also means
theyll rely more on free invocations from creating advantages, which might
lengthen big fight scenes.

Somewhere In Between

Most solutions will require adjusting multiple dials to find the sweet spot for a
particular group. Thats totally fine. This is your game, and its up to you and
your group to determine what works for you.

CHAPTER 4

37

THE BIG GAME

GIMME SOME DRAMA!

Sometimes a small change is enough, but then again, sometimes its not.
Sometimes you need a big, dramatic change to the system, something that
really shakes things up.

CHARACTER GENERATION OPTIONS

The character generation system in Fate Core presents a particular style
of character creation, one that presents a lot of freedom but also provides
structure and guides the players into creating a coherent group of individuals. Maybe you want something a little less open-ended, or something a little
more guided.

Professions and Races

THE BIG GAME
40

Anyone whos played fantasy RPGs is at least passingly familiar with these
ideas. For those who arent sure what we mean, a profession is a broad group
of skills and abilities that follows from a particular character concept, often
linked to what you do in the world. A race describes what you arewhere you
come from, who your people are, and where your natural talents lie.
THE WORD RACE
The term race is both inaccurate and problematic in this context. Were not describing a race as modern people use the word;
what were describing is more akin to a species. When youre
making a race in Fate, what youre really doing is making rules for
a type of being other than human, not a nationality or ethnicity.
So why do we use the word race? Its familiar in the context
of a role-playing game. People know what it means because of
numerous games that have come before, and it imparts an immediate understanding of what were talking about. Is it the best
word? No. But we dont have a better word with the same level of
history within the hobby, so were using it here, with the understanding that its a problematic term.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

In Fate, a profession is represented as a collection of skills arranged in the

pyramid, with specific values. Some slots are left open, some are defined.
When you pick a profession, you get the pyramid provided. Fill in any blanks
with whatever you want. A profession also includes a few aspects; pick at least
one of these, or create new ones based on the theme represented by the aspects
provided. Dont take more than two aspects from your profession. Finally, a
profession has a list of stunts available. These are profession-exclusive stunts;
if youre a member of a profession, you can take its stunts. If youre not a
member of the profession, those stunts are off-limits.
A race in Fate provides a number of aspects; choose at least one but not
more than two. Just as with your profession, you can make your own if you
want to. Your race also gives you a racial skill in a few different flavors. (See
example below.) Slot your racial skill into whichever empty slot on the pyramid appeals to you and pick the flavor that most appeals to you; itll tell you
how you can use your racial skill. You can take additional flavors of your racial
skill as if they were stunts.

ASPECTS

Hardened Mercenary, Knight of the Realm, Master at Arms,

Stout Defender, War Veteran.
SKILLS

Great(+4): Fight
Good(+3): Athletics or Physique, one other
Fair(+2): Shoot or Provoke, two others
Average(+1): Any four skills

THE BIG GAME

PROFESSION: FIGHTER

STUNTS

Armiger: Whenever you take a mild physical consequence, you can

choose to instead destroy your armor or your shield, provided
youre using the appropriate item. Once your armor or shield is
destroyed, youll have to get it repaired or get a new one.
Bend Bars, Lift Gates: You may spend a fate point to automatically
overcome a Physique obstacle, even if youve already rolled for it,
provided youre trying to accomplish something through brute
strength.
Bounty Board: Whenever you enter a settlement, you can look for
work. After an hour or so, you find a job that either pays well but
is dangerous or is not too dangerous but doesnt pay that well. If
you spend a fate point, it both pays well and is not too dangerous.
Defend the Weak: When someone is attacked physically while
within your zone, you can spend a fate point to redirect that
attack to yourself. You may defend against that attack at +1.

CHAPTER 5

41

PROFESSION: THIEF
ASPECTS

Acquisition Specialist, Cunning Swindler, Guild Thief, Knife in

the Dark, Second-Story Man/Woman.
SKILLS

THE BIG GAME

42

Great(+4): Deceive or Stealth

Good(+3): Athletics or Provoke, one other
Fair(+2): Fight or Shoot, two others
Average(+1): Any four skills
STUNTS

Backstab: When you can surprise an enemy or attack from a place

of hiding, you can attack with Stealth. If you succeed, you create
a boost. If you succeed with style, you get to invoke that boost
for free twice.
Cover: You have a cover identity you can assume. Describe your
cover identity, choose a high concept and a trouble aspect for your
cover identity, and choose an apex skill for your cover identity.
You can assume that identity with enough preparation and the
expenditure of a fate point. While youre in that identity, its high
concept and trouble replace yours and you can use Deceive in
place of its apex skill. You lose these benefits as soon as your cover
is blown, and you may have to spend some time creating a new
cover identity.
Criminal Underbelly: Whenever you enter a settlement for the first
time, you can spend a fate point to declare that the local criminals
know you. Choose one of the following: they have a lead on a
promising job, theyll give you and your companions free room
and board for a few weeks, or theyll help you with something
right now but you might owe them afterward.
Not a Threat: Choose Deceive or Stealth when you take this stunt.
When you create an advantage with that skill to make yourself
as non-threatening or unobtrusive as possible, enemies will find
other targets for as long as that aspect exists. As soon as you successfully attack someone, the aspect goes away.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

RACE: ELF
ASPECTS

The Experience of Centuries, I Know These Woods., The Long

Game, Magic in the Blood, Perfection in Everything.
You may use the Elf skill to recognize useful flora and fauna, know
your way through the woods, or notice hidden dangers. In addition,
pick one of the following flavors; you may pick more at the cost of
one stunt or refresh each.
Elven High Magic: You can use Elf to cast spells relating to nature
or growth, even if you have no other magical ability.
Perfection in Battle: Choose Shoot or Fight. When youre using the
traditional armaments of your people, you can use Elf instead of
the chosen skill.

THE BIG GAME

RACIAL SKILL (ELF)

RACE: ORC
ASPECTS

Blood and Glory, Everyone Fears the Horde, Pain Is for the
Weak., The Spirits Guide Me, Warrior of the Seven Clans.
RACIAL SKILL (ORC)

You may use Orc to resist pain, call upon the spirits for aid, or perform feats of brute strength. In addition, pick one of the following
flavors; you can pick more at the cost of one stunt or refresh each.
Blood Rage: When you use Orc to create an advantage representing
an overpowering battle-fury, you get an extra invocation on that
aspect if you succeed or succeed with style.
Thick Skin: You may use Orc instead of Physique to determine
your physical stress and consequences, and you get one additional
minor physical consequence.

CHAPTER 5

43

The Origin Story

The origin story is a method to kick-start character creation through play,

using vignettes that target each player. Before playing through an origin story,
a character needs two things: a high concept and an apex skill. Most players
will have at least a general idea of who they want to be, but they may be fuzzy
on the details. The high concept and the apex skill define a character in the
broadest possible terms, providing a starting point for an origin story vignette.
When you play through an origin story with a player, its just like playing
the normal game except that youre playing with an eye toward defining who
that character is. Start in medias reswhen you start with action, you give the
player opportunities to make choices about their character.
A character starts her origin story with one fate point.

Choosing New Skills

During the origin story, call for a lot of skill rolls. Spotlight the characters
apex skill to some extent, but also call for other skill rolls. Whenever the player
must make a skill roll and doesnt want to roll at Mediocre(+0), she can assign
that skill to one of her empty slots. Once assigned, its part of the character.

THE BIG GAME

Choosing New Aspects

Throw the player into a variety of different situations, pit her against a variety
of different difficulties. When the player runs into trouble, when she needs a
+2 or a reroll for example, suggest an aspect to her. If she takes you up on your
suggestion or comes up with her own aspect, let her invoke it once for free and
give her a fate point!

Choosing New Stunts

You can offer the player new stunts the same way you offer her new aspects
offer her something that might get her out of a tight spot, or allow her to do
something she needs to do. Just like in Fate Core, the character gets three
free stunts and may take additional stunts by reducing refreshunless you
changed these dials, of course. If its a stunt with a limited number of uses or
that costs a fate point, let her use it once for free.

Involving the Other Players

Playing a characters origin story is a communal activity! Other players can

jump in to play NPCsyou can suggest they do this, too, if you need someone to play a particular character. They can even jump in with their own
characters, whether or not theyve gone through their own origin story yet.
Other players can also suggest aspects, but only if those aspects define a
relationship with their own characters. If the two players define a relationship
during an origin story, they both get an aspect and a fate pointwhich the
other player can use in his own origin story!

Ending an Origin Story

Follow an origin story to its logical conclusion, but try not to let it last longer
than fifteen or twenty minutes before you move on to the next origin story.
The idea is to play through an origin story for each player at the table during
a single session.

44

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

If youre stuck for an adventure idea, you need look no further than the PCs
aspects! Heres a neat trick to kick-start an adventure and also start the players
off with some extra fate points.
First, take a look at all of the PCs aspects and see if any jump out at you.
If you see one that seems to have an interesting adventure hook, particularly
something thats tied to the world or an organization within the world, tell
the player you want to use it as the seed of an adventure and offer him a fate
point. Most players will accept this compel without much convincing, but if
the player isnt interested, dont charge him a fate point for refusaljust come
up with a different aspect to compel.
Once youve got your seed, open it up to the table. Suggest other aspects
and solicit suggestions from the players. Talk with them about whats going
to show up in the adventure and hand out fate points for good suggestions.
These suggestions dont have to be tied to aspects, but its best if they are. After
all, if youre tying multiple aspects into the story, you can keep compelling
that aspect later!
If you do take suggestions not based on existing aspects, turn those suggestions into aspects. They can be situation aspects or they can be aspects placed
on the entire adventure.
Once youve got a good starting point, start playing! Now youve got a starting situation with a lot of player buy-in, and the players have some extra fate
points so that they can be extra-awesome from the start!

CHAPTER 5

THE BIG GAME

PRE-COMPELS AS
ADVENTURE DESIGN

45

ASPECT EVENTS

THE BIG GAME

This is a trick you can use to create the framework of an adventureyou

can even combine this technique with the previous technique to inject events
based on player input.
An aspect event has two components: the event list and the crescendo aspect.
The event list is a series of things that will happen, leading up to the crescendo
aspect. Think of the crescendo aspect as what will happen if the players dont
intercede. A good event has three to six aspects plus the crescendo aspect.
When the adventure starts, check off the first aspect and bring it into the
story. This is the inciting incident, the thing that gets the PCs involved. Its
an aspect like any otheryou and the players can compel it or invoke it as
appropriate. It stays in play until its no longer relevant, at which point you
simply cross it off.
Whenever the story suggests that things should move on, or whenever
theres a lull in the action, check off the next aspect and bring it into the story.
Its now an aspect that can be invoked or compelled, and its a new element
to the story. Keep doing this for as long as you need to. Accelerate the rate at
which you bring in aspects, if the players are getting distracted or not getting
involved, or slow it down if theyre being really proactive.
If the crescendo aspect gets checked off, things have gotten really, really bad.
This usually indicates that the bad guys are on the verge of winning, and that
the players need to step up their game!
If you dont check off all the aspects by the time the PCs wrap things up,
thats fine! It just means the PCs were on their game, and that they got to be
awesome and win big. If you check off all the aspects and things go badly for
the PCs, thats also fine! You can snowball what happened in this story into the
next one, and up the ante a bit.
Heres an example:
Explosions and Fire!
A Rash of Murders
Citywide Panic
Under Terrorist Threat
Three Hours to Detonation
Smoking Crater

46

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

POWER LEVEL
Fate Core provides a default power level that emulates a specific kind of
action. Its heroic and action-oriented, but its also a bit gritty, with heroes that
are fragile enough to get hurt badly after a few good hits but tough enough to
stay alive for a while. It also provides a certain level of competence in the form
of the skill levels and fate points you get.
That power level isnt right for every game, though. Sometimes you want to
emulate high-octane pulp or gritty noir, and the default settings for those dials
arent quite right. Well, no problemjust adjust those dials!
In Fate Core, characters have ten skills in a pyramid ranging from
Average(+1) to Great(+4). This emulates highly competent individuals with
a small number of things that theyre very good at and a wider variety of things
that theyre pretty good at. There are two things you can adjust when it comes
to skills: number of skills and skill cap.
When you increase the number of skills available, youre making the characters competent at a wider variety of things. When you increase the skill
cap, you allow PCs to become very good at a few things, possibly reaching
into superhuman levels. Decreasing these things tends to push things into
a grittier area; fewer skills means the heroes have more niche protection but
also increases the chance that the group wont have a specific, important skill.
Decreasing the skill cap makes the PCs less competent, which can be good if
youre trying to emulate a group full of regular folks.
Most games increase or decrease both; adjusting one without adjusting the
other can result in skill bloat or the upper limits of capability going unused.

THE BIG GAME

Skills

Refresh

Adjusting refresh up or down impacts PC competency and versatility directly.

More importantly, it also affects how often the PCs have to accept compels.
Higher refresh means the PCs get more fate points every session, which means
they can refuse more compels. Lower refresh means compels are more important, but it also means the players are more at the GMs mercy.
Refresh also affects how many extra stunts a player can buy, which has a
direct impact on specialization, niche protection, and competency.

Stunts

It should come as no surprise that handing out more free stunts makes PCs
more powerful, and handing out fewer makes them less so. This will also have
an impact on refreshfewer free stunts means players might need to spend
some of their precious refresh on more stunts, and vice versa.
A second way to adjust power level through stunts without affecting the
number of stunts a PC gets is to adjust the power level of the stunts themselves. In Fate Core, a stunt is worth about 2 shifts. Adjusting that up to 3
or 4 means that each stunt has more individual impact, while adjusting it
downward makes each less important.

CHAPTER 5

47

THE BIG GAME

Stress

Fate Core sets stress tracks at 2 each, adjusting them upward based on certain
skills. You can increase this to make characters tougher if you want them to be
able to take more of a beating, while adjusting stress downward makes them
more fragile. This change has a direct impact on how long fights last. More
stress means PCs can shrug off more punishment, which makes fights less
risky and probably more common. Lower stress means fights are a lot more
dangerous, which means that players will think twice before starting one. It
also means theyll need to consider conceding more often in order to avoid
getting taken out.

Aspects

Adjusting the number of aspects upward or downward from five doesnt have
as much effect on power level as some of the other dials you can turn, but
it does have an impact on character versatility. More aspects means there
are more tricks the players can call upon to pull their bacon out of the fire,
while reducing the number of aspects gives them fewer. However, be careful
about adjusting the number of aspects. The more aspects there are, the less
important each aspect is and the more likely it is to be forgotten or ignored.
Reducing the number of aspects means that each individual aspect becomes
more important and less likely to be overlooked, but it also means youll have
to make up for it to some extent with extra situation aspects. In general, more
than seven aspects leads to aspect bloat, while fewer than three gives characters
too little depth.
Youll also want to think about adjusting refresh if you adjust the number
of aspects. If you have a ton of aspects but low refresh, most of those wont
get invoked.

48

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Examples

Here are a few examples of power levels you can use for your own games.
GRITTY NOIR

PULP ADVENTURE

SUPER-HEROIC

Eight skills:
3 Average (+1),
3 Fair (+2),
2 Good (+3)

Fifteen skills:
5 Average (+1),
4 Fair (+2),
3 Good (+3),
2 Great (+4),
1 Superb (+5)

Eighteen skills:
5 Average (+1),
4 Fair (+2),
3 Good (+3),
3 Great (+4),
2 Superb (+5),
1 Fantastic (+6)

Skill cap at
Good(+3)

(35 skill points equivalent)

Refresh 2

Skill cap at
Superb(+5)

1 free stunt

Refresh 4

2 stress boxes
to start

5 free stunts

5 aspects

4 stress boxes
to start
7 aspects

(50 skill points equivalent)

Skill cap at
Fantastic(+6)
Refresh 6
5 free stunts
Stunts are worth
3 shifts each
4 stress boxes to
start; stunts can
provide more
5 aspects

THE BIG GAME

(15 skill points equivalent)

These starting skill spreads are suggestions, made with Fate Cores default
18-skills-long list in mind. If you use a longer skill list, the relative breadth
of the starting skill sets changes. Look at the above in that light. Gritty Noirs
eight skills cover about 45% of the available skills, Fate Cores default covers
about 55%, Pulp Adventures is about 80%, and Super-Heroics is 100%.
This is a competence dial. It measures not only how well a PC can take on
a specific kind task, but how many different kinds of tasks a given PC can
excel at.

CHAPTER 5

49

SPECIAL
CIRCUMSTANCES

CHASES

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
52

In any adventure story, youre going to have a big chase scene eventually. This
is an adventure trope and Fate Core is aimed at the adventure genre. What
you want is to make a chase exciting. Its no funand it drains out a lot of
the dramato have a single roll determine who escapes. There are a couple of
different ways to approach this type of action.
Using just the standard rules, you can simulate a chase as a challenge (Fate
Core, page 147). For a basic chase that you dont want to spend a lot of time
resolving, this is perfectly adequate. Set some obstacles for the rolls the players
need to make and let them resolve those obstacles. If they succeed in enough
rolls, they either escape or, if they are pursuing, catch their quarry. Simple, but
not too interesting.
If there is more active opposition, the contest rules (Fate Core, page 150)
are the next option and can work quite well. There is a bit of tension here,
and the way to set this up so that every player character doesnt need to make
rolls individually is to frame the contest as occurring between two teams. The
first team to achieve their three victories wins. If its the fleeing group, they get
away, and if its the chasing group, they catch up, bringing whatever consequences that implies. Getting caught often triggers a conflict.
The contest rules work fine, but three victories is often pretty easy to achieve
if youve got a reasonably sized group of characters, and sometimes you want
some more drama in your chase scene. Heres an alternative method, called the
chase track. Its a hybrid of the contest and conflict rules.
To start, set up a stress track for the chase. This is your timer for the scene.
The fleeing party is trying to empty the stress track, while the pursuers are
trying to fill it. The length of the stress track determines how long the scene
lasts, and where you start on the track sets the difficulty of the escape.
You first need to decide how long you want your chase scene to go on. If
you are looking for an average-length scene, a stress track of 10 should be the
baseline. If you want to go less than 10, you should probably make the chase a
regular contest. If you want the chase to be longer or more involved, add more
stress. A 14-stress chase scene is a major event in the session, and an 18 or 20
stress scene could be the main focus of a whole session of play. You probably
dont want to go longer than that, or you risk your chase scene stretching out
so far that your players get bored.
Setting how many stress boxes are already checked off determines how close
the pursuers are to catching the fleeing group. Usually you are going to want
the stress to start right in the middle (5 on a 10-stress track). You can make it
harder for the fleeing party to escape by setting the stress closer to the top of
the range, like 7 stress on a 10-stress track. By the same token, you can make
the escape easier by setting the starting stress at a lower level. Its probably
best to avoid this, unless the player characters are the pursuing party. If the
chase is less complicated, just use a challenge or contest instead of the chase
stresstrack.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

 If you fail, your opponent has the choice to either create a boost that
works against you, or to move the stress track one check in their direction.
If you tie, you may choose to move the stress track one check in your
direction, but if you do so, your opponent gains a +1 on their next roll.
If you succeed, you move the stress track one check in your direction.
If you succeed with style, you get to move the stress track two checks in
your direction, or one check and you gain a boost that you can use against
your opponent on your next roll.
Each side takes turns making moves and rolling against their skills. Make
sure each of the player characters gets a chance to contribute to the escape
attempt. Sometimes the rolls will go really well or really poorly and you wont
get to everyone, but thats okay. Keep the tension up with good descriptions,
going into detail about each move and its results. When one side or the other
has either eliminated or filled the stress track, the chase is over. Someone has
either been caught or escaped.

CHAPTER 6

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Once youve got your stress track set, determine who gets to go first. This
can be a judgment call, or it can be based on which individual character on
each side has the highest relevant skill. Each side will take turns, so who starts
has a slight advantage, but thats about it.
In turn, each side makes skill rolls to attempt to increase or diminish the
stress track. This is an overcome action, and it can be opposed by either a passive defense or, more likely, by an active opposition from the other side in the
chase. These actions can be all sorts of things, and its most exciting if they are
varied and inventive. Drive rolls for vehicular chases should describe how the
character is dodging through barriers or oncoming traffic, for example, and
Athletics for foot chases would be about how the characters climb up on to
the rooftops and parkour across dangerous hazards. A variety of other skills
can come into play for different sorts of actions. You can use Deceive to fake
out your opponent, Fight to knock someone down, Notice to spot hazards
and avoid them while allowing your opponent to get entangled, Physique to
knock obstacles into your opponents way. If a player comes up with a good
action for just about any skill, you should allow it.
When making your roll, the outcome determines what happens to the chase
stress track.

53

SOCIAL CONFLICT
The social skills in Fate Core (Deceive, Empathy, Provoke, Rapport) already
give groups a variety of ways to approach social conflicts, but your group can
also implement a system of motivations and instincts to provide PCs more
opportunities to engage NPCs in social interactions.

Motivations and Instincts

Any NPCeven a nameless guardhas two components to their social

logic: a motivation and an instinct that follows from that motivation. For
example, a teacher may want to safeguard his students (Motivation: Protect
His Students from Harm) by keeping the
You might notice that most
players characters from interrogating a
motivations double as situation
particular student (Instinct: Deny the PCs
aspects that can be invoked and
Access). Any attempts to produce a change
compelled using fate points.
will require the PCs to either alter the NPCs
Remember the Bronze Rule!
motivation or convince them that a different
instinct better serves the motivation itself.

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
54

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Discovering and Modifying Motivations

Of course, motivations are sometimes difficult to detect. While some NPCs

will clearly announce why they are opposing the PCsIve come to avenge
my father!most people dont run around shouting out their internal monologues to the world. In order to discover an NPCs motivations, the PCs need
to create advantages using an appropriate social skill. Characters can pick up
on small clues (Empathy), challenge the NPC through taunts or provocative statements (Provoke), or even pretend to be someone the NPC can trust
(Deceive), in order to discover NPC motivations.
Once the PCs know an NPCs motivation, they can try to alter that motivation using a variety of social skills, replacing the motivation with a urgent
concern based on new information (Rapport) or attempting to falsely convince the target that their motivation is based on bad assumptions (Deceive).
For example, a loyal guard (Motivation: Follow My Boss Orders, Instinct:
Kill the PCs) might be scared off by a sufficiently impressive threat (Provoke)
designed to change his motivation to Save My Own Skin.
Rather than attempt to sway an NPCs motivations, PCs may also create
situations that demand more immediate attention or suggest that a different instinct would better serve the original motivation. For example, the PCs
might start a fire (Provoke) in the lobby of the hotel to distract a hotel concierge (Motivation: Keep the Hotel Running Smoothly) or try to convince
a drug lord to part with the drugs for less (Rapport) on the promise that
future shipments will make up the loss on volume (Motivation: Make Lots of
Money). These attempts to change the NPCs instincts might move an NPC
from Instinct: Keep the PCs Out to Instinct: Put Out the Fire! or from
Instinct: Sell the Drugs at Market Prices to Instinct: Sell the Drugs Cheap.
Ultimately these social interactions rely on the PCs ability to sell the new
instinct as better serving the original motivation instead of changing the original motivation completely.

Challenges, Contests, and Conflicts

For most attempts to modify NPC motivations or instincts, the PCs will need
to make overcome rolls against an active opposition; the NPC rolls an appropriate social skill to see through the deception or resist the fast talk. In some
cases it may make sense to use the contest mechanicstrying to convince a
judge to let someone out of jail before the judge moves on to the next case
or conflict mechanicsunion and management representatives conducting a
hard-nosed negotiation that leaves both sides exhausted. Players should also
keep in mind that their opponents have social strengths and weaknesses: its
easier to convince a dim-witted, loyal guard with Average(+1) Empathy and
Great(+4) Will that his boss wants him to let you in to the secret meeting
(Deceive to modify instinct) than it is to convince him that he should abandon his boss altogether (Rapport to modify motivation).

CHAPTER 6

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Modifying Instincts

55

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
56

Michael Romero and Amarika Davis are Los Angeles homicide

detectives investigating the murder of a wealthy socialite, Richard
Bentley. After digging through the case, they discover that Bentleys
wife, Sandra Orastin, is the killer. Yet when they show up to arrest
her, one of her security guards keeps them from getting close
enough to close the case (Instinct: Stop the Cops from Arresting
My Boss).
Knowing that a physical conflict would give Orastin a chance to
escape, Amarika tries to talk her way past the guard, beginning with
a Provoke roll to learn the guards motivation (create an advantage
with Provoke). She has a Good(+3) Provoke and rolls well(+3),
bringing her total up to Fantastic(+6). The guard, a nameless NPC
with an Average(+1) Deceive, rolls decently(+2), but cant help but
reveal his motivation: he doesnt want to get fired by letting his
boss get arrested. The GM adds the aspect Motivation: Keep My
Job with two free invocations, since Amarika succeeded with style.
Amarika asks him why he wants to protect a killer and the guard
sputters something about doing his job even though he doesnt
like it.
Michael, seizing on the aspect Amarika discovered, decides that
hes going to try to alter the guards instinct. He suggests that if
the guard wants to keep his job, he should help the police arrest
Orastin. After all, the guard will definitely lose his job if Michael and
Amarika have to arrest him, too.
Michael has a stronger Rapport(+3) than Provoke(+1) skill, so he
focuses on convincing the guard instead of scaring him (overcome
with Rapport). Michaels roll is average(+0), but he uses the free
invocation on Motivation: Keep My Job to bring his roll up to a
Superb(+5) result. The guard, with Fair(+2) Will rolls poorly (-2),
and Michael convinces him that working with the police is the best
way to fulfill his Motivation. Michael gains an additional boost Led
by the Guards for succeeding with style.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

CHAPTER 6

57

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS

STRESS
Stress boxes have a pretty specific purpose and use in Fate Core, but thats
hardly the only way to go. Here are some other options.
One-Shift Boxes: Every stress box absorbs only one shift of harm, but check
as many as you want at a time. This option makes characters significantly
more fragile.
Check Two: Check up to two boxes at once, add their values together, and
reduce the hit by that many shifts. This option makes characters significantly
toughera character with five stress boxes can take up to 9 shifts of harm in
a scene without resorting to a consequence.
Step Down: Stress goes away gradually rather than all at once. Instead of
clearing a stress box automatically at the end of a scene, erase it and check the
box to its left (assuming there is one).
Bonus Only: Characters have zero stress boxes to start, but still get bonus
boxes from skills like Physique and Will. This makes characters more fragile
and emphasizes consequences.
Extra Effort: Voluntarily check a box anytime for a bonus on a roll. The
bonus equals the value of the checked box. This can have unpredictable effects
on your game. Not only can it result in some swingy rolls, it can also partially
supplant the usual fate point economy. When combined with any of the above
options, though, it becomes a little more viable.

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60

Stress-Free: Characters have no stress boxes and dont receive bonus boxes
from skills. Instead, those skills grant one bonus mild consequence (physical
or mental) at Good(+3) or two at Great(+4). This is the most dangerous
and dynamic optionevery hit results in a consequence and has narrative
impactbut can potentially mean an unmanageable number of aspects in
play.

CONSEQUENCES
Just like stress, consequences can serve a variety of roles in your game, apart
from the default presented in Fate Core.
Extreme Effort: Voluntarily take a consequence anytime for a bonus on a roll
equal to the consequences valuemild grants +2, moderate +4, or severe +6.
This can be dangerous, both to the PC and to the fate point economy, as with
Extra Effort, above.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

The antagonists in Wills superhero game all belong to a terrorist organization called CHIMERA. Minotaur and Scylla are the main
NPCs, while Cerberus, Talos, and Cerastes are all supporting NPCs.
That gives Will a pool of four mild, three moderate, and two severe
group consequences for the lot of them.
In an early scene, the PCs face off against Cerberus, Talos, and
Minotaur. During the course of the conflict, Cerberus and Minotaur
each use a mild consequencethen Cerberus is taken out, Talos
concedes, and Minotaur manages to escape. Will could have chosen
to use some more consequences to keep Cerberus and Minotaur in
the fight, but he chose to save those for a later scene. Plus, he gets
a fate point for the concessionand only one, as Talos didnt use a
consequence.
By the time they hit the climactic battle, Will has one mild, one
moderate, and two severe group consequences remaining to use
for Scylla, Minotaur, and Cerastes, the three major NPCs in the
scene, as they attempt to bring their nefarious machinations to
fruition.

Collateral Consequences: In addition to their usual complement of consequences, the players can also make use of three communal consequences,
one of each degree of severity. These represent damage to the environment or
new complications in the story, such as Injured Bystanders or Anti-Mutant
Hysteria. Players can effectively use them to offload harm from themselves
onto the world around them. A collateral consequence can be cleared just
like a regular one, using an overcome action with whatever skill seems most
appropriate, with two exceptions. One, it must be done during the scene
in which the consequence is incurred. Two, theres no delaywith a good
enough skill roll it clears immediately. This option is best suited for genres,
such as supers, in which the PCs are likely to care a great deal about the world
around them.

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Group Consequences: Instead of tracking them individually, supporting and

main NPCs share a pool of group consequences. This gives you the option
to sacrifice a supporting NPC now to make a main NPC more challenginglater. For every two supporting NPCs you expect to include in the scenario, add two mild and one moderate group consequences, to a maximum of
three moderate group consequences. For each main NPC, add another mild,
moderate, and severe group consequence. If a supporting or main NPC concedes, base the concession reward on the total number of consequences that
NPC used during that scene.

61

ZONES
Using zone maps during conflicts breaks up the physical space of a fight,
giving characters with high Athletics and Physique scores the opportunity to
dominate the battlefield. Here are a few ideas to make zones an exciting part
of your game:

Moving Through Zones

In games with quite a few zones, you may want to allow characters to sacrifice
their turn in order to move a number of zones equal to their Athletics or to
remove a number of physical obstacles equal to their Physique. Fast and strong
characters want to be fast and strong, but rolling dice isnt always the best way
to represent that in Fate.

Tight Zones Can Create Drama

While zones divide up big areas like parking lots and stadiumsshowing how
difficult it is to run across a football field quicklythey can also be used to
divide up small areas in interesting ways. For example, a fight on a ship might
take place in tight quarters that require allies to cross several zones in order
to offer support to a friend in trouble. By forcing players to choose between
spending actions on moving or offering help from afar, zones can make ordinary conflicts dramatic.

Dangerous Zone Aspects

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS
62

Zones can also create drama by restricting movement and providing threats
the characters have to overcome. For example, a zone on a battlefield might
have the aspect Taking Heavy Fire, requiring characters to make an Athletics
roll to avoid taking damage as they run through the firefight. Some zones
might also disappear after a specified number of turns. Collapsing bridges,
sinking ships, and closing doors all push characters to move quickly as the
battlefield shifts around them and give the players a chance to force NPCs into
those zones to contend with the threats as well.

Mental or Social Zones

Not all conflicts happen in the physical world; Fate characters are often drawn
into social or mental conflicts that can be mapped out in interesting ways.
For example, a psychic surgeon may find her way through a patients dreamscape blocked by situation aspects that must be overcome though a series of
Investigation and Empathy rolls. The zones could detail the obstacles that are
keeping the patient from accessing old memories, traces of trauma and abuse
that the PCs must punch through before they help the patient overcome his
or her past. Similarly, a GM might detail several different social groups in a
high school, indicating which groups the PCs have to impress before they can
gain access to the more popular students. In essence, these mental and social
zones serve to constrain the players, directing them toward conflicts by limiting their movement.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

REFRESH
If you want to build more character development into your game, you can
let characters devote a scene to activating their refresh, adding some drama in
between the scenes of exciting action. Refresh scenes might be:
Flashback scenes: Whenever appropriate, a player can declare that an event
triggers a flashback scene. With help from the group, the player narrates a
flashback to their characters past, revealing a surprising or interesting detail
that connects to the present, renewing the characters focus or giving them the
strength to keep going.
Recovery scenes: At the GMs discretion, the groups characters step out of
their normal active lives to rest and recuperate, splitting up to pursue their
own interests and refocus their energies. These are fantastic scenes for the GM
to add new NPCs to the story.

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS

Reflection scenes: One player declares a reflection scene and the other characters ask questions that reveal important and interesting information about the
reflecting characters backstory. These are perfect for action-filled stories where
actual time away from the adventure is unrealistic.
These scenes can get PCs additional fate points in the middle of a session to
keep things exciting or to replace the start-of-session refresh completely. Feel
free to use one type exclusively, or open up all of them to your players to use.

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63

MODIFYING THE SETTING:

MAKING BIG CHANGES
While Fate characters are always protagonists, sometimes the players decide
they want to modify the setting itself, cleaning up the mean streets of a crimeridden town or securing a military fortification against future attacks.

Discover the Problems

Before You Solve Them

First, the players must gather the information they need to do the job. Perhaps
the characters need to collect their existing experienceIsnt Bastion the
main drug runner in town?or maybe they need to make new Contacts,
Investigate, or Lore rolls to uncover old alliances and lost knowledge. Either
way, the group should construct a series of setting aspects that represent the
existing problem.
To clean up the streets, a group might list:
Local Drug Pushers
Midlevel Drug Mules
Drug Financiers
Corrupt Cops
Crime Kingpin, Marty OBanner

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS
64

Episode by Episode

For each setting aspect the group wants to reform, the group must roll against
an appropriate difficulty for resolving that problem. For example, arresting all
the Local Drug Pushers might require the characters to make a Resources roll
to mobilize the existing police officers, or a Physique roll to actually capture
the bad guys themselves. While the characters can invoke their own aspects,
the GM can pay fate points to invoke the existing setting aspectssuch as
Corrupt Copscomplicating the players progress.
For each roll, use the outcome to drop the characters into the middle of a
situationlike a TV episodethat reflects the results of the roll. On a losing
roll, the Local Drug Pushers have gone to ground, and its going to take some
digging to get them out. On a successful roll, the group has rounded up the
bad guys, but needs to get them to start talking. Either way, if the characters
manage to resolve the situation, flip the setting aspect to a positive, turning
Local Drug Pushers into A Few Clean Streets.
Once they start to make progress, let the group freely invoke previously
resolved setting aspects that apply, as the job might get easier when they work
their way up the chain.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

If youre less interested in playing out the day-to-day changes needed to

reform a criminal justice system or fortify a castle, you can instead construct
montages for your characters progress. Set a time limitincluding a limited
number of actionsthat represent that time and resources the characters have
available to resolve the situation before the story picks up in full.
For each roll, the characters attempt to resolve one of the discovered aspects
using appropriate skills. Characters can work together, or they can split up to
try to solve multiple problems. In this style of making big changes, narrate the
groups success like a movie montage, pausing only long enough at each roll to
see the group succeed or fail to improve the situation.

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We Need a Montage!

65

OTHER DICE
Dont have your Fate dice or Deck of Fate handy? Here are some alternatives
to get your game going.

D6-D6

Take two six-sided dice of different colors. Designate one as the positive die
and the other as the negative, and roll. Subtract the negative from the positive
to get a result of -5 to +5. Doubles are always a zero. Its swingier than four
Fate dice, and the range is broader, but its close enough for jazz.

Connect the Dots

This technique was first seen in Babys First Fudge Dice by Jonathan Walton.
You can Google up a more extensive explanation of the idealook for the link
that leads to sinisterforces.com.
With a permanent marker and some pipped six-sided dice, you can make
your own Fate dice by connecting the dots. The 2 and 3 sides become your sides, the 4 and 6 sides become your 0 sides, and the 5 and 1 sides become
your + sidesyoull have to freehand the 1. Ta-daartisanal Fate dice!

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS

3d6

If you go in for tables, or if you just have a good memory, you can roll three
six-sided dice.
3

5-6

7-8

9-12

13-14

15-16

17

18

-4

-3

-2

-1

+0

+1

+2

+3

+4

4d6

This ones the least work, but maybe not the most intuitive: roll four six-sided
dice and treat 1s and 2s as -, 3s and 4s as 0, and 5s and 6s as +.

66

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SCALE
If you expect your games themes and issues to give rise to conflicts between
entities of different size or scaledragon vs. knight, snub fighter vs. space station, or start-up vs. multinational corporation, for exampleconsider making
use of these rules. If not, youre probably better off giving this section a pass.
First, establish how many scale steps youll need. Three or four should do it.
What those steps represent is going to depend on the nature of the setting and
the stories you expect to tell, but theyll always reflect incrementally larger or
more potent things in the setting and will commonly be involved in conflicts.
Mikes game about warring secret societies of varying size and
influence has scale steps called Local (confined to a single city),
Regional (multiple cities), and Widespread (all cities).

When two entities enter into a conflict with one another, the differences
in their scale come into play. For every step that separates them, apply one or
both of the following effects to the larger of the two:
+1 to the attack roll or +1 to the defense roll
Deal +2 shifts of harm on a successful attack or reduce incoming harm
by 2

If the Hatchet Gang (scale: Local) stages a daring raid against the
Benevolent Association of Celestial Wanderers (scale: Regional),
the Hatchet Gang will have a harder time of it, in terms of resources
and personnel, against the better funded Association. Its reasonable to give the Association a +1 bonus to its defensive Fighting roll.

Of course, if the conflict is between two entities of roughly equivalent size

or scale, then none of these effects applies. They only come into play when the
scale is unequal.
Scale as an Extra: Most things in your setting will have a scale rating just
based on what they are as a matter of common senseall small gangs are
Local, for examplebut you can give players the chance to alter the scale of
their characters, possessions, or holdings as an extra they can take, if it fits with
their high concept.

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How to apply these effects depends on what makes sense in context.

67

SIDEKICKS VS. ALLIES

Players can select both sidekicks and allies as extras, but differentiating a boy
wonder from a squad of professional agents can be tough. Here are a few ways
to distinguish sidekicks, who work closely with the PCs, from trained allies
that they may call upon in specific situations.

Permissions and Costs

While both sidekicks and allies are extras (see Extras, page 269 in Fate Core),
sidekicks tend to be unlocked through personal relationships and allies tend
to arise from organizational or resource-driven permissions. For example,
Sherlock Holmes might select the aspect Good Friend of Dr. Watson to add
Watson to his sheet as a sidekick, while selecting the aspect Patron of the
Baker Street Irregulars would add the mostly nameless children he uses as
spies and couriers. As for costs, sidekicks tend to impose social and relational
costs on the charactersasking them to contribute to important causes or
aid them in times of needwhile allies usually require more direct payment,
favors, or other resources.

Stress Tracks and Consequences

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS
68

One great place to differentiate sidekicks and allies is with stress tracks and
consequences in conflicts. Sidekicks are like supporting charactersgive them
a limited stress track with one mild (or perhaps moderate) consequence slot
and one extreme consequence that might change the characters sheet in a
dramatic moment.
Allies, on the other hand, are usually faceless mobs that have a stress box for
each member of the gang. Stress inflicted on allies typically knocks them out
of the fight completely instead of leaving them with consequences that carry
from scene to scene. This distinction makes it harder to take out a gang of
allies in a single attack, but makes sidekicks more flexible and resilient across
a variety of social and physical situations in which they can utilize their consequence slots to protect or defend the PCs.

Permanent vs. Temporary Allies

Sidekicks are almost always permanent parts of a characters sheet, but allies
might be temporary, depending on the needs of the PC. For example, an intelligence officer might take the aspect Sent by the Feds to have a set of Federal
Agents on call, at the cost of a point of refresh. Its equally feasible that such
a character could forgo such permanent allies in favor of creating an advantage for an upcoming scene, using Contacts or Resources. Of course, permanent allies should be much more powerful, with more stress boxes, additional
aspects, and additional stunts, than temporary allies who are little better than
a weak nameless mob.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

WEALTH
The importance of money in a game depends greatly on its genre. Fate Core
suggests a Resources skill, but for genres in which the acquisition of wealth is
often a prime motivator, such as cyberpunk or classic dungeon-crawling fantasy, you might want something a little more flexible.

Wealth Stress

One alternative is introducing a new stress trackWealth. When you attempt

something that would be made easier by the liberal application of cash, you
can check a Wealth stress box for a bonus to your roll (see the Extra Effort
stress variant on page60).
For example, if youre haggling over the price of a hover-speeder using
Rapportor Provoke, if youre being a real jerk about itand you fail your
roll, you could check a Wealth stress box to pay too much for it. Or perhaps
youre planning a heist and fail your Burglary roll? Check a Wealth stress box
to getor have gottenthe expensive gear you need to pull it off. Cant find
the assassin youre looking for with Contacts? Maybe checking a Wealth stress
box will improve your informants memories. And so on.
In other words, its succeeding at a serious cost, where that cost is literally
a cost.
This will vary depending on your gameare the PCs professionals with steady
work, or are they living sword-hand-to-mouth?but starting off with a base
of two Wealth stress boxes is a happy medium. PCs get +1 stress box for each
aspect they have that relates to how well off they are, to a maximum of +3
stress boxes.

Gaining Wealth

Wealth stress doesnt go away on its own. Instead, you can only clear a checked
box when you gain more lootgold, credits, barter, or whatever else works
for your game. Acquiring a parcel of Wealth lets you clear any number of
stress boxes whose total values dont exceed the parcels value. If you have
one or more checked boxes of a value greater than that of the Wealth parcel
youve received, do nothing to the boxes that exceed the parcels valueits
not enough Wealth to make a difference to you. For example, if you acquire 3
Wealth, you can clear your first, second, or third stress box, if any one of them
is checked, or both your first and second stress boxesbut not your fourth, if
youre lucky enough to have one.
The only way to add stress boxes is at a milestone, by swapping out an existing aspect for a wealth-oriented one.

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Starting Wealth

69

WEAPONS AND ARMOR

ALTERNATIVES
By default, Fate abstracts weapons and armoralong with all gearinto
flavor. Having a gun allows you to attack someone with Shoot, but doesnt do
anything more. If you want weapons and armor to matter more, the Extras
chapter in Fate Core (page 277) presents rules for Weapon and Armor ratings. If those arent to your liking either, here are a few more alternatives.

Damage Floors and Ceilings

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS
70

In Fate Core, weapons are dangerous if you use the rules in the Extras chapter.
A relatively unskilled swordswoman who gets a lucky hit with a two-hander
can cleave a man in twain without trying too hard, and that can be scary. It
lends itself to a gritty, lethal game, and if thats not your cup of tea, you might
want weapon and armor ratings that provide less lethality but still matter.
When you use these rules, Weapon ratings still start at 1 and go up, but they
can go up a bit further (say to 5 or 6, for the most lethal of weapons). Instead
of simply adding a weapons rating to the shifts you generate on a hit, though,
a Weapon rating provides a minimum number of shifts of stress you can score
with that weapon. For example, a longsword with Weapon: 3 does 3 shifts of
stress if you tie, or if you roll 1, 2, or 3 shifts on your attack. Even for a grazing
hit, youll still always deal at least 3 shifts of stress. If you roll shifts beyond
that, you simply deal that much stress and ignore the Weapon rating.
Armor ratings do the opposite; they tell you what the maximum number
of shifts of stress youll take from an attack is. Armor ratings start at 4 (for
light armor) and go down to 1 (for the heaviest plate or most advanced powered tactical armor). The exception to this is when the attacker succeeds with
styleif this happens, ignore the Armor rating. The attacker does full damage
when she succeeds with style.
Armor ratings trump Weapon ratings. This means that someone with
Weapon5 attacking someone with Armor 3 will still only deal 3 stress at most,
unless they succeed with style.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Earlier in this book (page16) we told you that you could model important
gear as aspects. This works for most gear, but some people may still want a
little more when it comes to weapons and armor. This rules mod is meant to
be layered on top of that system, though theres no reason you couldnt use it
on its ownit would just mean that only weapons and armor are aspects, and
other gear isnt.
Weapons are divided into light, standard, and heavy. A light weapon could
be a small knife or truncheon, a standard weapon is something like a sword or
pistol, and a heavy weapon might be a shotgun, sniper rifle, or massive twohanded sword.
When you successfully attack with a weapon, you may make a special invocation with it. It costs a fate point as usual, but provides neither a +2 nor a
reroll. Instead, you can force your opponent to take a consequence instead
of stress. With a light weapon, you may force someone to take a mild consequence. A standard weapon forces a moderate consequence, and a heavy
weapon forces a severe consequence. If you succeed with style, move the consequence up by one level of severityminor to moderate, moderate to severe,
severe to either taken out or an extreme consequence (victims defenders
choice). If the appropriate consequence slot is already in use, move the new
consequence up by one level of severity.
This special invocation also acts a little bit like a compel. When you invoke
a weapon aspect in this way, you offer the fate point to your target. If he takes
the fate point, you deal the consequence. He can refuse the fate point and pay
you one of his own to not take the consequence, but then he takes the stress
he would have taken normally anyway.
Armor aspects are similarly divided into light, medium, and heavy, and
also allow for special invocations. You can invoke light armor to absorb a
single mild consequence; you dont take the stress it would have absorbed,
and you dont fill the consequence slot. Medium armor can absorb a moderate consequence. Heavy armor can absorb a severe consequence, or two mild
or moderate consequences in any combination. You can use your armor to
absorb consequences beyond these limits, but if you do so, the armor aspect
immediately changes to represent the fact that its broken and no longer able
to absorb attacks. Youll have to get it repaired, which might cost you and
might take anywhere from a few hours to a few days depending on the armor
and the place you take it.

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS

Armor and Weapon Aspects

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71

Red and Blue Dice

If you have at least three colors of Fate dice and want something that isnt
quite so predictable for your weapons and armor, you can use Red and Blue
dice in place of Weapon and Armor ratings. Were using Red and Blue
here for convenienceyou can use any two colors of dice you want, as long as
they dont get used for anything else.

CUSTOMIZED TOOLS

Red is for weapons: The more Red your weapon has, the bigger and/or deadlier it is. A Red:1 weapon could be a dagger, a goblins claws, or a very lowcaliber pistol, while a Red:4 weapon could be a greatsword, a dragons bite, or
a close-range blast from a combat shotgun.
When you attack, for every point of Red your weapon has, replace one of
your usual Fate dice with a Red Fate die. If your attack outcome is a tie or
better, each of your Red dice that comes up + increases the hit by +1 shift
of harm.
Blue is for armor: The more Blue armor your armor has, the more protective
it is. Light armor, like cured leather or tough hide, is Blue:1. Heavy armor, like
a mail hauberk or plate armor, is Blue:2 or 3.
When you defend, for every point of Blue your armor has, replace one of
your usual Fate dice with a Blue Fate die. If your defend outcome is a failure
or a tie, each of your Blue dice that comes up a + absorbs 1 shift of harm.
Because youre always rolling four Fate dice, the maximum number of Red or
Blue dice you can have on a roll is four.
To mix things up even more, you can give defensive weapons Blue, like a
quarterstaff or main gauche, and offensive armor Red, like plate armor with
big nasty spikes or an electrostatic force field. You could also have stunts that
let you swap Blue dice for Red when you defendfor example, a fencing
master with a killer riposte, or a magical flaming shield.

72

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIONS
Supplemental actions dont appear anywhere in Fate Core, despite having
appeared in previous versions of Fate. We did this for two reasons. First,
we feel its better to use bonuses than penalties, and supplemental actions
imposed a penalty. Second, supplemental actions are there to make things
more realistic, but they dont necessarily make things more fun or more like
an exciting story. They make it harder to do cool things, not easier.
That doesnt mean that the concept doesnt have value, though. If you want
to use supplemental actions, you can simply use them as they appear in previous versions of Fateperforming an action that would distract from your
primary action imposes a -1 penalty on your primary action. Most of these
actions are free actions in Fate Core. We leave it to you to determine which
free actions should be supplemental actions.
If you want something thats a little more in keeping with the ethos of Fate
Core, and that doesnt impose a penalty, try this out.

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SUPPLEMENTAL ACTION
When you perform some minor action in addition to your primary
actionmoving a zone, drawing a weapon, ducking behind cover,
or anything else that the GM deems is a supplemental actionyou
create a boost such as Distracted, Obscured View, or Shaky Aim,
which lasts until your next turn starts. You can perform only one
such action, so youll create only one such boost. Anyone acting
against you or defending against your action can use this boost
at which point it goes away, like a normal boost. Also, the GM may
compel you with it once for freemeaning that she doesnt have
to offer you a fate point, but you may still pay one to resist the
compelat which point it disappears.

73

MAGIC

INTRODUCTION
When your character takes an action in play, hopefully it makes sense to you.
You can imagine it with some clarity, and you have an instinctive sense of how
things work that allows you to have fun without overthinking it. Consider the
number of calculations that go into punching someone: are your hands free?
Can you move them? Are you close enough? Have you balled your hands into
fists in preparation?
We dont stop and talk through those steps in play because we understand
them implicitly to be part of the act of punching. This clarity thins as we move
into areas outside common experience, but by and large, you can grasp the
chain of action that goes into things.
Sufficiently misunderstood
Magic upends this. We dont have the same
action is indistinguishable
foundation of experience to reference when we
from magic.
start throwing around thunder and lighting. So
we try to find rules and logic that make the magical more familiar to us, and thats something of a paradox. Magic is, by its
nature, a creation of fiction, and writers and creators are more interested in
how it helps them tell stories than any kind of internal rules.
Games, on the other hand, need rules. The consistency of rules makes
behaviorwithout rhyme or reason, its just madness.
The good news is that theres a sweet spot that you can aim for. While its
true that magic is a convenience of authors, those who use it willy-nilly produce tepid, mushy fantasy. Giving magic rules is not just good gaming, its
good fiction. If you can find the spot where those two priorities overlap, then
youve got the workings of a great magic system.

The Basics

MAGIC
76

The simple test for this is whether or not your magic system makes sense
without the game.
This is backwards from the way a lot of games feel. Coming up with the
mechanical basis for a magic system is a lot of fun, and it is often the first thing
we do with a new system, but this largely ends up perpetuating magic systems
we already know from games where ideas and rules dont mesh.
The greatest example of a magic system is Vancian magic, called such
because its based off the books of the late, great Jack Vance, where wizards
memorize spells, then forget them after casting. This should be familiar as
the basis for magic in D&D, and whatever one thinks of its implementation
in D&D and related games, it definitely instituted a number of rulesspellbooks, spells per level, and so onto capture that idea. If you want to base
your magic on Vance, then youre picking some great source material. The trap
to avoid is not to base your magic on someone elses interpretation of Vance.
To put it another way, magic is not just an excuse to add spells to your
game. Magic says incredibly important things about your game and your setting, and if you dont think those things through, you are going to end up with
a thinly painted-on layer of magic that will quickly chip and fade.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

What Is Magic?

So what is magic and how does it work?

Theres no single answer to that, and while thats rather the point, its also
intensely frustrating. You could say magic is a way to do things that are otherwise impossible, or an alternate means of doing things that are possible, but
that falls short. You could bust out some Arthur C. Clarke and just treat it as
a different kind of science. You could treat it as a system of prices, risks, and
rewards. You could consider it something that comes from someone else
someone horrible or wonderful, depending.
Youd still be missing things, but for ease of application were going to seize
upon a few key threads and boil it down to these five factors:
Tone: Is magic a neutral force, a flavored force, or something with
opinions?
Cost: Does magic demand a price, a risk, or neither?
Limits: Does magic follow strict rules? Is it flexible and open-ended?
What are the limits on magic?
Availability: Is magic universally available, so everyone in a setting might
have it? Is it rare enough that only some people have it, possibly including
all the PCs? Or is it rare enough that only one or two PCs might have
access to it?

MAGIC

Source: Where does magic come from?

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77

Tone

The first factor speaks to the nature of magic itself. Neutral magic is a force,
like electricity or gravity, which is simply implemented like a tool, while a
flavored force either responds to or is inclined towards certain outcomes. The
most common example of this is a magic that tends towards the dark and the
light, and which perhaps operates differently at each end of the spectrum. In
this case, the magic is not necessarily an intelligent force, but it has tendencies. For example, fire tends to burn, earth tends to be stable. Opinionated
magic comes from someone. Maybe its a god or angel, maybe its a horrible
monstrosity outside of time and space. Whoever they are, they have agendas,
and magic is a tool for them to drive those agendas. Theres a lot of room for
nuance herethe magic might be neutral in its use, but the source might
be opinionated. On the other hand, if magic actually summons or channels
these beings, then the actual manifestation of magic may be shaped by their
opinions.

Cost

MAGIC
78

The second factor is one that speaks to the cost of magic use. For some, it is
essential that magic have a cost, that there be tradeoffs made for power. They
might be literal or symbolic, but when theyre present then the subtext is usually that power has a price. Contrast that with magic having some risk associated with it. As with price, this puts a natural limiter on the use of magic, but
it speaks to a very different set of priorities, especially if magic is easy to come
by. It might be blatantsuch as spells having a risk of blowing up in your
faceor it might be subtlea steadily accruing toxicitybut it makes each
choice to use magic a conscious one. As an aside, costs work well with flavored
or opinionated magic, risks work better with neutral or opinionated magic
where the risk is attention from the beings with opinions.
No cost is a curious option, and one to not take too literally. Theres usually
some cost, even if its the price of a pointy hat and the opportunity cost of
studying magic rather than getting that MBA. These are familiar, mundane
costs. Thats why this approach works best with highly regimented neutral
magic. It lines up well with magic as science thinking or very concrete lists
of spells or effectsor rules for things like cyberware, which are basically differently skinned magic systems. Whatever the case, if there is neither cost nor
risk, there is usually some other limiting factor at work, even if magic is fairly
ubiquitoussuch as limits to the types of magic a given person may use.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Limits

The third factor is a little bit of a cheat because it also speaks to the tolerances
of your table. Strict magic systems, with spell lists and direct effects, appeal to
some players, while more loose interpretive systems appeal to others. Theres
also lots of room in the middle for systems that are open-ended in effect, but
constrained by something like elements or spheres.
Whatever the answer, this should help you think about is what magic cant
do. It is mechanically easy to make a system where magic can do anything
create a magic skill then let players roll it for everything that they can describe
magicallybut that tends to be very boring. Limits are a big part of what
makes magic feel magical, and in turn are a big part of how they can be flavorfully implemented in play.

Availability

The fourth factor tells you something about the setting, sure, but it also
answers a critical question about game balance and spotlight time. A magic
system that is available to all players can be designed very differently from one
that only one player is going to use. If only one character has access to magic,
then its important that magic not be so potent that the character overshadows other players and steals all the spotlight, but also not so useless that the
player feels like she made the dumb choice. If, on the other hand, everyone
has magic, you have a lot more leeway. When everyone gets to be awesome,
balance is less of a bogeyman.
The final factor is the most and least importantit doesnt matter much what
the answer is, but it matters that you have one. The better you understand
where magic comes from, the better you can understand what it can do and
sometimes more importantlywhat it cant do.
Youre under no obligation to share this explanation with your players, and
in fact this is an area where we actually encourage a little discretion. Not
because you cant trust players with this information, but because your magic
system is going to feel a hell of a lot less magical after youve explained it all. A
little bit of mystery is essential to the magical feel.
Notice that none of these factors ask What does magic do? since the
answer to that is another question: What does it need to do? Hopefully you
have a grasp on that, because if you dont know that, nothing else is going to
work. Because I need to have a magic system is not a good enough answer.

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MAGIC

Source

79

Magic and Fate

The purpose of rules is to give you the tools to translate your speaking and
imagining into a structure that lets them be shared. That presupposes that you
have something you want to share.
Fate is a representational game. That is, if you have an idea in your head,
it provides you the tools needed to express that in play. Need characters to be
able to do something? Make sure theres a skill for that. Have a trick you want
them to do? Create a stunt. Want to drive home a thematic element? Put an
aspect on it.
These same tools are available to you when you want to add magic into your
game. But just like the rest of play, there is no one single right tool. Depending
upon what magic looks like in your game, different mechanics may be the
right way to capture it.
The magic systems that follow serve two purposes. First, each one is a functional magic system that you can drop into your game or hack to serve your
own purposes. Thats important, but its almost secondary to the other purpose. Each of these systems is also an illustration of how to apply mechanics
to deliver a certain kind of effect.
And thats how we end up back at punching. If you know Fates rules well,
then its easy to adjudicate a punching scenario, and only slightly more complicated to come up with your own system for fisticuffs. By the time you get to
the end of this, the goal is that you will feel equally comfortable taking a magical idea that youre carrying around and be able to translate it into mechanics
with the same ease that you do more mundane challenges.

Skills as Magic

MAGIC
80

The skills are an easy avenue into magic, whatever skills you use. The main
question to ask is whether it repurposes existing skills or demands the creation of a new magic skill. Each approach has specific strengths, and its worth
thinking about them when designing a system. If youre going to soup-up
existing skills, then you end up with a bit of a challenge in covering all skills.
You can, of course, opt to only make certain skills magical, but you need to be
careful not to create super-skills this way.
Creating a new skill can solve a lot of problems, especially since you can
create multiple skills if you want to differentiate between magical disciplines.
Theres also a subtle cost to it, since buying up that skill is going to mean some
real skill gets neglected.
While theres no right answer, when in doubt, go with a new skill. Converting
existing skills to magic is more labor intensive, and its something you should
only do when you already have a clear vision youre acting to serve.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Aspects have two important roles in most magic systems, both as a gateway
and as an expression.
As a gateway, almost any magic system will demand that the character have
at least one aspect that reflects their magical tradition or power source. While
there are exceptionssuch as those where magic is just a different coat of
paint on technologymagic is usually important enough to the character to
merit reflection as an aspect.
Aspects are also a great way to represent the effects of magic. At the simplest
level, its easy to do a magic system where magic simply expands the range of
aspects that you can create through advantages and boosts.

Stunts as Magic

MAGIC

Aspects as Magic

Stunts can absolutely serve as the basis of a magic system, especially if stunts
simply do explicit things. More often, however, this is a good model for a
powers system. This is a pointed difference, but powers are better suited to
monsters and superheroes. Still, stunts can be a useful way to jazz up a magic
system, but cost must be carefully considered. Often, a magic system has an
intrinsic refresh cost, which makes picking up stunts dangerous. Either the
cost should be adjusted or the stunts should really be worth it.

Extras as Magic

Extras are basically their own magic system as written. A magic system may
provide explanations and justifications for specific extras, but the system itself
is robust and easily used for any number of effects.

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SYSTEMS
You want magic? We gotcher magic right here!

Stormcallers
Design Notes

Fans of The Dresden Files RPG will notice some similarities between this
magic and the DFRPGs Evocation rules. This is not a coincidence.
This is a mostly-structured system with a bit of interpretive leeway within
structured bounds. It depends upon a Stormcalling skill and at least one
aspect. The source of magic is quite explicit, but the use is limited. As such its
balanced so that it works even if only one player chooses to play a Stormcaller,
but could still support multiples in a group.
The default assumption is that non-Stormcallers use the optional Weapon
and Armor ratings rules (see Fate Core page 277). If youre looking to balance a Stormcaller against a group of non-Stormcallers, the Stormcaller forgoes such bonuses. If your game does not use the Weapon and Armor ratings
rules, increase the Refresh cost from 1 to 2.

Description

Five Great Storms rage at the heart of creation, each large enough to shatter suns, but held in check in a precise dance of creation and destruction.
Earthquake, Flood, Glacier, Inferno, and Thunder each represent limitless
fonts of power, and mortal sorcerers have found ways to tap into these storms
to power their own ambitions.

The 30-Second Version

Dont want to read all the rules? Use this shorthand version:
If your game uses Weapon/Armor ratings rules, reduce Refresh by 1.
If not, reduce Refresh by 2.

MAGIC

Pick a Storm type such as Earthquake, Flood, Glacier, Inferno, and

Thunder, and take the aspect [Storm]callere.g. Earthcaller, Icecaller,
etc.
Buy the Stormcaller skill.
Use the Stormcaller skill to attack, defend, and create an advantage, so
long as the description of your action includes the element of your storm.

82

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Mechanics

Characters able to tap into the Storms for power must do the following:
If your game uses Weapon/Armor ratings rules, reduce Refresh by 1.
If not, reduce Refresh by 2.
Pick an aspect that reflects which Storm he is attuned to: Earthquake,
Flood, Glacier, Inferno, or Thunder. This could be as simple as Attuned
to the Earthquake, but its not limited to that. So long as the aspect
clearly calls out the storm the character is tied to, the precise terminology
is flexible.
(Optional) Purchase ranks in the Stormcaller skill.
ASPECTS OF STORM

The Storm aspects are obviously useful when making Stormcaller skill rolls,
but they also carry some of the resonance of their specific storm. This takes the
form of a passive effect, as well as specific things that aspect may be invoked
or compelled for.
EARTHQUAKE

Earthquake topples mountains and thrusts new ones into the sky. To tap the
Earthquake requires a deep core of personal stability, and while this can promote strength, it also can make it a little hard to pick up momentum.
Passive Effect: Character never loses their footing, no matter how precarious, unless actively knocked down.
Invoke: EndureAny action depending on patience, resolve or endurance can benefit from the Earthquake.
Compel: DelayWhen quick action is called for, the Earthquake can
compel a delay.
The Flood cannot be contained. It strikes from every direction with overwhelming force, subtlety, or infinite patience, always conforming to the needs
of the situation. Nothing can stand against the Flood, and the only hope is to
go along with it and hope for the best. Those attuned to its power share some
of that flexibility.

MAGIC

FLOOD

Passive Effect: So long as swimming is possible, the character can easily

stay afloat as long as necessary, even sleeping in the water.
Invoke: FlexibilityWhen doing something outside of the box, such as
using a skill for something bizarre, use this for a bonus.
Compel: MessyWater is subtle and potent, but it also makes a mess.
Compel to leave traces of passage when most inconvenient.

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GLACIER

Where earth stands, Glacier pushes ever on, inevitable and unyielding, shattering itself a thousand times until it breaks the thing in its path. Attunement
to the Glacier gives the Stormcaller a portion of that inevitability.
Passive Effect: Cold temperatures within the normal range do not bother
the character.
Invoke: PushWhether it is to open a door or brush aside an underling,
the character benefits when moving forward and pushing things out of
his path.
Compel: OvercommitThe Glacier does not corner well, and a
Stormcaller of Ice may find himself staying too long with a given course
of action.
INFERNO

The Inferno consumes. Its appetite is endless, and there is nothing that is not
fuel for its endless, roiling flames.
Passive Effect: Hot temperatures within the normal range do not bother
the character.
Invoke: DestroyNot fight or hurt, destroy. The Inferno is interested
in nothing less.
Compel: ConsumeResources, food, good opinions, and fortune, an
Infernocaller has a bad habit of using them up without thinking about it.
THUNDER

Those who distinguish between the Thunder and the lightning reveal they
do not understand. Thunder is the sudden, powerful expression of force, be
it the bolt that cuts the sky or the clap that makes it ring. Its callers share in
that potency.

MAGIC

Passive Effect: Your voice carries. If you can see someone well enough to
identify them, you can shout loudly enough to be heard by themand
anyone in betweenno matter the conditions.
Invoke: Act DecisivelyWhen quick action is called for due to a change
in circumstancesnot just round-to-round in a fightthen invoke this
for a bonus.
Compel: OverwhelmSometimes, delicacy, restraint, and precision are
called for. Sometimes, a Stormcaller underestimates that.

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FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

The Stormcaller Skill

The Stormcaller skill is used to summon the power of the storm to do all
manner of interestingoften harmfulthings. The exact form this takes
depends on the storm being called, but in general the Stormcaller summons
the energy of the storm in question into being, then shapes it to his will. This
could take the form of a cage of lighting, a hurled spike of frost, a ripple of
force through the earth, or anything else that the player can think of.
While there are specific rules and limitations on what Stormcalling does
based on which storm is called, they share some basics in common.
In each case, the force that is summoned must be expressed externally
to the character doing the summoning in a literal fashion. That means
Stormcalling does not allow a user to give himself the Strength of Earth to
land a mighty blow, but it does let him hit something REALLY hard with a
rock. Any description of effect must be couched in terms of how summoning,
projecting, and crudely shaping the force in question can get said effect.

Overcome: Stormcalling tends to be a bit crude for all but the most
direct of overcome actions, such as knocking something down. But it definitely excels at that.

Attack: All the Storms are good at this. As a rule of thumb you can make
an attack in-zone at no penalty, -1 per zone distance. These are normal attacks,
but may have additional effects based on the Storm used.

Defend: Elements may also be used to defend against attacks, parrying

with weapons of ice or throwing up a momentary wall of water to intercept a
blow. Specifics depend on the Storm used.

CHAPTER 8

MAGIC

Create an Advantage: The creation of advantages is a common effect of

Stormcalling, summoning up walls of fire or opening up pits in the floor. The
more concrete stormsEarthquake and Glaciertend to be strongest at this
sort of effect, as their efforts tend to be more durable.
Most effects can be treated as a normal roll to create an advantage, using an
aspect on the scene to reflect that advantage, but there are some special cases.
Specifically, Stormcalling can be used to create a barrier of the appropriate
element. In this case, the caller picks two zones and makes a check against a
difficulty of 0. The result of the roll indicates the difficulty to bypass the created barrier.
Other advantage effects depend on the specific element invoked.

85

BARRIERS

MAGIC
86

Barrier is a shorthand term for some kind of obstacle between one

zone and the next, such as a wall of ice. When a character attempts to
penetrate, circumvent, or destroy a barrier, the value of the barrier is
the difficulty to do so.
In general, a barrier exists between two zones, but it is possible
that a barrier might be longer, even completely encircling a zone.
The creation of a barrier is a special case of creating an advantage
using the Stormcaller skill. It creates a barrier equal to the result of
the Stormcallers roll. So, if the character rolls a Good (+3), then the
barrier has a value of 3. A character who rolls less than a +1 fails to
generate a substantial barrier. Specific storms may modify this roll, or
offer extra options.
When an attack is made through a barrier, the defender may
use the barriers value in lieu of a defense roll. The defender must
decide before rolling, and using the barrier forgoes the possibility of
a success with style. If the attack includes an attempt to bypass the
barrierby, say, jumping over itthen the attacker uses the lower of
the two skills involved (the bypassing skill and the attacking skill) to
make the attempt (unless, of course, an appropriate aspect is applied
to streamline the bypassing).
For example, a substantial wall of Ice (Great Barrier, +4) is thrown up
between a Stormcaller and the angry Voidcaller one zone away. If the
voidcaller throws a shadowbolt, the Stormcaller may forgo the die roll
and effectively roll a Great (+4) defense result. If the Voidcaller leaps
over the barrier and attacks with his sword, then he rolls the lower of
his Athletics (jumping) or Fight (attacking), and the Stormcaller can
still use his Great (+4) barrier defense to protect himself.
One other important note: Barriers cut both ways, and the creator
gets no special benefit attacking targets on the other side of his barrierthey benefit from the barrier as much as he does.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

EARTHQUAKE

Overcome: If whats being overcome is a physical barrier, and the caller

beats the target to overcome by 2, then the barrier may be removed.

Create an Advantage: Gain a +1 to rolls to create any barriers using the

Earthquake. When creating a barrier, you may opt to take a -4 to the roll
making it a net total of -3to create a barrier that completely surrounds a
zone. Take an additional -1 if you also want to seal the top.

Attack: You may only attack targets that are on or near the groundlow
level fliers can still be struck with debris, so anything a standing person could
hit with his hands is fair game. You may take a -1 to your attack to attack all
targets in your zone (except yourself ). For an additional -2, you may attack all
targets in your zone and one adjacent zone. You may extend this effect indefinitely, so long as it is contiguous and you keep taking -2s.

DDefend: Earth is slow to respond, and is at a -1 to all defense actions.

FLOOD

OOvercome: Receive a +1 to any attempt to overcome a physical barrier.

CCreate an Advantage: Any barrier created with water diminishes by 1

per exchange unless the caller concentrates on it, taking -1 to all subsequent
actions so long as the barrier is maintained.

Attack: Damage from your attacks ignores any armor. You may take -2
to the attack and attack all targets in a zone (excluding yourself ).

DDefend: No special rules.

GLACIER

O
C

Create an Advantage: Gain a +1 to rolls to create any barriers using the

Glacier. When you create a barrier, you may actually create multiple contiguous barriers. Each additional length of the barriera length being a barrier
between any two zonesreduces its rating by 1. So, if you got a +6, and
wanted to create a 3-length barrier, it would have a rating of 4 (6 2, remembering the first ones free).

MAGIC

Overcome: If whats being overcome is a physical barrier, and the caller

beats the target to overcome by 2, then remove the barrier completely.

Attack: You can opt to do half damage, rounded up, to freeze the target
in place. This creates a barrier to their movement with a difficulty to overcome
equal to the damage dealt.

Defend: If you succeed with style on defense, you may forgo the boost
to increase any of your active barriers by 1.

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INFERNO

OOvercome: If you overcome a physical barrier, reduce it by 1.

CCreate an Advantage: Any barrier created with the Inferno diminishes

by 2 per exchange unless the caller concentrates on it, taking -1 to all subsequent actions so long as the barrier is maintained. Anyone who fails to overcome an inferno barrier has the option to force their way through, taking
damage equal to the number of additional shifts that a successful roll would
have required.

Attack: You may take -1 to the attack and attack all targets in a zone
(excepting yourself ).

DDefend: No special rules.

THUNDER

OOvercome: No special rules.

CCreate an Advantage: Any barrier created with Thunder vanishes after

1 exchange unless the caller concentrates on it, taking -1 to all subsequent

actions so long as the barrier is maintained.

AAttack: Thunder actually has two modes of attack:

Chain Lighting: Bolts arc from target to target with precision. For each -1
you take, you may add an additional target to the attack. Range penalty is
determined by the most distant target, -1 per zone from the starting zone.
Thunderbolt: When hitting a single target, thunder claps as lightning strikes.
If you gain a boost on your attack, you generate an extra boost of Stunned.

DDefend: No special rules.

MAGIC
88

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Variations and Options

DEEPER UNDERSTANDING

Perhaps each Storm also has a corresponding CalmBlaze, Mountain, Sea,

Snowfall, and Wind. Some who have mastered a Storm may in time gain
another aspectcosting 1 refreshto reflect that Calm, which will allow
them to internalize the strengths of the Storm to enhance themselves in a
variety of ways as well as generate more subtle effects.
MULTIPLE STORMS

Nothing prohibits a Caller from attuning to multiple Storms; it simply costs

one refresh for each aspect he takes.
RITUAL MAGIC

It is possible to have the Stormcaller skill but no attunement to a storm. This

is the status of many hedge practitioners. The advantage to this is that they
may work with whatever storm they wish. The downside is that it takes a few
minutes to do what a true Stormcaller can do in a single exchange.
SUMMONINGS

The Storms are not empty spaces. Beings native to each storm swim within
them comfortably, and can be summoned to serve those who know how to
call. See the Storm Summoners system on page107 for an exploration of this.
Those who study such things suggest that there is an arc to the great Storms.
Born of almost pure energy (Thunder), they coalesce (Inferno) and thicken
(Flood) before hardening (Glacier) into something concrete (Earthquake). Or
perhaps it is the reverse, beginning with base matter and ascending toward
energy. In either case, it is theorized that there exist a sixth and seventh
Storm, bookending the great Storms. Energy and Light at one end, with
Stasis and Darkness at the other. There have been those who have claimed to
tap these forces in a fashion similar to the storms, but they are a rarity, and
much of their effort has been spent in conflict with one another over the question of which is the beginning and which is the end.
VOIDCALLERS

For all their destructive fury, the Storms are part of reality, for they are both
destruction and creation. On a cosmic level, they stand against the Void, the
nothingness that seeks to consume all. Light- and Darkcallers tend to characterize their opposite in this manner, and theres no telling what truth there is
or isnt to it. The Void is a force for destruction, and while it may not be malicious, those who dwell in it are, for it is the home to demons and monsters
that would like nothing more than to consume the Storms, and with them,
our world. See the Voidcallers section on page115 for more ideas on this.

CHAPTER 8

MAGIC

LIGHT AND DARK CALLERS

89

The Six Viziers

Design Notes

The Six Viziers system assumes a flavored system of magic, for each nominal
Vizier has its own priorities and tendencies, but they do not manifest concretely as beings with opinions. By and large, magic has no intrinsic cost,
though there are social elements to it. This is balanced by its relative rarity
(though its freely open to PCs) and the fact that its potent, but not overly
flexible. Its also a strongly structured system, with magical effects strictly outlined by the thematic boundaries of each Vizier (expressed through skills).
The source of magic is the nominal Six Viziers. What exactly they are is an
interesting question, and the answer to that could direct a campaign. In this
setting, theyre the six constellations that serve the Empress, and they grant
power to those with an affinity to them.
Mechanically, this system hangs largely off skills, as the expression of the
magic is in the enhancement of those skills. There are other elementsaspects
act as a gateway to power, and the magical effects themselves are stunt-like
but this is basically a model for enhanced skills.

Description

MAGIC
90

The people of the Endless Steppe accept no dominion but that of the sky.
Their people are scattered so far and wide that some wags say that this truth is
the only thing they hold in common. And perhaps they are rightfrom the
onion-domed towers of the River Cities to the Tent Nations of the Horselands
to the walking towns of the southern jungles, the Folk of the Stars all direct
their prayers and curses to those same stars.
Most often, these are directed to the Six Viziers, the constellations that
dance around in the court of the Empress, whose place in the sky is always
fixed. Each one holds divine responsibility, and each carries righteous petitions to the Empress.
While the constellations that make up the Viziers and their titles are generally agreed upon, there are many opinions beyond that point. They are named
and represented differently from place to place. Depending where you are, the
Giant might be depicted as a giant man crafted of stone, a maiden whose axe
carries the fury of winter, or even an elephant. The tales of the Viziersand
even that name is contested in placesspeak volumes about a people.
From time to time, someone is blessed by one of the Viziers, and carries its
mark in the form of a pattern in the shape of the appropriate constellation.
The nature of these blessings varies. For a family in Achinst, the firstborn
daughter of a particular family is always born marked by the Giant. A western
monastery is run by a chosen of the Soldier, and it is said that mantle passes to
any who defeat him in combat. There are stories aplenty, and little real sense
of the truth of it.
What is known is that each of the blessed gains power in accordance with
the domain of the Vizier in question. The chosen usually seem to be well suited
by temperament to the Vizier that chooses them, but its unclear whether that
is a cause or effect of selection.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

The 30-Second Version

Dont want to read it all and just want to wing it? Do the following:
Replace the Drive skill with Ride.
Reduce your Refresh by 1.
Pick which Vizier youre marked by (Eye, Giant, Shadow, Soldier, Steward,
or Villager) and take the aspect Marked by [Vizier] (as in Marked by the
Giant).
Describe where the physical mark is on your characters body.
When you use a skill associated with that mark, your efforts are magical,
more like deeds out of legend than mundane efforts. This does not translate into a bonus, but it just means a generally more awesome outcome,
depending on the situation.

MAGIC

Eye: Investigation, Lore, Notice

Giant: Athletics, Physique, Will
Shadow: Burglary, Deceive, Stealth
Soldier: Fight, Ride, Shoot
Steward: Provoke, Rapport, Resources
Villager: Contacts, Crafts, Empathy

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Mechanics
SKILLS

This assumes a fantasy leaning, though not necessarily the standard European
one. As imagined, it is more in the spirit of Russiaall of itthan anything
anchored in Europe.
In any case, this does require that the Drive skill be replaced with a Ride
skill, which works much the same way, but with a different sort of vehicle.
THE VIZIERS MARK

If your character is marked by a Vizier, reduce your refresh by 1.

Characters marked by a Vizier need to have an aspect that reflects this, like
Chosen of the Steward or Marked by the Villager. The exact naming of the
aspect is up to the player, and if the player has a complicated relationship with
the Vizier, this is a great way to account for it.
Exactly what the aspect means depends upon the mark, but all marks have
a few things in common. First and foremost, the character gains a physical
mark somewhere on their body, in the shape of the Viziers constellation. The
exact form and location variesit might be scars, birthmarks, a silvery tattoo,
or virtually anything elsebut the shape is fairly consistent. Cosmetic and
temporary marks are also popular among the unmarked in some places, but a
true bearer of a mark can recognize another genuine mark with a single glance.
The marked also always know where their constellation is, whether its daytime or even if its beyond the horizon. By itself, this is not much use for
navigation, but combined with a little bit of knowledge, it can allow for an
uncanny sense of direction.
There are also social elements of being marked, though those vary from
place to place. Usually, its a good thing, but being marked by an unwelcome
Vizier may carry some bad baggage along with it.

The Marks
MAGIC
92

Each Vizier is summarized below. Some of the information is self-explanatory,

such as other names and ways in which the Vizier is represented. Other elements have rules impact.
Each mark has a virtue and a vice, and those are relevant to the use of the
mark as an aspect. For example, the Giants virtue is Strength and its vice is
Rage. The aspect Marked by the Giant can be used as if it was the aspect
Strong or Rage.
Each mark also has three domainsthese are the skills that are tied to
this particular Vizier. They provide the framework for which blessingsaka
Stuntsthe Vizier provides. They dont have any strict mechanical meaning beyond sketching the shape of the Viziers domainand providing some
guidance for games that use different skill lists.
The blessings themselves are self-contained rules elements. Characters
choose two blessings from their Vizier. These do not cost any additional
refresh, but remember that characters already spent 1 refresh to be chosen.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

The Eye

Virtue: Observant
Vice: Inaction
Also Called: The Auditor, The Inquisitor, The Sage, The Spy, or the Watcher.
Often Depicted As: A genderless robed figure, a male magistrate, a female
wise woman, a female librarian, an owl, or an eye.
Domains: Investigation, Lore, and Notice.

The Eye observes and reports to the Empress. He sees all, and gives others the
knowledge and insight they need to act appropriately. The Eye himself rarely
acts directly. In some stories, it is because he is an agent of lawan investigatorwho solves a mystery so that the appropriate authorities may act. In
others, he is paralyzed by a desire to maintain his neutrality, or by knowledge
of the potential harm of his own actions.
INVESTIGATION

The Pieces of the Puzzle: When you take a few minutes to study a particular
item and its position, you can reasonably reconstruct the chain of events that
led to it being there. This reconstruction will be accurate, though it will not
reveal any more than the necessary details. For example, it might reveal that it
was carried by hand at some point, but not by whom.

MAGIC

BLESSINGS

The Vault of the Eye: You may look at a scene and recall it in perfect detail.
In practice, this allows you to ask the GM questions about that memory long
after the fact, and take your time performing Investigation rolls. This includes
anything you might ask about if you were still in the same place and time, such
as the contents of containers. If the answer to the question would require a
skill rollsuch as picking a lock to see a chests contentsyou may try normally, as if you were still there.
You may keep more than one scene in memory, but the cost of doing so is
one fate point per scene already memorized.

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LORE

The Blessing of a Thousand Tongues: You may learn any language quickly.
With tutelage, it takes only a day. With only the opportunity to read or listen,
it takes a week. If the source material is especially sparse, it may take as long
as a month.
The Eye Sees All Paths: You may not know everything, but you always know
how to find out. When looking for a fairly specific piece of information, you
may give the GM a fate point to be told the closest place you can go to find
out, no matter how obscure or lost the information is. In short, you can never
hit a wall when trying to find something out.
There are no guarantees of how easy it will be to get the knowledge, but
thats what adventure is for.
NOTICE

The Eye Gazes in All Directions: You are never surprised. Even if its only by
a moment, you are always forewarned of the unexpected.
Stars Illuminate the Night: So long as there is the faintest amount of light,
you can see as if it were a bright day. In the rare case of utter darkness, you can
see as well as if you had a light source.

The Giant

Virtue: Strength
Vice: Rage
Also Called: The Earthshaker, The Laborer, The Pillar, The Titan.
Often Depicted As: A stone statue, a frost maiden, an ogre, an elephant,
or an ox.
Domains: Athletics, Physique, and Will.

MAGIC
94

The Giant represents strong hands put to good effort, but also represents
strength going unchecked. Most often this strength is physical, but it goes
deeper than that. It is said that it is the Giant who sets the heavens in motion
at the behest of the Empress. In tales, the Giant is often portrayed as well
intentioned and powerful, but not always in control of the power in those
great hands. He is often in a secondary role to another Vizieroften the
Steward or the Eyeacting in the service of greater discernment.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

BLESSINGS
ATHLETICS

By My Hand, Set the World in Motion: Through a combination of speed,

dexterity, and uncanny timing, you always have a path forward. In a static
environment, this means that you are capable of crazy parkour-like movement
to get almost anywhere that could be physically accessed. In a more fluid
environment you are impossible to pin down or fence in, as youll always find
the gap.
Strides of the Giant: You run as fast as a horse, have a vertical jump equal to
your own height, and can run for a day and night without stopping for rest
though you need to crash hard and eat a lot when youre done.
PHYSIQUE

Giants Appetite: You can eat anything without harm. Not just foodstuffsif
you can chew and swallow it, or drink it, you can safely consume it, and even
gain sustenance from it. You may casually ignore poisons, decay, shards of
glass, and similar inconveniences. As a bonus, flavors are very distinctive and
memorable to you, which allows for disgusting tricks like comparing the taste
of blood samples to see if theyre from the same source, as well as more useful
tricks like identifying a familiar poison.
None May Bind The Giant: If you are restrained or shackled, you may break
those bonds, so long as they are natural or manufactured. No door or lock
may withstand more than a single blow from you. Barriers with no opening
take longer, but you are effectively an entire sapping team with nothing more
than fists and feet and anything else you can bring to bear.
The Mind Is the Greatest Mountain: So far as social skills are concerned,
you do not exist. You cannot be swayed, befriended, intimidated, or otherwise
moved. Your speech reveals nothing about you or the veracity of your words.
For purposes of the Villagers ability, your Deceive score is higher than the
Villagers Empathy.

MAGIC

WILL

Never Broken: You gain a -8 physical consequence which recovers in the same
way a -2 consequence does.

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The Shadow

Virtue: Secrecy
Vice: Greed
Also Called: The Assassin, the Spy, the Taker, the Thief, the Trickster.
Often Depicted As: A cloaked figure of either gender, the night wind, a
humanoid shadow, a snake, a rat, or a raven.
Domains: Burglary, Deceive, and Stealth.

Depending on the time and place, the Shadow is either a roguish trickster or
an ominous threat, and both views have some truth to them. The hidden hand
of the Empress, the Shadow encompasses needful things best left unspoken.
The place for such things is always uncertain, and unwelcome until the day
they are needed, when their welcome is deep indeed.
BLESSINGS
BURGLARY

The Accounting of Small Things: Once you have successfully stolen something small enough to fit in a pocket, it is gone until you choose to reveal it
again. No amount of searchingor even strippingwill reveal the purloined
item. You may only have one such item at a time hidden in this fashion.
The Supplication of Locks: You need only whisper your name into a lock to
attempt to pick it, as if using a full set of tools. If successful, the attempt takes
only a moment. If unsuccessful, you may try again the old-fashioned way.
DECEIVE

Corroboration of Coincidence: Fate favors your lies with minor coincidences and circumstantial evidence that seem to lend them credence. You may
apply a boost to the scene before you roll Deceive, so long as you can describe
how it helps you look more honest. If successful, the boost turns into an aspect
on the scene.

MAGIC

The Name Is a Mask to the World: Any time after you hear someones name
from their own lips, you may dupliTHE POWER OF NAMES
cate their face, voice, and manner
Even those who dont fully underuntil the sun has risen twice. You may
stand the nature of the Shadow
never mimic the same person twice.
understand that giving a stranger
your name is a gesture of trust.
How careful people are about this
varies from culture to culture, but it
is usually at least a consideration.

STEALTH

Only the Wind Will See Me Go: At

the cost of a fate point, you may exit
a scene, passing from sight.

Stealing Words from the Wind: You

make no noise you do not wish to be heard. Not only does this allow you to
move in absolute silence, but you can also use it selectively, such as speaking
so only one person can hear you.

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The Soldier

Virtue: Discipline
Vice: Servitude
Also Called: The Horseman, the Sword, the Warlord.
Often Depicted As: A culturally appropriate warrior of either gender, a
weapon, a lion, or a tiger.
Domains: Fight, Ride, and Shoot.

The Soldier serves through violence and war, with virtues of steel. The Soldier
values cunning, bravery, and loyalty, but is perhaps a bit too easily led. Heroic
stories of the Soldier tell of battles fought and won, but other stories put him
on the other side from heroes for no reason other than blind adherence to an
order.
BLESSINGS
FIGHT

Army on the Edge of My Blade: You take no penaltyand grant no bonus

for being outnumbered, no matter how preposterous the numbers.
Spears of Green Wood: You may train a body of troopsunnamed characters
in a group of up to approximately 100for a week and increase their Fight
Skill by +1. You can repeat this multiple times, improving any given unit to a
maximum of your Fight -2.
RIDE

We Ride as One: You fight and act on horseback without penalty, and nothing can knock you off. Any time you would take a physical consequence, you
can opt for the horse to take it insteadthe horse having a similar consequence track to your character.
SHOOT

MAGIC

Only the Wind Beneath Us: So long as you maintain a good clip, any steed
you ride may ride across water as if it were solid land, and may even ride across
open air for a few hundred yardsafter which the descent is akin to riding
down a gentle slope.

To the Horizon: Anything you can see is effectively one zone from you when
you shoot.
To the Stars: Any missile fired into the air can land any place you know or
near anyone you can name. Messages and small items can be delivered in this
fashion. This cannot be used to launch an attack directly, but if fired with ill
intent, it is entirely possible to kill a horse or unnamed NPC nearby.

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The Steward

Virtue: Leadership
Vice: Stubborn
Also Called: Grandfather or Grandmother.
Often Depicted As: A wise elder of either gender, a mastiff, or a snake.
Domains: Provoke, Rapport, and Resources.

The Steward is the ear that everyone speaks to and the voice that everyone
listens to. While the Empress may rule the stars, the Steward is the one who
makes things go on a daily basis. In stories, hes an advisor or leader more often
than a hero, though at times the Steward falls into the role of the wise traveller, teaching the community he visits lessons they should have already known.
BLESSINGS
PROVOKE

Crown of Menace: You are too terrifying to be attacked. Until you make a
physical attack in a scene, characters with a Will lower than Good (+3) simply
cannot attack you. Those with sufficient Will to attack still flinch on their first
attack, though, automatically missing.
Walking with Storms: The mood of a townor similar-sized localeis what
you want it to be.
RAPPORT

All Things in Their Place: You always know the power dynamic in the room,
and you may insert yourself within it anywhere you desire. Use this with cautionwhile it impacts how people interact with you, it does not equate to
actual authority, and placing yourself too highlyespecially over people not
used to being anything but top dogcan inspire an unpleasant response.

MAGIC

The Truth of Who You Are: Every two minutes of conversation you have with
someone reveals one of their aspects. However, for every two aspects you learn,
you reveal one of your own to that person and anyone listening. Round down,
so the first one you learn is free.
RESOURCES

Rivers of Gold: Money is just a detail to you. Stripped naked and cast on a
desert island, and youll be living in luxury in short order. Cast into prison,
and youll be bribing guards in no time. No situation will restrict your access
to your Resources skill.
War of Papers: You can take action against organizations through indirect
measures. Effectively you can fight on the level of any organization smaller
than a nation without the need to recruit allies or have any organization of
your own. Yes, this means you can effectively kill a city, or even an army,
given enough time.

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FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

The Villager

Virtue: Endurance
Vice: Short-Sighted
Also Called: The Peon or the Citizen.
Often Depicted As: A farmer, a milkmaid, a rower, a hammer, a plow, a
mule, or a monkey.
Domains: Contacts, Crafts, and Empathy.

While the Steward is a wise leader, the Villager represents the wisdom and
virtues of common citizens. His stories are those of the seeming fool who ends
up triumphing in the end through simple, common values. His is the strength
of the community.
BLESSINGS
CONTACTS

The Bonds of Man Stretch to the Horizon: There is no place where you do
not know someone, including places you have never been before. You will find
a friend wherever you go.
The Strength of One Becomes the Strength of Many: Once you begin a
contacting effort, it becomes self-sustaining, as people you talk to talk to other
people, who talk to others in turn. In effect, you will always get an answer; it
is only a matter of time.
CRAFTS

The Tools Are Lesser than the Hand: You can produce master-craftsmanlevel work with the crudest of tools. With a proper workshop, you can create
impossibly amazing devices in the finest da Vinci style.
EMPATHY

MAGIC

The Conjunction of Form: You may combine materials in impossible ways,

giving one the attribute of another. You may make paper with the strength of
steel, or steel with the weight of paper. Doing so requires the two aspects
one for the material, one for the additional attributeto be invoked simultaneously on the Crafts roll to create the finished product.

Architecture of the Heart: Reading a room is a triviality to you. Even more,

you can spot the emotional lynchpins in a room and easily understand how
actions would impact the mood. If you roll Empathy to read a roomdifficulty Mediocre (+0)count how many shifts you accrue. Over the course
of the scene, you may ask the GM to tell you how people would react to any
hypothetical scenario. You can do this a number of times equal to the number
of shifts generated.
The Inner Eye Sees Inner Truth: Without rolling, you can tell if another
character is lying so long as the targets Deceive is equal to or lower than your
Empathy. In the case of high Deceive, you will know that you cannot tell, but
will never receive a false positive.

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Advancement

If a character succeeds in some great service in the ethos of the Vizierno

small thing, such a task could be the hub of an entire campaignshe may take
a second aspect tied to the Vizier. She loses another refresh, and may choose
two more blessings.

Variations and Options

As a baseline, this is a fairly mythic model of powers. Those marked by the

Viziers are heroes of legend, but there are several options for how to alter this
for other effects.
POWER LEVEL

The easiest way to power down these blessings is to make them require the
expenditure of a fate point. If you want to increase their power, remove the
refresh cost, and simply allow players to take more blessingsor possibly even
carry more than one mark.
STRUCTURE

Six is a fairly arbitrary number of Viziers. The same skill-based blessings/stunts

could be redistributed according to other schema. Perhaps, for example, there
are eighteen major Arcana equivalents, each tied to one skillcharacters
bound to their Arcana might have the blessings for that skill. On the other
hand, the Viziers could be discarded entirely, allowing players to simply pick
a number of blessings.
ACTIVE VIZIERS

If the Viziers are actually active, thoughtful forces, the entire tone of the game
changes. Not only will the Viziers be interacting more directly with their
chosen, theyll be engaged in their own internal politics. Active Viziers can be
a potent driver of play.
OTHER VIZIERS

MAGIC
100

Perhaps there are other Viziers out theresecret constellations with powers
and knowledge unknown to the world at large. Perhaps they are hidden enemies or lost allies. Or perhaps they are both.
DARK VIZIERS

The Viziers as presented are mostly positive forces, with their negative elements serving largely as a natural consequence of their strengths. But perhaps
each Vizier is paired with a dark reflection, one who embraces the darker
nature and only has some redeeming characteristics as an extension of that
nature. These Dark Viziers may have their own agendas and champions, and
best of all, theres no guarantee that those bearing the mark are even aware of
any difference.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

The Subtle Art

Design Notes

Mechanically speaking, this system is an elaboration of creating an advantage.

That is, it simply expands the scope of when, where, and what kind of advantages can be created. Because its much more low-key than other magic types,
it doesnt answer a number of the big questions. This makes it a magic system
better suited to a game that is not itself primarily magical. In fact, its best
suited to games where there is some question of whether magic is real or not,
though in other games it may be a way to represent a lesser path of magic.
When you imagine magical societies, the first thing to spring to mind may
be ancient lodges and secret orders. Certainly those exist, but they dont have
much magic left in themtheir own success tamped it out. Consider that the
benefits of magic are ephemeral, while the benefits of collaboration, conspiracy, and partnership are concrete. For the kind of important, successful folks
who meet in smoky rooms with dark woods and deep carpets, the magic is just
window dressing. They dont need to believe anymore, and in most cases, they
havent needed to for a long time.
There are exceptions. Most of these established organizations started out full
of belief and strong intentions, but that belief faded under the weight of their
own success. Its easy to believe that your prosperity charms are helping your
stock picks when you have no idea what youre doing, but as you succeed
and learnthen the tendency is to start attributing your successes to your
talent and smart picks. That means, as you get better, magic helps you less.
As a result, most practicing magical groups are much more informal.
Networks of friends, friends of friends, or loosely connected strangers sharing
a common interest. Meetings mostly revolve around drinking, hook-ups, and
couch surfing in cheap rented apartments.
The simple reality is that magic has its strongest roots in the rootless. People
who are smart and capable, but lack direction or any real purpose, gravitate
to magic for the quick fix solution it represents. Its an underground, and for
some, its the best weapon available.
MAGIC AND REALITY

MAGIC

Description

Whats important is that there is no real world proof that this magic works.
The introduction of these aspects does not change reality in any real, repeatable way. Certainly, they tilt the scale a bit, but they do so within the realm
of reasonable outcomes. To an outside observer, this magic looks a lot like
confirmation bias. If you put a curse on someone and something bad happens
to them, then its easy to take credit for it, but a cynic will note that bad things
happen to people all the time.
This can be rough, and as a result, believers tend to cluster together. They
form subcultures where they can nerd out about what theyve done, swap
tips, and generally reinforce their belief that this is something that matters. In
many ways, these groups are more important than the magic itself, but they
are not what one might expect.

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The 30-Second Version

Dont want to read it all? Just do this:

Buy a skill called Magic.
Take a half hour in a dark room with someones name, a voodoo doll,
or similar accouterments, and make a Magic roll to create an advantage
against the target of the spell.

MAGIC

Put an aspect appropriate to a curse or blessing on the target. It lasts for

three days, seven if you succeed with style.

Mechanics

This system adds one skill: Magic. Its description follows.

Skill: Magic

Magic is the skill of placing blessings and curses upon a person or place. While
the skill itself is generic, its specific manifestations are not. A practitioner must
have a set of rules and trappings that they follow to use magic. Those rules may
be based on a real-world practice, be totally made up, or anywhere in between,
but they must be consistent and they always demand time, effort, and ritual.
There are other limitations listed below.

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FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

OOvercome: There are few useful obstacles that magic may overcome,

though many practitioners think otherwise. Its a common misperception that

the Magic skill can be used to detect magical workings, but this is really no
more reliable than guessing.
The one concrete use for overcome is to overcome the skepticism of others.
The Magic skill also represents how well you sell the idea of magic, or at least
your belief. This works like a very specific sort of use of the Deceive skill
even if the character doesnt feel hes deceiving anyone.

CCreate an Advantage: The primary activity with the Magic skill is creat-

ing an advantage. Assuming a single targeta person, or a thing perhaps as

large as a houseabout a half hours time, and the appropriate ritual trappings, the roll is made against a difficulty of Average. So long as the character
gets a success, then the target gains the aspect of the blessing or cursesee
below for detailsfor three days and three nights. Further modifications
follow:
If the target is not present, then the difficulty is increased from between
+1 to +3. +3 if the target is merely named, +1 if a powerful symbolic tie to
the target is presenttheir blood, a treasured possessionand if its not
clearly either, then a +2 is appropriate.

Some spells have a secondary target, such as a spell that makes your boss
mad at someone. The absence of that secondary target similarly impacts
the difficulty+0 if present, +3 if you only have a name, as above. The
one qualifier is that if the secondary target can be made to accept some
token of the spella potion, a trinketthen they are effectively present. Such tokens must be used within three days.
Success with style extends the duration to a week.
No target can be the subject of more than one spell at a time. The newest
spell replaces the existing ones.

MAGIC

If the target is largea small group of less than a dozen or a large place
like an office building or parkdifficulty increases by +3. Thats the maximum size that a spell can actually work at, though most practitioners are
unaware of this, and every year, hours of magic get wasted targeting the
GOP, the Dallas Cowboys, and hipsters.

Some blessings and curses have their own additional modifiers.

Aspell on an area effectively creates a scene aspect that can be used normally by anyone in the location.

AAttack: There is no such thing as a magical attack.

DDefend: There is no such thing as a magical defense.

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SPELLS

Aspects put on a target are generally referred to as blessings or curses, depending on their intended effect, but collectively, they are all considered spells.
These are not an open-ended listthere are a fixed set of spells, and the
knowledge of them is the currency of the magical community. Spells are complicated enough that they are very difficult to commit to memory and still
get exactly right, so they are kept in notebooks, databases, and other archives.
Poaching another magicians spellbook can be informative, but it can also be
about as useful as their organic chemistry noteseven if they havent actively
obscured them, they can be very idiosyncratic to understand. And, of course,
theres no real way to distinguish between a spell thats a dud and a real one.
For clarity, the target of a spell is the person, place or thing its being cast
on. Sometimes a spell will also have a subject, a person, place or thing which
will be the focus of the spells effect on the target. For example, a love spell to
make Jake fall for Andy would be cast on Jake (the target) focused on Andy
(the subject).

MAGIC
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FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

These are not all the spells available, but they should provide some insight into
the tone of any additions.

MAGIC

Annoyance: The target rubs people the wrong way. If the spell has a subject,
then the target of the spell is more easily annoyed by that subject.
Charisma: While related to love, this turns it on its head by improving
the targets general presence and demeanor. Its sometimes a subject of
ridiculespecifically, ridiculing those who would need such a spellbut
it sees a lot of quiet use.
Clarity: Popular among those who fancy themselves sophisticated magi, for
many this spell is their morning cup of coffee, sharpening their thoughts
and senses. Its also a popular counterspell, used to remove curses.
Clumsiness: You know those days where you dropped a glass, spilled your
coffee in your lap, and ripped your shirt on a latch? This makes for that
kind of day.
Confusion: People tend to misunderstand the targetor get easily lost if
its a place.
Love: One of the most well known but also most contentious spells, especially when used with a subject. Without a subject, it simply makes the
target more friendly towards the world, but with a subject, it inclines the
subject toward the target. A lot of people view this as skeezy at best, and
date rape at worst. Its a touchy topic, and a number of magicians get
around this by explicitly casting dud spells.
Health: The magical equivalent of fizzy tablets with vitamin C and zinc.
Luck: This is the most common spell in circulation, and it can take the
form of good or bad luck.
Obscurity: The target is easily overlookedby the subject, if appropriate.
Whether this is a blessing or a curse depends a lot on your perspective.
Prosperity: Another popular blessing, financial things fall the targets way.
Its rare that this turns into a large windfall, but it can show up as a loan
extension or a free beer.
Rage: Small things annoy the target more than usual, as if theyd woken up
on the wrong side of the bed. If the spell has a subject, then the target of
the spell is more easily enraged by that subject.
Safety: Keeps the targetor areasafer than it would be.

MAGIC STUNTS

By Rote: You may pick three spells that you know well enough that you dont
need to consult your notes to cast.
Evil Eye: You can attempt to put Bad Luck on a target with nothing more
than an obvious gesture. This lasts only a day.
Interior Decorator: You may call it feng shui on your invoices, but its all just
decor. If you put a spell on a place, you may arrange the furniture and decorations just so. If you do, the effect lasts for up to a seasonor until someone
rearranges the furnishings.

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Variations and Options

BUT DOES IT WORK?

It is entirely possible that this system is a lie. Magic doesnt actually do anything, and its all wish fulfillment and confirmation bias. A GM could even
pull this on a player, by quietly not accounting for the aspects they appear
to create. That is, by and large, a terrible idea. It really hoses the player and
undercuts their conceptunless they also like the idea of it being fake.
If you want to emphasize this ideaeven if you dont want to embrace
it fullythen things that make the magic impossible to prove make great
compels.
JAZZING IT UP

Its also possible for this to be a more overtly magical system. In that case
you can introduce odd, improbable, or super weird effects. This will require
expanding the spell list to include more concrete things like food rots when
you touch it, and it also makes spells something that can be concretely
perceived by the magic skill. In this case, the duration of effects should be
extended to a lunar month.
COMBAT CURSES

Assuming a more overt style of magic, a variant on this would allow for
combat casting of blessings and curses. This is very different from the traditional image of the mage casting lightning bolts, but it suits lower magic
settings very well. In this case, spells can be cast on any target in sight, and by
and large, this allows for colorful create an advantage effects.
By default, these must be invisible effects, but can still cause bad choices to
be made, weapons to miss and so on. However, if the GM deems it appropriate, then certain color may be allowed to make these overtly magicalsuch as
a fire priest creating fiery advantages.
WIZARDS DUELS

MAGIC
106

If combat curses are supported, then so are wizards duels. A wizards duel
occurs when two wizards meet and choose to lock eyes, entering battle, which
uses Magic in lieu of Fight and inflicts mental damage until one or the other is
taken out. To an external observer, all that happens is they lock eyes, then one
collapsespossibly dead, depending on the decision of the victor. To the two
wizards, the battle can take any form.
Sometimes, beings of greater power can be drawn into a duel by mortal
magic. This requires some preparation on the part of the human practitioner,
such as the creation of a focus object. These clashes still occur mostly in the
ether, but they might involve a flashier exchange of energies or other effect. In
such a case, if the greater power loses, the result is rarely fatal, but the being
may carry a consequence forward.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Storm Summoners
Design Notes

This is an expansion of the Five Storms magic

system described in the Stormcallers section on
page82. Its a self-contained system, so it can
easily be pulled out into its own game, but it can
just as easily be used along with other Five Storms
magic systems to create a more complete system.

Description

MAGIC

Each of the Five StormsEarthquake, Flood,

Glacier, Inferno, and Thunderat the center
of reality is home to a myriad of beings who
call those deadly environments home. To the
layperson, this means elementalsbeings
composed of the element of the Storm but
possessed of intelligence and intent. While
these are the most numerous beings of
the storms, they are only the beginning.
Elementals make up the foundation
of what passes for an ecosystem within
the Storm. Most numerous are the
barely intelligent wisps, tiny beings of
elemental nature. Each successive tier
is more potent but less numerous, until
a threshold is reached where the creatures begin taking on distinct forms and
natures. These often resemble fantastic
versions of mundane creatures, while some
of the most potent resemble humans. There
are princes and queens among these beings,
and the most potent of them are said to
rival the gods themselves.
With the right skill and tools a Conjuror
can summon elementals to do his bidding, with a danger that corresponds to
the potency of the being summoned.
However, the greater beings of the Storms
are out of reach of any mere Conjuror.
Summoners are distinct from
Conjurors because they have struck a
bargain with one of the great powers
of a Storm, and may use that bargain
as leverage with the greater beings of
that Storm. However, all such bargains
come with a price.

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The 30-Second Version

Dont want to read all the rules? Use this shorthand version:
Buy a Conjuration Skill.
Do some rituals to summon an Earth, Fire, Ice, Lightning, or Water elemental at a difficulty from Average (+1) to Great (+4). Thats the difficulty
you need to reach, and thats the skill it operates at. It will last for a week.
You may keep one at a time.
Elementals come in 4 sizes:
Wisps (Average, 0 stress, no consequences) are little fist-sized orbs.
Theyre not bright, but theyre fast and sneaky and follow simple
directions.
Drudges (Fair, 0 stress, 1 mild consequence) are dog-sized, stronger
than they look, and able to carry heavy loads or do simple work.
Servitors (Good, 2 stress, 2 mild consequences) are human-sized
and roughly human-shaped, take orders well, and make adequate
soldiers.
Attendants (Great, 3 stress, 1 mild and 1 moderate consequences)
are powerful beings that take on aspects of the Storm, so they look
kind of awesome.

MAGIC

If you make a bargain with a great being to be more powerful, then:

Reduce your refresh by 1.
Take an aspect Bargain with the Prince of [pick a storm].
Change your Conjuring Skill to a Summoning Skill.
You can now summon a Superb (4 stress, 2 armor, -2/-4/-6
Consequence) elemental creature of your description with a successful roll. You can still do regular conjuration with your bargained
element, but why would you?

Mechanics

This system adds two skills, and a number of aspects to reflect summoning
magic. It also adds a number of specific aspects to reflect bargains with the
powers of the Storms.

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FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Skill: Conjuration

Conjuration is the art of summoning elementals from the Five Storms. It is a

slow practice, and demands the creation of a summoning circle and the use of
appropriate sacrifices to gain the service of one of these creatures.
Anyone may take the Conjuration skill with no refresh cost.

OOvercome:

Conjuration can be used as a Lore skill related to the

creatures of the Five Storms. It can also be used to renew the bond of an
already-summoned elemental without the time and effort spent on the initial
summoning. This simply requires an overcome roll against the rating of the
creaturesee the elemental summary table on the next page.
Fail: The creature is immediately released, and it will flee or fight, depending on the situation and how it has been treated.
Tie: The bond is not renewed, and will expire normally.
Success: Renew the bond for a week.
Success With Style: Renew the bond for a month.
A Conjuror can also dismiss a bound elemental at will, so long as it is within
his presence.
advantage creation. Doing so requires a summoning circle and an amount
and type of sacrifice based on the being to be summoned. For a Wisp, a handful of interesting material will suffice, but an Attendant will be much more
demanding.
Roll against a difficulty based on the type of creature being summonedsee
the next page.
Fail: The creature is summoned, but immediately breaks free. Wisps and
Drudges tend to run for itcausing problems elsewherewhile Servitors
and Attendants may turn on the Conjuror if they sense an opportunity.
Tie: The elemental appears, but will only perform a single service taking
less than a night.
Success: The elemental appears and is bound to your service for a week.
Success With Style: the elemental appears and is bound for a month.

AAttack: Conjuration may be used as an attack skill against summoned

creatures, with damage serving as progress towards banishment.

MAGIC

CCreate an Advantage: Summoning an elemental is a specific sort of

DDefend: Conjuration may be used to defend against attacks by sum-

moned creatures. This defense may be enhanced by staying within a circle,

with the value ranging from +1 to a hastily drawn circle of dirt or salt to +4
for a mathematically perfect circle of precious metal covered in ancient runes
of power.
The characters rating in Conjuration is also the limit on the number of elementals that he may have bound at any one time. Their combined difficulties
cannot exceed his conjuration score, so a Great (+4) Conjuror could control
four Wisps, or one Wisp and one Servitor, or some other combination totaling
up to four. It is commonif noisyfor a Conjuror to have multiple elementals summoned at a time.

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Elementals

ELEMENTAL SUMMARY

ELEMENTAL

RATING

STRESS

CONSEQUENCE

Wisp

Average

None

Drudge

Fair

-2

Servitor

Good

-2/-2

Attendant

Great

-2/-4

Named

Superb

-2/-4/-6

ELEMENTAL BONUSES

MAGIC
110

ELEMENT (STORM)

WISP

DRUDGE, SERVITOR,
OR ATTENDANT

NAMED

Earth (Earthquake)

None

+2 Stress

+4 Stress

Ice (Glacier)

None

Armor:1

Armor:2

Fire (Inferno)

None

Weapon:1

Weapon:2

Water (Flood)

None

Additional mild
consequence

Additional mild
consequence,
Armor: 1

Lightning (Thunder)

None

Attack range 1 zone

Range 2

For most actions, most elementals have only a single skill: [X] Elemental, and
its level is equal to their rating, so a Wisp of Fires default skill is Wisp of
Fire: Average (+1). Certain elementals have other specific skills, but in the
absence of those, an elemental rolls either its core skill or its core skill -2 for
other actions.
All elementals have the ability to blend into their native element, gaining a +4 to Stealth so long as there is some present for them to vanish into.
Additionally, they receive benefits based on their element as outlined in the
Elemental Bonuses table.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

WISP

Looking like a fistful of their element, Wisps possess little power or intelligence. However, they are the simplest of elementals to summon, and they
are well suited to simple tasks, especially those where Athletics or Stealth are
called forthey receive a +4 to both. They are almost useless in a fight, however, having no stress boxes and no ability to take consequences.
Differences by element are largely cosmetic between wisps, but their variations can get quite exotic. Wisps are the elementals most likely to be found
in nature, and many who have lived away from the storms for too long have
gone native, adopting characteristics of native flora and fauna. These native
wisps can be bound like any others.
An elemental body the size of a dog, the Drudge is not any brighter than the
Wispand is often dumberbut is substantially stronger and more patient.
They receive a +2 to Endurance and to any Physique roll related to carrying
loads. They are well suited to performing long, boring tasks, but are not great
combatants, having no stress boxes and only able to take a -2 consequence.

MAGIC

DRUDGE

SERVITOR

Servitors are human-sized and often a rough approximation of humanoid in

shape, having some number of arms and legs, though rarely any kind of head.
While not geniuses, they are smart and capable of following complicated
instructions or of fighting on their masters behalf. Servitors have 2 stress boxes
and can take two -2 consequences.
ATTENDANT

Attendants are what most people imagine elementals to be, some element of
the Storm given life. Larger than a person, they look to be a walking whirlwind of the Storm they come from. They are also intelligent, able combatants.
Attendants have 3 stress boxes and can take a -2 and a -4 consequence.

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Elemental Bargains

A Conjuror can enter into a bargain with one of the powers of the Storm.
Doing so allows him much greater power over the elementals of that domain,
but it also comes with a steep price. The Conjuror is now a Summoner, limited to only that element, and he is now obligated to an alien being of great
power and questionable motives. Despite these prices, the power that comes
with these bargains means there is never a shortage of those seeking them,
though not all who do so survive the process. Tread carefully with the Princes
of the Five Storms.
Mechanically, the bargain takes the form of an aspect that reflects the bargain. It can be invoked to assist with summoning and conjurationas well
as name dropping, in certain quartersand it can be compelled in any way
that serves the interest of the other party in the bargain. This may vary from
arbitrary-seeming stipulationslike the necessity of carrying a particular
tokento taboosthe Prince of Magma hates baths!to visitation rights.
The player may choose to break a bargainlosing benefits, and immediately
getting jumped by any summoned being he has boundbut doing so makes
an enemyand just for reference, The Enmity of a Prince of Thunder is a
great replacement aspect!
The player and GM should work out the details of the other end of the
bargain. The generic option is that it be with a Prince or Queen of the Storm,
with titles like Prince of Magma, Lady of Icebergs, or Countess of Forked
Skies, but the options are genuinely endless.
A bargain reduces the characters refresh by one. It is possible to cut more
than one bargain, but doing so pretty much guarantees that from that point
forward you will be ground zero for proxy fights between those two Storm
Courts.

Skill: Summoning

MAGIC
112

The Summoning skill replaces the Conjuration skill when a character makes
a bargain. It is at the same level, and works in a manner identical to the
Conjuring skill with the following changes:
The character may only summon creatures from the Storm that he has a
bargain with.
Summoned elementals no longer demand a price.
Failed summonings now always result in the creature fleeing.
The characters skill is treated as 4 higher for the purpose of how many
elementals he may have bound at a time.
The character may now summon and bind a named elemental creature
based on the patron of his bargain. The nature of this creature is part of
the identification of the patron. Named creatures are specific sorts of fantastical beastsfirebirds, lightning armadillos, or whatever else the player
and GM agree seems cool.
These named elementals are of Superb rating, have 4 stress boxes and -2/4/-6 consequences, as well as their elemental bonussee the table, above.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Elementals in Combat

Handling a single elemental in addition to the character is not too onerous,

but an accomplished Summoner or Conjuror may be running around with
several elementals, and trying to handle each one in combat invites huge
bookkeeping hassles. For this reason, a Conjuror can use a variant on the
Teamwork rules as follows:
The basic attack and defense is determined by the most powerful elemental the character controls. It receives an additional +1 for being under the
direction of the character.
Creating advantages and overcoming difficulties still use the characters
skill, but +1 per non-Wisp elemental in the fight, if its an effort the elemental could help with.
Elementals act as an additional pool of consequences for the player. Any
time he would take a hit, he may lose elementals as if he were taking on
consequences as follows:
Drudge: -2
Servitor: -4
Attendant: -6
Named: Any single value

Variations and Options

A Summoner with a Storm Bargain may buy the Stormcaller skill as if she
were a Stormcaller and use power borrowed from her patron. However, there
are limits on this. She cannot use Stormcalling while her named creature is
summoned, and any time she use Stormcalling they forgo the +4 benefit to the
number of bound creatures she can have. On the upside, she can sacrifice any
non-Wisp elemental for a +1 to a Stormcalling roll, though this bonus does
not stack. This does not require any additional refresh.
WISP MASTERS

MAGIC

BORROWED POWER

It is possible that some Conjurors forgo the broader aspects of conjuration

in favor of specialization on Wisps, both for their utility and for the underground culture of Wisp battles that has become so popular.
In this case, replace Conjuration with a Wisp Training skill that still governs
how many wisps a character can control but does not allow the summoning
of wisps. Instead, it allows the binding of wild wisps, those who have been
trapped in the mortal world long enough to adopt creature-like forms. A Wisp
Master finds and captures these Wisps then domesticates them into Battle
Wisps and trains them to fight.

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In an example of the Bronze Rule, Battle Wisps are still Average creatures
with no stress boxes and no consequences so far as their interaction with the
rest of the world goes, but within their own ranks they are finely gradated.
That is to say, each Battle Wisp can have a full set of skills, powers, and abilities
usable in battle with other wisps, and within those battles, those differences
matter a great deal. But to an external observer, the most potent and least
potent Battle Wisp are about on par.
TRAINING YOUR BATTLE WISPS

Battle wisps start with 2 stress boxes, one mild consequence, and 4 skills at
Average (+0): Strength, Speed, Skill, and Toughness. (Yes, theres a skill called
Skill. Cope.) These are, respectively, used to make attack, overcome, create an
advantage, and defend actions in Wisp combat. Toughness is also the defense
against attacks.
Wisps may earn advances by winning battles, or through training. Exactly
how advances are earned depends on the situation, but each advance may be
spent to:
Increase a skill. All skills can be increased to Good (+3). One skill can be
increased to Great (+4) and one may be increased to Superb (+5).
Increase resilience. An advance can be spent to add a -2 consequence,
increase a -2 consequence to a -4, or increase a -4 to a -6. The maximum
consequences for a Battle Wisp are -2/-4/-6.
Buy an upgrade. Upgrades include:
Shell: +1 Armor.
Tough Shell: (Requires Shell and Good Toughness) +1 Armor.
Breath Attack: Can attack two targets at once.

MAGIC
114

There are many more upgrade possibilities. In general, treat them as a

simple sort of stunt.
In any situation except battling other wisps, the wisp still effectively has an
Average skill level, no stress, no consequences, and no upgradesexcept in a
purely cosmetic sense. This remains true no matter how many advances the
wisp has earned.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Voidcallers
Design Notes

As with Storm Summoners, this is nominally tied to the larger Five Storms
magic system, and similarly, its designed to easily stand alone. Although in
this case, it may stand somewhat further afield. This is the magic of the dark
and terrible things that lie outside the boundaries of reality. Classically, its the
space for unimaginable yet clearly tentacled horrors, but the hope here is to
ground it a little bit more. Drawing on sources like Harry Connollys Twenty
Palaces novels, the idea is that one does not need to lean so heavily on the
crutch of the unknowable to come up with disturbing stuff.
It would be easy to say that this is magic for villains, but that would be
doing you and yours a disserviceto say nothing of the disservice to the villains. This is magic that comes at a horrible, nigh-inhuman cost, but nighinhuman is not quite the same thing as inhuman. The cultists who summon
dark things are not simple nutjobs looking to destroy everything. They want
something, and theres a price theyre willing to pay.
What they want and the price they pay can make them very hard to distinguish from some heroes.
No one is sure what the Void is. Theres some literature that suggests that its
everything thats not the universe, while other works suggest that its the end
of the universe at the scale where time and place are indistinguishable. To
some its simply hell. Whatever it is, its a bad place. Dark in every sense of the
word. Sometimes someone trips into the edges of it, and if it doesnt kill them
outright, it marks them terribly.
Thankfully, this is rare. The Void doesnt interact with the world unless
one really goes seeking it out, and even then its pretty hard to find. In fact, it
would probably be utterly impossible to find except for one dangerous truth:
there are things there that want to get out.
There is no one description of what these things are and what they want.
Some are little more than animals, albeit animals possessed of horrific
powers. Others are clearly possessed of some level of intellect, from sub- to
trans-human.
The smart ones are an obvious threatthey seek means to make it easier for
humans to find the Void, offering bargains and seeking to spread knowledge
best left hidden. Their endgames differ. Some clearly move toward crossing the
threshold into our world, others seem to seek to draw others into their own
dark courts. Others are simply a mystery.
Still, the threat of the animals is not to be underestimatedthe threat they
present is often ecological. A single creature may be no great threat, but given
time to breed and spread, they could represent an extinction-level event.
But theyre just so darn useful.

CHAPTER 8

MAGIC

Description

115

MAGIC

Power from the Void takes a number of shapes. Most commonly, it is in the
form of summoning and binding some useful creature. So long as proper precautions are taken, these creatures can usually be kept quite safely, but precautions often have limits. This is doubly true for very powerful creatures. They
are no harder to summonthough binding them is another matterand
they will actively seek to circumvent whatever restrictions are put uponthem.
Sometimes actual power can also be gained from dealings with the Void.
This can take the form of knowledge, such as a spell or trick, or more direct
power, usually through the form of some sort of infection. That latter can be
just as bad as it soundsthere is no guarantee that the power you received
today is not the thing that makes you explode in a flurry of flesh-eating worms
tomorrow.

The 30-Second Version

Find the instructions for performing a dark summoning.
Roll Lore against the difficulty of the summoning. After the fact, you add
whatever bonus you need to the roll to make it a success. The GM gets 1
Doom Point for each +1 so granted.
You use the horrible thing you have summoned to your own benefit and
the detriment of the world.
GM spends Doom Points to make your bad idea even worse.

116

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Mechanics

There are two different mechanical considerations for dealing with the powers
of the Void. The first is the question of how contact is made, how things
are summoned, and so on. The second is how the effects of those things are
expressed.
It sounds mundane, but summoning something from the Void is roughly
comparable to assembling a big piece of furniture. You have extensive directions, and if you follow them exactly and have all the right tools, they should
produce the result promised. Unfortunately, in even the best of circumstances,
this stuff can be confusing. The author is rarely a skilled technical writer and,
let us not forget, is the kind of guy who writes a book about how to summon
unholy monstrosities.
This is actually why anyone who knows anything is skeptical of spellbooks. Anyone who is trying to make a book out of this stuff has got pretty
suspect priorities, and theres no real guarantee that any of it is going to work.
There are a handful of known spellbooks that are floating around in numbers
enough to be recognizable, and its a useful survival skill to know which ones
are bogus. And even then caution is called forits far from uncommon for
practitioners to seed their books with known bad rituals.
The real treasures are notebooks. The reality is that sloppy practitioners are
dead practitioners, and the ones who survive for any period of time document
the hell out of everythingsuccess, failure, and otherwise. Unfortunately,
notebooks tend to be personal chicken scratch at best and enciphered at worst,
so nothing is ever easy.
All of which is to say that in many cases, the difficulty in figuring out how
to summon something is less about the actual difficulty of the task, which is
usually fairly easy, and much more about getting a good, reliable set of instructions. This limitation is the big reason that even successful practitioners usually only have a few tricks up their sleeve. Each new summoning they learn
requires a period of basically playing Russian roulette, with escalating stakes.
So, the actual act of summoning is a Lore roll to see how well you follow
instructions, as well as how well you take precautions, apply your judgment to
the proceedings, and generally proceed with caution. Assuming the ritual that
youre using is correctand theres no guarantee of thatthen there are two
difficulties in play: the difficulty of the actual ritual, and the difficulty of parsing the ritual from the text. For tracking purposes, these are the summoning
difficulty and the parsing difficulty.
As a rule of thumb, the summoning difficulty is usually fairly low, even for
powerful creatures. Remember, they want to come here, and the only real challenge is doing so safely. The much higher difficulty is parsing the directions.
Summoning difficulties tend to be consistent, but parsing difficulties totally
depend upon the source material. The lowest parsing difficulty can be equal
to the summoning difficulty. In either case, both difficulties are unknown to
the player.

CHAPTER 8

MAGIC

Summoning

117

To actually perform a summoning, the character must make all appropriate

steps as laid out in the ritual, and then make a single Lore roll against both
difficulties.
After the roll:
If the player beats neither difficulty, the spell either doesnt work, or it
works without proper safeguards, and whatever you summoned is now
on the loose. This is totally the GMs judgment call, depending upon how
much fun she would have with that.
If the player beats the summoning difficulty but doesnt beat the parsing
difficulty, the spell works! Just like its supposed to! More or less.
Make a note of how much the player missed beating the parsing difficulty
by. That value is converted into the GMs Doom Points. Note that this is
explicitly beat the difficultya tie will still accrue one Point. Doom Points are
the currency of things that went wrong. They might be small or subtle, they
might be big and painful, but theyre not immediately evident, and they can
be revealed at the GMs leisure.
For example: Dave attempts a ritual with a summoning difficulty of
Fair (+2) and a parsing difficulty of Fantastic (+6). He rolls a Great
(+4) so the spell works, but the GM accrues 3 Doom Points, because
Dave would have needed to roll 3 higher to beat the difficulty.

If you succeed with style on a ritual, you succeed without Doom and the
parsing difficulty drops by one point for subsequent efforts at the same ritual.
This cannot reduce the parsing difficulty below the summoning difficulty, and
it only applies to you. Anyone else must still use the parsing difficulty of the
original notesor your notes, if appropriate.

MAGIC
118

So why is summoning so safe for PCs? Basic game design.

Dont make a magic system where the spells might kill you, but
are useful if you succeed. Thats a totally reasonable control
from the perspective of realism, but its terrible from a play
perspective. Magic is Chekovs gunif you introduce it, someone will use it, and then its on you to try to make it work, either
way. In this specific case, it is much more interesting to have
players deal with the consequences of success. That can be
worse than dying, and no one needs to roll up a new character.
At least, not right away.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

HUGE RITUALS

The rules so far presuppose summoning small- to medium-scale beings from

the Void. There are bigger creatures, and they can also be summoned and
bound. The actual rules and difficulties do not change, but the requirements
for the ritual are usually far more extravagant. Isolated mountaintops, circles
of gold chain, a thousand paper cranes with their wings dipped in the menstrual blood of a killer, stuff like that. As with normal summons, the roll is not
the essential part of the processand, in fact, the rules are the sameits all
the stuff getting to that point that matters.
This may seem counterintuitiveif bigger things are trying to come
through, why do their rituals take more componentry? Its just a practical considerationthink of the ritual as scaffolding. The bigger the thing you want
to bring across is, the stronger the scaffolding needs to beand thats before
you start considering the binding element.
Of course, many of these things are big, smart, and powerful enough to
find loopholes. Some have created, or lead to the creation of, artifactsmirrors, statues, monkey paws, puzzle boxes and the likethat can open the way
for them. Thankfully, these usually are limited in some way; otherwise, the
creature would probably have already come through. But they make excellent
fishing lures, so to speak.
Asummoned creature cant do much of anything. Part of the summoning
is binding it, at least if things are done right. Basically, the Summoner must
release itin whole or in partto benefit from its abilities. For dumb creatures, this just means breaking the circle and letting them do their thing. For
more intelligent creatures, it means releasing them to use their powers under
strict ground rules.
Technically, these things are pretty Faustian about their bargaining. They
generally cant negotiateunless, of course, they canbut they will try to
exploit any holes in the limits placed upon them. However, nothing is less
fun than coming up with precise wording for these things, so dont demand
it. GMs should ask for players intent, and then respect it. Doom Points and
natural consequences should provide more than enough complications.

CHAPTER 8

MAGIC

BINDING

119

DOOM POINTS

Doom Points are a rough currency to keep track of all the things that the
character didnt account for. Think of them as infernal loopholes, a bucket of
things just waiting to go wrong with a summoning. Basically, they give the
GM carte blanche to make the situation worsenot that she cant do that
anyway, but spending a Doom Point shifts the blame nicely. A few things that
might be done with a spent Doom Point:
Allow the creature to use a power outside the scope of the binding, even
if only a little at a time.
Allow the creature to summon other creatures.
Allow the creature to establish contact with someone else, someone who
might be interested in a better deal.
The creatures mere presence imposes a scene aspect on its environs, in a
steadily growing radius.
RITUALS AND ASPECTS

MAGIC

Aspects seem like a great way to guarantee a safe ritual and avoid that whole
GM doom thing, and they technically are. But there are a few things to
consider.
When you do one of these summonings, you are doing something terrible.
Every possible thing you could bring across is an abomination, and a threat to
the world. When you invoke an aspect to help you do that, you may well be
tainting that aspect.
We all understand doing bad things for good reasons, and that may be
the motivation that drives someone to summon. But when you make that
decision, you cross a line, and you are saying something profound about that
aspect. That says something about your character, and it also says something
about how that aspect shows up in play. Once you open the door to doing
abominable things in the name of love, you have invited the GM to see how
far you are willing to go.
And maybe thats awesome. That may be exactly what you want to see in
playits a great, powerful theme. But we mention it here so that you walk
through that door with both eyes open.

Creatures and Powers

And heres the harsh realitythere is no way to fully catalog all the possible
expressions of these horrible things. Were going to provide a lot of examples,
but the reality is that for this, you should look at every Fate build you can for
ideas. These are all one-offs, and if the rules for a particular creature dont work
with the rest of the game, this will be one context where that makes sense.
This is your opportunity to go absolutely nuts.
The only limiter is that you want to include some checks to prevent a total
party kill as soon as the nasty thing gets loose. This may mean limiting the
range of bad things to ones that can be dealt with. It may mean making sure
your characters have certain defenses. Its just something to be mindful of.

120

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SAMPLE CREATURES

Summoning Difficulty: Fair (+1)

Alittle bit longer than a mans thumb, these beetles have white, soft shells,
like theyve just emerged from some cycle of growth, but it never hardens. To
use it, simply let it walk around on your skin for a whileits gross for a few
moments, but then you wont even notice its there. Literally. Unless you really,
actively put some effort into trying to find it, youre simply not aware of it,
no matter where it crawls. If you dont know to expect it, its just one of those
creepy momentary sensations that passes quickly.
The beetle gets its name for its ability to eat wounds. It undoes things on
a small scale, and it mechanically has a very potent effect: once per day, its
owner can remove one physical consequence, effectively erasing the injury.
After its eaten three such wounds, it will lay a little egg somewhere on your
bodywhich will go similarly unnoticedand in a week, another beetle will
hatch and be walking around unnoticedand able to eat additional wounds.
If, on the other hand, a beetle goes for a week without a wound to eat, it
finds sustenance elsewhere, and eats one of its hosts aspects. This doesnt cause
any direct changethings arent forgotten or removed, they just matter a lot
less. Once all of a persons aspects are eaten, they pretty much yield to a listless
ennui punctuated by occasional moments of intense activity or self-harm
quickly eradicatedin an attempt to get a grasp on something they lost and
cannot find.
Their homes grow messier and more crowded with stuff, coming to resemble nests with paths radiating out from the glow of the television. Not coincidentally, such waste-filled environments are friendly to the beetle, which use
the mess to travel more safely away from their hostas they are easy prey for
boots and predatorsto find new hosts, preferably sleeping ones who will
never notice their new guest.
Beetles are not a huge threat on their owneven an unchecked infection
rarely extends beyond a single building. However, they are also symbiotic with
many more aggressive invaders or infections. A human turned monstrous killing machine is dangerous, but one covered in wound-eating beetles is a whole
other problem.

CHAPTER 8

MAGIC

WOUND-EATING BEETLES

121

LIGHTNING WORMS

Summoning Difficulty: Good (+2)

Theres a longer name for this thing, but its a mouthful. It looks like a cross
between a lightning bolt and a centipede that never slows down enough so
you can get a good look. It cannot sustain itself for long in stasis, though it
can be kept in a properly prepared glass jar. Released, it is a flash and a bang,
dangerous as a lightning strike, then gone.
If, however, its released into something it can travel through, like a power
line, it can maintain itself indefinitely. It can crudely manipulate electronic
devices in this fashion, and can strike like a cobra from any point of electrical
exposurelight sockets, outlets, and the like. Such a strikeSuperb (+5) vs.
Notice, Weapon:7is a potent weapon, but disperses the creature, and many
practitioners use them as fire-and-forget weapons.
If one gets free, it tends to occupy a nest of wires, such as a house or
officethey seem to have trouble travelling long distances across the grid. The
only obvious sign of this is bizarre electrical oddities, at least until the creature
spawns. A small lightning worm is the size of a true centipede and will crawl
out of outlets, make its way into any electronics it can findusually small
gadgetsand stay there until connected to another grid where it can grow and
eventually produce its own brood. If not, it will grow until its bonds can no
longer contain it, then kill the next person it sees. Either way.
Setting aside the infrastructure threat these things represent, they have one
other bad habitfresh corpses make for a really interesting set of wires to them.
Living things dont hold much interest to them, but a recently deceased body
possessed of a sophisticated nervous system? Its like a party. A shambling, notdead, crackling, taser-touch undead partyat least until it burns out.
The worms can be rough to spot, but completely cutting off the electricity
kills them dead.

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Summoning Difficulty: Good (+2)

A white sphere, roughly the size of an egg, this creature is harmless and inert
much of the time. If, however, it is put in the eye socket of a recently deceased
person, it will extend tendrils into the brain and cause the body to begin
regenerating. Provided that the fleshand most importantly, the brainis
largely intact, then over the course of the next 12 hours, the person will be
restored to life. If the brain is not intact, then the body will reanimate and just
shamble about until it starves and dies again. Creepy, but mostly harmless.
But if the brain is intact, then the person is really backpersonality, memory,
the works. The only different is that the Lazarus Eye can never quite match the
original eye color, so the eyes are mismatched.
The problem is, the Lazarus Eye lives on brain matter, and there are only
two possible ways to get itfrom the host or from someone else. The primary
method is to drive the host to eat brainsor, secondarily, eat the hosts brain.
This hunger may start with animals, but eventually theyll be driven to cannibalism to get human brains. The brains of the recently deceased will suffice
for a while, but will never sate the hunger like a fresh killor better yet, a still
living meal.
However, this doesnt change the essential nature of the person doing this
they are doing this monstrous thing, fully aware that its monstrous, but they
need to do it. They cant stop, they can just take steps to not go after their
friends and loved ones. And the Lazarus Eye supercharges their adrenal system,
enhancing their reflexes and generally helping them become the apex predator
they need to be+1 to all Physical skills, -1 to all non-sensory Mental ones. It
also lays a few eggs in their stomach, which can come up through the mouth
should the host need it, such as to save a loved one or to help a loved one join
them, so they can be safe.
If the Eye isnt fed regularlyonce a month at the outset, but more and
more frequently as time goes onthen it starts turning to the only food source
at hand, eating its hosts brain, usually starting with memories and higher
functions. When this happens, the result is a primal killing machine+3 to
all Physical skills, -3 to all non-sensory Mental onescracking skulls with its
bare hands and scooping out the innards. If starved further, the Eye and the
host both burn out.

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LAZARUS EYES

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FREET

Summoning Difficulty: Great (+3)

A corruption of ifrit, these beings look like toads made of fire, but their
fire rots and darkens as it burns, the opposite of purifying flame. As beings
of energy, they are hard to physically harm, but are damaged or dispersed by
clean water. It has no stress boxes or consequences, but it ignores any damage
except immersion or heavy splashing, like a fire hoseits akin to putting out
a bonfire (albeit one thats trying to eat your face), though doing so will profoundly pollute the environs. When summoned, a Freet is usually sent after a
target to kill them. Freets have effectively Great (+4) Fight and Stealth skills.
If they successfully attack a target, they inflict a Burning Rot aspect on the
targeta terrible, painful infection that slowly consumes the target. Until the
aspect is removed, the character takes 1 stress every day, and cannot naturally
recover stress or consequences. The only way to remove the aspect is to destroy
the Freet and any spawn.
Speaking of spawn, Freet lay their eggs in fires, little sparks that add a bit
of bad odor to the flame. After three hours, the fire extinguishes, spawning
a number of unbound Freets based on the size of the fire. A fireplace might
produce one, while a forest fire could produce dozens.

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Summoning Difficulty: Poor (-1)

He goes by many names, and summoning him is simply a matter of saying the
right one in the right context. He will,
however, only appear on his timetable, and
once you have summoned him, he may
visit you any time youre alone.
The Gent is the subject of many stories,
but they have a few threads in common.
Hes not physically present, and he may
often appear only in reflections, as a shadowy outline, or in other impossible ways,
though sometimes he simply appears normally. He is thin, though his complexion is a matter of some debate, and he is
always dressed well, if oddly. He comes to
a Summoner when they are alone, though
the meaning of this has more to do with
who notices them than literal solitude.
He has appeared at parties and other large
events where it is possible to be lost in a
crowd, though no one but his erstwhile
partner ever sees him.
The Dapper Gent would like to help. He cant physically do anything to help,
mind you, but he knows a lot. He has a bottomless well of secrets, both arcane
and mundane, and hes happy to share. And hes equally up front that he will
require the occasional favor in return.
The favors are fairly benign-seeming, though savvy practitioners have noted
that they usually revolve around preserving and protecting information and rituals about the Void that might otherwise be lost. It is rare that he points his partner at those rituals directly, possibly because he benefits more from keeping his
partner in the dark. One common favor is to make an introduction and teach
someone else the Dapper Gents name. One may always refuse to do the favor,
and the Gent will politely take his leave and not return. Unless, perhaps, you find
yourself in very dire straits sometime later, at which point you may find the price
has gone up substantially.
For some, this is the extent of this slightly disturbing relationship, a little tit
for tat, and nothing more. But it grows more complicated for those who he finds
interesting. If you interest the Gent, he grows all the more helpful, and his help
opens big doors, and with those come big problems. And those problems have a
way of getting worse and worse until what you really want is a way out.
And that is something the Dapper Gent is happy to provide. No one knows
what happens after that.

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THE DAPPER GENT

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MINEO TOADSTOOL

Summoning Difficulty: Good (+3)

When summoned, its a remarkably ugly, pustule-covered toadstool, perhaps a foot high. Rest your hand on it, and a similar pustule will appear on
your hand painless but disgusting. Lay that hand upon a sick person
or yourselfand the sickness will leave them, as the pustule seals up, and a
smaller Toadstool grows on the back of your hand. It may be removedpainfullyand planted, where it will eventually grow as large as the first. So long
as the Toadstool is planted and remains healthy, the disease remains in remission, though the health of all subsequent toadstools depends on the health of
the first.
One unpleasant additionthe diseases still run their course while within
the Toadstooltheir abrupt return includes all progress of the disease from
the intervening time, often to terrible and dramatic effect.
The Toadstool can also heal injuries, even repair traumatic injuries, but this
is somewhat more problematic. The cured character looks fine on the outside,
but internally, the healing is in the form of spongy yellow fungal growth
that functions as the replaced flesh. This is not directly harmfulunless it
has replaced brain matter, in which case the results are unpredictable, but
rarely good. However, those healed in this fashion constantly generate spores.
Mushrooms grow where they sleep. These are mundane, if poisonous, mushrooms, but they speed the general decay that the Mineo Toadstool brings.
The mere presence of a Mineo Toadstool is unhealthynot for the summoner, but for the general area. One is not so dangerousflu might be a bit
nastier in town, but not really noticeably. With each additional Toadstool,
it gets worse. And as a bonus, if anyone dies while receiving the benefit of
a toadstoolthat is, while their disease is in remissionanother Toadstool
grows on their grave.

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Variations and Options

KEEPING IT IN CHECK

MAGIC

So, if the Void is so dangerous, why

havent we lost the numbers game yet?
Sooner or later something is going to
come through, multiply exponentially,
and scourge the planet. Its just math.
There are a couple of possible answers,
any or all of which could be true.
First, the world itself moves to reject
the Void. Gaps heal over time, old summonings become useless through overuse, and theres just a steady tendency
toward keeping the Void out, which offsets its continual efforts to get in.
Second, the world is not just humans.
In a magical world, this might mean fae,
spirits, or even gods who take steps to
stop the worst incursions, but even in a
reasonably modern world, its true. The
big giant brains that humans are so proud
of are also a reason that were vulnerable
to so much of this stuff. A creature that
can drain the color from your soul and
leave you craving human flesh to fill the
Void might be absolutely devastating to a
small town, but to a coyote its still a delicious snack. Animals are less impressed
by existential threats, and it would be disturbing to count the number of times the
world has been saved by rats and spiders.
Last, there may be people who actively
work against this stuff. Stamping out
information is hard, but not impossible, and this has all the earmarks of a
good secret war. The need to control and
destroy information while still staying
aware of it and capable of responding
is almost paradoxically hard. From such
things, great stories are born.

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MAKING YOUR OWN

Now that youve seen a wide array of examples, heres your opportunity to
make the game your own. This should be a simple process, but thats never the
whole storyits one of those things that seems complicated at first, but gets
easier and easier each time you do it, until you get to the point where its so
instinctive that its hard to grasp how it was ever a problem. Wherever you are
on that arc, hopefully weve got something here to help you out.

Balance

First, set aside your notions of balance. Its an important concept, but not the
way its usually used. Balance does not exist in the abstractit is a specific
element of play, and should always be looked at through the lens of play.
Nothing is imbalanced on its own, it is only context that makes it so. A power
that makes one character an omnipotent god might seem unbalanced, but
when all the characters have it, thats the foundation of a really neat game. Its
all about context.
If so, how do you balance your power designs? Think about three things
balancing them within the group, within the setting, and within play.

Group Balance

When you design a power system, you need to make one of the following
assumptions:
Only some characters will use it.
Every character will use it.

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If you are designing a power that only some characters will use, then you
need to think about how that power compares to other things that characters
can do and what characters are trading off to get that power. At its simplest,
this means you must have a compelling answer to the question Why wouldnt
I buy this power?
Stormcallers is designed with this in mind. The reason you wouldnt buy
Stormcalling is because youd need to sacrifice a skill slotand an aspectto
buy in, and since Stormcalling is mostly combat-applicable, its a fairly equitable tradeoff. Even that carries the assumption that there are also things like
weapon and armor rules in play. Without that assumption, Stormcalling is
just a superior combat skill, and theres no reason not to take it.
But notice that the trick of balancing that came from another part of the
game itself. This is illustrative of something important about balance within
the groupthe purpose is to make sure that each player remains active and
engaged. If you make one part of the game much cooler than the rest, then
you should expect players to gravitate to it, and either support that or find
other ways for them to be cool.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

If you go the other way and assume that all your players will take a power,
the skys the limit. Youve diminished the risk of any one player overshadowing
the others. Six Viziers is designed this way, and it illustrates the strengths and
dangers of this approach. The abilities of the system are incredibly potent, and
would be horribly spotlight-hogging in a game where only one character had
them, but since everyone has similar potency, thats not a danger. However,
because the powers are so potent and diverse, care has to be taken that none
of them dominate the game.
Nothing makes either approach better than the otherthe logic of your
power system will usually reveal whether it should be some-characters or allcharacters. But that distinction needs to be clear to you when you design it. A
system that tries to do both is one begging for abuse and inconsistent results.

Setting Balance

Setting balance may seem like a strange idea, but its critical to good power
design, because power design is setting design. Your power rules are an assertion about how the world works, and you need to think them through as such.
Questions you need to consider include:
Who can use the power system?
How many users are there?
How proficient/potent are they?
How does the power impact the role of people who wield it?
What are common results of the power in the setting?
Obviously, the more tightly you constrain the power, the less you need to
worry about these things, but that runs the risk of the power feeling like an
overlay on the setting rather than a true part of it. As a bonus, the more you
think through the logical ramifications of the power, the better you will be
able to balance itin every sense of the word.
Voidcallers is a great illustration of a magic system balanced against the setting. Note that there are very few mechanical checks on the use of magic in
Voidcallersits almost all setting elements, both in terms of the behavior of
practitioners and the impact of powers. Anyone can use the power, so practitioners put up hurdles to keep others from using it, and in doing so, hide
information about their numbers and proficiency. The impacts of the power
are all pretty terrible, but areso farheld in check by luck or good intent.
Change that, and you change the power.
Pro tip: Want to shake up a game idea? Look at the answers to your setting
balance questions and change one of them, and see what it does. For example,
theres no large-scale result of power in Voidcallers by default, but what if you
change that? What if something ate Manhattan? Something so big and awful
that it could not be covered up or hidden? What changes then?

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What are large-scale results of the power in the setting?

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MAGIC
130

Balance in Play

This is largely an extension of balance within the group, but it hinges on the
question of how the powers drive play. Some games with powers are largely
about the powers in question, such as supers games, or magi games in the tradition of Ars Magica. Other games, like classic adventuring or horror games,
simply fold powers into the larger shape of play. Figure out which one your
system does, and tune your powers appropriately.
On a more practical, mundane level, pay attention to how the actual play of
your system works at the table. If the mechanics demand more of your attentionbecause they require more rolls, for examplethen its a good chance
that power is sucking attention away from non-powered players. This can be
addressed through thoughtful GMing, but better if its not a problem in the
first place.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

YOUR TOOLBOX
What follows are a number of incomplete magic system components. Some
are ways to generate power, others are potential effects and outcomes. Strip
them for parts, add them together, or take them apart to see about building
your own systems.

Limits
Channeling

For skill-based magic, add a Channeling skill. When you want to do something magical, you use the channeling skill to summon up the power and
hopefullyrelease it. To do this, use a create an advantage action. In this case,
the advantage youre looking to create is a Summoned Power aspect. When
it comes time to cast the spellpresumably on your next actionmake a
roll with a skill of Mediocre (+0), but use whatever bonuses you accrued in
the advantage creation stepso, generally, youll get a +2, +4, or +6 through
stacked free invocations and potentially paying a fate point. So far, so good
generate mana, generate an effect. Now to get a little bit more fiddly.
If you want to cast the spell in one action, then you need to use an
aspecteither for free, or by spending a fate pointwithout gaining the
+2 bonus. This makes fast casting pretty shaky business. There may be a
stunt that allows you to fast cast for free.

Optional rule (Burnout): Casters may opt to pre-emptively take a consequence as part of the roll. In this case, the consequence box is checked,
and the spellcasting roll gains a bonus equal to the amount of stress that
consequence would usually prevent.
Another optional rule: If you want the risk to be on the channeling side
rather than the spellcasting side, then do the following. Have the channelers player declare a level of success, anywhere from Fair (+2) to Epic
(+7), then roll an overcome against that declaration as a difficulty. If his
roll falls short, he takes stress equal to the difference between his roll and
his declared level of success. If the roll succeeds, then he uses that level of
success for his actual spellcasting roll. The rule about needing an aspect
or a stunt for fast casting is still in effect, so hell want to generate a boost,
buy a stunt, or have a fate point handy for that.

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Difficulty for channeling is Mediocre (+0), difficulty of actually casting

depends on the spell. In either case, a result less than Average means the
power has gotten out of control. The character takes mental stress equal
to the difference between the roll and 0.

131

Fated Mana Points

For a system that requires the expenditure of a fate point to do something

magical, change the way refresh rules work. Each time refresh reduces by one,
offset it by granting the character one mana point (MP). MPs refresh the same
way that fate points do, and can be used to fuel spells or enhance magical
skills, but cannot otherwise be used as FP.
Magical aspects can generate MP rather than FP when used as ritual limitations. Exactly what those limitations are depend on the nature of the magic,
but they might include things like saying daily prayer or forgoing armor.
If the magic system uses more mana points, its easy change the refresh conversion rateso a single drop in refresh might pay out 2 or 3 MP.

Blood Magic

Every point of physical stress a character takes generates one MP. Each physical consequence taken increases MP by its shift valueso a mild consequence
generates two MPas long as the consequence is a suitably bloody injury. MP
remain until used for magic or until the stress or consequence is recovered.

Borrowed Power

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Humans have the ability to manipulate magic, but not the ability to generate
it. Power must come from other things, such as items, places, or beings of
power, but each has its own unique prices and requirements. In this model,
the term magi is used generically to represent those who use power, but it
could just as easily be priests, sacred warriors, mystics, druids, or whomever
else is appropriate for the setting.
In all the cases below, pairing the source of power with an aspect makes it
more robust. Non-aspected power sources are far more subject to disconnection at a GMs whim.
Items of Power can contain a small amount of mana, but must be kept on
hand and used in conjunction with spellcasting. The vast majority of these
are expendable trinkets or components, which provide their charge and then
are useless. The creation of such trinkets takes a days effort in an appropriate environmentsuch as a lab for an alchemist, a forest for a druid and so
ona moderate cost, and a roll at Great (+4) difficulty. Success fills the item
with one MP, and success with style fills it with 2 MP. A character can only
maintain a number of such items equal to the numeric value of their magic
skill. And yes, this means that stealing rival magic foci and locking them away
is a great way to steal a rivals power. It is also possible to create a more powerful item, one that replenishes itself daily. Doing so requires a months effort at
great cost, and a similar difficulty. A magi may only have one such item, which
makes it even worse if it is stolen.

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Places of Power grant mana to those who are attuned to them according
to the specific rules of the place. Most often, they grant a single MP at sunrise
each day, which must be used that day or lost at the next sunrise. However,
certain places of power have unique benefits (such as granting extra MP, allowing the mage to keep a reservoir of 3MP, or allowing the attuned mage to
breath underwater) or limitations (MP only usable for fire magic, all MP lost
if you kill a seagull, etc.).
Once the character has attuned to a location, the benefit remains in effect
indefinitely, though many locations grant extra benefits if the character is
actually present, most often with accelerated mana gain. However, getting
and keeping attunement is rather tricky.
Places of power are hotly sought after by magi and other magical beings, so
there is usually a current owner with a vested interest in the place, especially
since most places of power have a limit on the number of people who can
attune to it. But even without worrying about such guardians, it is not always
obvious how to attune to a particular place, so knowledge and research may
be required.
You will lose your attunement to a place of power if someone else attunes
and kicks you out, either by taking your slotif the place is at capacityor
by actively removing your connection. Details will depend on the location.
As such, places of power are greatly valued by mages, but are also drivers
of much magical politicking and bargaining. No one wants to spend all their
time protecting their places of power, but everyone wants as many attunements as they can manage to get, and that balance is the linchpin of many a
magical cabal.
Beings of Power offer many of the benefits and qualifiers of places of power,
but they skip the middleman. The mage cuts a deal with a being of power,
agrees to abide by its rules, and gets a certain amount of powerand possibly other benefitsin return for the being getting constant insight into that
powers use, and allowing the being a constant connection to the magea
connection that may well see use in further bargaining.
The exact nature of beings of power can varygods, spirits, totem beasts,
fae lords, axiomatic universal constructs, or nearly anything else might be a
being of power. The trick with such beings is figuring out how to get in touch
with them. For some, its easy, but for others, it may involve uncovering some
deep secrets.
There is nothing that keeps a magi from forming pacts with multiple beings,
at least until those pacts come into conflict with one another. At that point,
the player may discover that breaking these pacts also has a price.

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Effects

A lot of these make reference to rolling a magic skill, but take that with a grain
of saltit doesnt mean that there must be a magic skill. Rather it means that
whatever skill you determined to control magic should be used here.

Whats in the Hat?

Whether its because the hat is magical or because its wearer has talent is unimportantthe key is that the wearer reaches into the hat and pulls out something. The rules for it are straightforward:
Effect 1: At no cost, the character can pull out useless, color items. If the
character spends an action pulling out useless things, they get a +1 bonus on
any roll related to practical conjuration on their next action.
Effect 2: At a cost of 1 MP, the character can produce something useful but
unexceptional, such as a weapon or the right tool for the job at hand. Theres
no skill roll associated with this, its just an enabler for subsequent skill rolls.
Effect 3: At a cost of 2MP, the character may pull out something large, dangerous, or strange, which allows him to use his magic skill in lieu of another
skill so long as he can physically describe how the object allows for the specific
roll. For example, a giant hammer might make an attack, a spring might allow
a jump, a cloud of smoke might allow for stealth, and so on. If youve used a
particular trick before, take a 2 to the roll.

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Effect 4: At a cost of 3MP or more the character can draw out a creature
or automaton capable of independent action. This is a skill-based extrathe
caster selects the form of the creature and its primary skill, and the GM fills
in any secondary skills as needed. At 3MP, this creature will have a Fair (+2)
apex skill, which can be increased on a one-for-one basis by spending extra
MP. Once the level is settled on, the caster makes a magic roll with a difficulty
equal to the level of the creature. If the caster fails, the creature is still summoned, but it has a number of unexpected complications equal to the margin
of failure. One or two complications might be inconvenient, but three or
more is likely to produce an out-of-control threat or other big problem.
Effect 5: A character may also spend all remaining MP (minimum 1) and
make a blind grab. This pulls out something big, dramatic, and one way or
another, it ends the current scene, but the GM determines the exact details.
When this happens, the GM secretly rolls a single dF. On a +, the resolution works out in the players favora whirlwind carries them to safety, her
enemies are turned to frogs, and so on. On a -, it works out against the
player in some wayshe ends up capturing herself, or making the situation
worse. On a 0, the situation changes dramatically, though not necessarily for
the better or worseenemies are turned into different kinds of enemies, the
landscape turns into candy, and so on.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

While this is traditionally a hat, theres no reason it cant be a cloak, a pouch,

or something similar.
Its also possible to use this model to represent large, glowing energy constructs of the sort favored by comic books. In this case you remove effect 5,
the bonus from effect 1, and make a failure of effect 4 require more MP (on
a one-for-one basis).
To cosmic it up, you could reduce the cost of effects 2 and 3 by one step.
This is very close to sorcery as an all-purpose skill, but for certain genreslike
supersthat may be apt.
With a change in color, this also becomes an excellent system to handle
certain sci-fi gadgets, especially ill-defined, all-purpose tools, even those with
a bit of sonic to them. In this case, the physical manifestation is replaced with
technobabble and interaction with technology. Effect 0 is an array of accidental electronic effects, effect 1 is largely unchanged, but effect 3 basically allows
for magic to be used as super-hacking, doing anything that the local equipment is capable of. Effect 4 only applies when theres an existing unit to take
overlike a robot or cargo loaderand Effect 5 is pretty much off the table,
unless the GM really likes what happens if I push all the buttons? scenarios.

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TWEAKS

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The Six Profanities

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136

Contrary to the crude suggestion, the six profanities are actually the names
of six of the greatest devils of hell. Their names cannot be sufficiently encompassed by tongue or pen, but each has a distinct icon that can grant a fraction
of their dark power. The power is easy to useit need only be permanently
inscribed onto living skin via tattoo, branding, or scarification to grant the
powerbut the knowledge of such marks is wrapped in secrecy. It is rumored
that only the devils themselves know the secret, and they take the form of
mortals to share it, in the hopes of snaring souls. The profanities have many
names, most unprintablewell use the more common names here, though
that does not guarantee that everyone will call them that.
Arrow allows the user to perform line-of-light teleportation to a maximum
range of about 100 feet (3 or 4 zones). The characters body needs to be able
to traverse the distance, so the teleportation may go up, or over a pit, but it
cannot go through a wall or grating, and will stop short of hitting an obstacle.
This process only requires one to take a step, so a character may actually cover
great distance by skipping along multiple jumps in sequence. Each jump
costs one MP.
Ironskin provides protection from physical harm. When the character takes
physical damage, he may retroactively spend MP to gain armor equal to the
number of MP spent. Additionally, if the character knows a blow is coming
with more than a moments notice, he may spend 3 MP to steel himself against
it and ignore all damage. While this is of no use in a fight, it can be useful for
hard landings or staying the executioners blow, but beware that the protection
only lasts for a heartbeat. He may survive the impact of an oncoming train,
but that doesnt guarantee hell survive the landing as it knocks him off the
tracks, or worse, drags him under the train.
Pomp grants the power, for 1MP, to converse with any dead body that is
still in good enough physical shape to speak. Convincing the corpse to do
anything other than scream is a different problem entirely.
Rider allows a character to spend 1 MP to jump into the mind of any
mammal in her line of sight. While in its mind, she has no access to its
thoughts nor control of its actions, but she has access to its senses, and may
ride along for about two minutes. The player may opt to spend an additional
MP to perform another jump to another target within her line of sight. This
also extends the ride for another 2 minutes. Additional 2-minute periods cost
1 MP each. While this is happening, the characters body stands helplessly,
staring into space, making her easy prey.
Sight grants awareness of supernatural phenomena, though its erratic.
When magic is afoot, the character gets a tingle, and may spend 1 MP to get
details regarding what is going on. The sight can also carry prophetic visions
or dreams, though those are usually more disturbing than useful.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Terror generates an aura of terror around the character for 1 MP. The aura
lasts for the duration of the scene, and the characters attacks may inflict physical or mental stress, as desired. Animals with any level of self-preservation
will not enter the same zone, and will do whatever they can to leave it. For
an additional MP, the character may look a thinking target in the eye and use
intimidation to create a Fear of [Character] aspect on them. If successful, he
may freely invoke that aspect for the remainder of the scene.
If a character doesnt have enough MP to use a power, they can still do so,
but at risk to their soul. Pick an aspect and underline itthe character gets
the MP they need, but that aspect is now tainted. In the fiction, this means it
twists in dark ways when it comes up, and mechanically it no longer produces
fate points when compelled, instead granting one MP. Such tainted aspects
offer up dark compulsions at times, so the power that comes with the taint
comes at a great risk.
TWEAKS

There may be more powerful versions of each mark, though what is required
to get them is best not discussed.
Ironskin: Unarmed blows now strike like a metal weapon, and the character
may add +2 per MP spent to any feat of pure strength.
Pomp: For 3 MP the character may animate any body in physically good
enough shape to move for a scene. It will follow basic instruction, and while
its not much in a fight, its pretty freaking creepy.

MAGIC

Arrow: For 2 MP, range can be increased as far as can be clearly seen.

Rider: At a cost of 3 MP per jump, the characters physical body disappears.

It reappears behind the last subject.
Sight: For 1 MP, a character may discover something hidden about a person
or thing. There is no guarantee its what she wants to know, and its only one
use per target.
Terror: By spending an additional 1 MP (2 MP total), the character can
increase the intensity of his aura of fear. He now inflicts mental damage equal
to any physical damage he inflicts when he attacks.

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PIECES OF POWER

MAGIC
138

Lets assume youve got an idea for a magic system, and it makes sense on its
own. You can explain it in normal language, and you have a rough sense of
how its going to work in your game. Now its time to start thinking about
mechanics, and how to represent your system in the game.
As a first word of caution, dont feel obliged to solve every problem with a
mechanic. If your magic system is easily described and clearly understood, it
may require nothing more than a skill or two to represent facility with it. Be
careful about immediately jumping to the mechanicsmake sure theres a
real problem before you introduce a mechanic to solve that problem, and your
finished product will be much stronger.
When it comes time to introduce a mechanic, there are two things that the
mechanic needs to door at least consideran outcome and a limitation.
Outcome is obviousyou want to be able to throw around fireballs, so the
effect handles things like how you target them, how big they are, how much
damage they do, and so on. The limitation is less sexy, but more important: it
answers the question of why you would do anything but throw fireballs.
Whats important to note is that the entire effect may not exist in only one
place in the rules. It will often be threaded into other rules in ways that are
often obvious once you look for them, but are easy to overlook if you dont
think about them.
Magic systems tend to be constructed with limitations serving as a frame
for outcomes. That is, there will be a broad set of rules that control when and
how magic can be usedwhat spells are known, how often they can be cast,
who can cast them, and so onwhile the rules for outcomes, like blowing
things up with fireballs, are often smaller pieces of rules-text, limited to that
particular spell and those like it.
This may seem like a very fiddly distinction, but if youre designing your
own magic system, then this is something you really need to get your head
around. The second dial gives you immense power and flexibility when you do
your own design, because it lets you choose the axis of change.
As an example, consider the classic system of memorizing spells to cast
them. The containerand by extension, the biggest limitercontrols what
and how many spells a character can cast, while the outcomes are the individual spells. This allows for a lot of versatility, because you can change the
limitations without changing the outcomesperhaps by introducing another
character class that gets the same spells at a different rateor change the outcomes without changing limitations, by adding or removing spells.
Changing outcomes is no big deal. Swapping out a spell is easily done and
easily fixed, and its a great way to do cool things. Changing the limitations is
a much bigger deal, full of potentially unexpected consequences. Its also where
the real power of hacking lives. Perhaps more importantly, if you understand
this division, you understand how you can build an entirely new magic system
by changing one or the other, rather than needing to rebuild entirely from
scratch.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Limitations

Limitations usually take one of two formsuse or opportunity. Limitations

of use impact who can use magic, while limitations of opportunity speak to
how and when magic can be used.
The first thing to consider when thinking about a magic system is who can
use it. In fiction, the answer might be anyone, but even then it will probably need some form of representation. Setting aside limitations within the
fiction, the gateway for using magic usually takes the form of one or more of
the following:
A new skill

Refresh cost

A specific aspect

Opportunity

A stunt

Resource cost
STUNTS AND REFRESH

Notice that we treat stunts and refresh as two separate things. This
is because they are separate building blocks, and while the default
build says a stunt costs one refresh, thats just one build. If youre
constructing your own system, then you have the freedom to handle
them differently.
This opens up a lot of doors in terms of what a stunt is. Practically,
a stunt is its own little ruleor rule exceptionand while their
number and nature are restricted by refresh cost in the baseline,
you can break free from that structure. As an example, Stormcallers
and Six Viziers both effectively give a bundle of stunts, and only
charge refresh for the bundle, basically providing a discount for the
thematic grouping.

Although adding a magical skill seems like the least expensive option to
allow magic, bear in mind the opportunity costthe character is giving up
some other skill to pursue magic, so there is a tradeoff. It is possible to fold
magic into one or more existing skills, but if you do that, then youll probably
also be demanding some other cost.

MAGIC

New Skills

Specific Aspect

Requiring a specific aspect is both very potent and rather trivial. Obviously,
aspects say a lot about a character, but unless the required aspect is particularly
boringand why would you want that?then its not much of a cost.
That is not to say theres no point in requiring an aspect. Magic often has a
setting component, so an aspect can reinforce elements of the fiction. Aspects
can also be used to illustrate a choice in a setting with multiple favors of
magic, especially if your expectation is that all characters will have magic of
some sort. In this case, aspects are less about cost and more about differentiation, which can be very robust.

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A Stunt

Stunts make for a nice, obvious gateway into any system of magic, and much
like different aspects might be gateways into different styles of magic, so might
different stunts. For example, if youre using a magic system that requires
magic points, different stunts might represent different ways to generate those
points.
Of course, since stunts can also be the outcomes of a magic system, you get
the potential for some sophisticated interplay. It is entirely possible to build a
tree-style magic system using nothing but stunts that depend on other stunts
as prerequisites. Such systems are fun, but they often take a lot of bookkeeping
to construct well.

Refresh

MAGIC

Refresh is probably the most serious cost, and it carries a lot of potential
meaningspecifically, what does the loss of refresh mean?
When we introduced the idea of refresh in The Dresden Files RPG, it
served two purposesit provided for characters with a wide range of power by
trading freedom for that power, but it also underscored that the line between
man and monster was a slim one, and that it was possible to be consumed by
your powerthat is, reduced to zero refresh. While there is no obligation to
make zero refresh mean the exact same thing, the key is that a zero refresh represents a loss of agency. Mechanically it means the character is basically unable
to do anything but what their aspects dictate.
Something implicitly part of a magic system are the different meanings loss
of agency can have. It could mean character death to go to zero refresh, certainly, but it is often more interesting if it means the character is swept up in
their magical nature, as such characters make great villains or foils down the
road.
The catch is that while refresh as a cost should feel like the danger of the
slippery slope, thats not the reality. Dropping to zero refresh is basically a
player choice to retire the character, not something that actually comes up in
play. If youre okay with that, then cool, but if you really want it to be a danger
in play, then youre going to need to find a way to make the choice come up
more often.
In a system where each magical aspect reduces refresh by one but
increases magic points, you might rule that a character can always
choose to sell out one of their aspects, converting it to a magical one, thereby increasing their mana pool. Additionally, at the
moment this happens, have a characters stress track and mana
pool restored to full. Now you have a reason for this to happen in
play, as the character surrenders to their power to win an unwinnable fight.

140

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

One interesting option for limits on effects is to require that they are not
universally available, but rather depend upon the appropriate opportunity.
Opportunity may be defined in a wide variety of ways, but largely fall into
one of two categories.
World opportunities are those that depend upon elements in the game
setting. Spells might only be cast at certain times or places, or in response to
certain events. This is a classic trope for a lot of horror fiction, where things
may be called when the stars are right.
World opportunities tend to operate more like plot hooks than anything
else, because they drive play toward those opportunities. If the dead can be
revived in the Lap of Shialla, then thats a great reason to go there. If the Dark
One can only be summoned during a lunar eclipse on the Plains of Blood,
then the adventure pretty much writes itself.
However, world opportunities are pretty restrictive for playersworld
opportunity is a very high cost of magic, and if its the only way to do things,
then you probably need no other costs. Not to say that its unplayableit can
work very well in conjunction with high Lore charactersbut its got very
specific restrictions.
Alternatively, world opportunities can be used in conjunction with another
magic system to transcend the usual limitations of magicso spells that are
more powerful, or otherwise impossible, might be castable under the right
circumstances. Structurally, this is still pretty much just using magic as a plot
hook, and thats fine.
Gameplay opportunities are another approach entirely. In this case, something involving game rules must happen before magic is possible. This could
be intentional, such as spending an action summoning power, or incidental,
such as an ability that makes boosts do something unique.
Intentional opportunities tend to just be speed bumps to magic, and as
such, theyre very popular as balancing mechanics. The thinking goes that if
magic can be used less often, its okay if its more potent. Sadly, this approach
has some hidden weaknesses. Frequency is a poor thing to rely on for balance
because its feast or famineit tends to mean that a casters player is either
bored, doing nothing but gathering power, or overwhelming. If you pursue
a model like this, try to find a way to make the non-casting part of casting
to be fun and engaging as well. One trick is to allow charge to accumulate
throughout more interesting action.
Alternately, magic can be a colorful expansion to the existing rules. Consider
using magic to expand default outcomes. If you attack with Earth Kung Fu,
then a boost might get you an aspect, but it might also knock your opponent
back a zone. This can seem a little counterintuitive, if a player thinks in terms
of I want to knock him back, but it makes much more sense when you think
of it in terms of expanding normal capabilities.
There is also the matter of access opportunity, which exists more in the
realm of character creation. Magic might require a magic skill or an appropriately magical aspect, as have been discussed previously.

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Opportunity

141

Resources

MAGIC
142

Resources involve a more literal cost to casting spells. The classics include
mana, spell points, or expendable spells, but are not limited to that. A spell
might require invoking an aspectand casting the spell rather than taking the
+2 bonustaking stress, or even taking consequences. Obviously, the price
tag will impact the frequency of magic use.
Resources can also add an extra level of color to a magic systemperhaps
resources arent always needed, but can be used to make magic more potent.
Things like stress and consequences can be fun for this, representing powerful, dangerous magic. One caveat, thoughtry not to hook this into explicit
combat magic. When it becomes a math problem of I can take X stress to do
Y stress to opponents, then it feels a little less magical.
Resources and opportunities can overlap a bit in the area of player skills. A
secondary skill roll to generate mana requires both a resource (mana) and an
opportunity (the secondary skill roll). This may seem muddy, but its actually
a good thingtying more of the characters elements together is a good thing.
One other obvious resource is fate points, and its reasonable that they fuel
magic just the same way that they do aspect invocations. You might even make
mana into a subcategory of fate points.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Effects

Weve talked through all the

things that can control the
use of magic, but what can
magic do once you use it? In
terms of fiction and color,
the range of possibilities is
broad indeed, but for the
moment were looking at the
mechanical tools we have for
expressing mechanical effect.
Although its possible to
create entirely new mechanics for these things, its best
to start with the building
blocks that we already have.
As with limitations, theres a
core list of elements we can
build from:
Fiat
Aspects
Skills
Stunts
Stress & Consequences
Extras

Fiat

MAGIC

This is a fancy way to say

you describe something and
it happens. There are huge
swaths of magic that can be
covered by this. In some cases,
this may be all thats necessary, especially if the table
is comfortable with it, but
its a potential source of discomfort when expectations
begin to differ. Still, there are
a lot of effects that are best
handled as fiat, even if theyre
mechanically important
the magical effect may be a
gateway to other rules.

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For example, if magic allows a character to breathe underwater, thats a fiat

effectits simply true. Theres no need to assign an aspect or a skill to represent it, unless some other element of the spelllike an inability to breathe out
of watercomes into play. You could assign an aspect that never gets invoked
or compelled, but the effect is much the same. That said, once the character
is underwater, there are still other mechanical elements to engageathletic
skills, for example.
Magic with mechanically trivial fiat effects can still be insanely potent or
important in a setting. Consider something like eternal youththere arent
a lot of mechanics involved, but its an effect that could drive an entire campaign. The fact that fiat effects dont require you to think about mechanics
means that you should think all the more about the non-mechanical elements.

Aspects

Aspects can be a lot like fiat, but carry just a little bit more weight. If all the
aspect does is reinforce the officialness of a fiat element, then thats fine, but
you can also hang mechanical effects off of them.
A lot of these effects can be covered with the usual rules for invocations and
compels. Magic just tends to allow for greater flexibility in terms of the logic
and color of aspect use, and while that may not seem like a lot on paper, it can
actually be incredibly robust at the table.
That said, its entirely reasonable to use magic to add additional effects to
an aspect invocation or compel. These additional effects may be fiat, or have
specific mechanical effects. An aspect like Shadow Step might be invoked
to cross many zones at once. An aspect like Armor of the Light might be
invokedand used upin lieu of taking a consequence.
One thing to consider is whether or not the effect creates a new aspect or
adds a new effect to an existing aspect. Sometimes the logic of the effect makes
the answer obvious, but when in doubt, try to extend an existing aspect. Not
only does this reduce aspect bloat, it strongly encourages engaging with existing aspects.

MAGIC
144

Skills

Magic can be used in lieu of skills, and in fact one of the most common simple
systems of magic is to use a magic skill in place of another skill, such as throwing around bolts of force as the functional equivalent of a weapons skill. This
is fine as far as it goes, but it only holds up so well as a general-purpose tool.
More interestingly, magic can be used to expand the scope of existing skills,
moving them into the realm of the supernatural. These might be simple
expansions of capability, such as perception skills extending awareness into
the infrared or spirit realm, or they might be mechanical hooks, like The
Hammer of Terror, altering the weapon skill so that when you generate a
boost, you also inflict mental stress.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Stunts

Magic can add stunts or alter existing stunts, but the most common use youre
going to see for stunts is the addition of magical stuntsstunts that have
magical effects that are often more potent than normal stunts, but which are
offset by costs or requirements.
The most obvious example of this is a stunt that lets you do something
magical, like line-of-sight teleportation or turning into a rat, but at a cost. The
cost may be as simple as the expenditure of mana points or may be something
complex and ritualistic. Because stunts are such self-contained rules elements,
the components of cost and balance are much closer to the surface than in
other approaches, so its important to think about them from square one.

Stress and Consequences

An easy and obvious effect of magic is to fiddle with stress and consequences.
Healing magic may recover them or protection magic may increase capacity.
Just be careful that this doesnt make magi into bulletproof juggernauts
unless thats your intent.

Extras

MAGIC

Magic is a great way to get permission for an extra. Whether its summoning
a hound of fire or calling lightning down to crackle along the length of your
sword, extras can be a reasonable way to handle them.
If you do this, its a great illustration of how to plug in a magic system. The
extras rules are quite robust, but theyre also very open-ended. If the entirety
of the magic system was just the ability to create extras, they would quickly
get out of hand, so some sort of limitations are in order. The limitations that
you use should be consistent enough to feel like a coherent magic system. If
you make sure that each new extra makes sense in the context of existing ones,
you will find that the logic of your magic system can emerge quite organically.

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SUBSYSTEMS

KUNG FU

SUBSYSTEMS
148

There is regular, real-life kung fu, but thats pretty much covered by the Fight
skill. What were talking about here is cinematic kung fu, the high-leaping,
acrobatic, melodramatic style of Hong Kong martial arts movies.
This sort of kung fu is so dramatic that
The overarching term in this
it doesnt fit into a game aiming at a more
section is kung fu, but that is
realistic style, and it definitely changes the
just one of the many martial arts
tone of even a pulpy action adventure setof the world. The rules here can
ting. It can be bit overwhelming. If youre
apply to savate or ninjutsu just
going to include this crazy, over-the-top style
as easily, or whatever crazy marof martial arts in your game, make it clear to
tial art they practice on Mars.
your players up front that this is something
charactersPCs and NPCscan do.
In a kung fu movie, practitioners of the art are on a higher level than regular
schmoes. If your game is going to concentrate heavily on kung fu masters, it
makes sense for mostif not allplayer characters to have this ability. If only
one character practices kung fu, make sure the other characters have their own
area in which to shine. Also, you may want to tone down some of the crazier
stuff described in this section. You dont want just one character dominating
the action scenes by jumping all over the place. If everyone has the ability,
then there is less danger of this spotlight hogging. Movie kung fu is a pretty
powerful thing. If you introduce it, it threatens to dominate your setting.
Kung fu masters can run along walls, leap incredible distances, catch missile
weapons in midair or deflect them with a weapon, fight on the most precarious of footing, and sometimes even walk on the surface of water. Pretty much
anyone who has trained in the martial arts can do this. If a character has kung
fu training, then these actions are treated just like regular running and jumping. A player can describe their character performing these actions without
any special difficulty. The GM can still call for rolls, but these kinds of action
are not exceptionally difficult or even unusual. Just adding these details to
your game will create a lot of the feel of a kung fu movie.
There are two ways to approach kung fu in Fate. One method is to use
existing skills to cover kung fu abilities and fighting. The second is to create
a dedicated Kung Fu skill. Which method to take depends on the nature of
your game. If there is only one kung fu master in your game, the Kung Fu skill
may be appropriate. If everyone is practicing kung fu, it probably makes more
sense to have everyone use the existing skills to perform kung fu stunts. If you
go this route, a kung fu practitioner must have an aspect related to their training in order to unlock the kung fu abilities within their existing skillssomething like Trained at the Wudang Monastery or Master of the Mantis Style.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Using Existing Skills

If you are using the existing skill method, then Fight obviously takes on a
lot of the duties. Any attacks, bare-handed or with weapons, depend on the
Fight skill, and Fight can also be used for defense. Since a kung fu master can
also deflect arrows and other missile weapons, Fight is the appropriate skill
for performing this feat. If you have a modern-day game, or just have guns
in your setting, you need to make a ruling regarding how to handle a kung fu
defense against them. It is not out of genre to say that a kung fu practitioner
can deflect or even catch bullets, especially if they use a sword or other metal
weapon.
Wall-walking and leaping are covered by Athletics. Any sort of physical
stunt outside of fighting falls under Athletics or possibly Physique. Kung fu
practitioners traditionally have training to resist damage or survive falls, which
would be Physique actions. Lore can be used to identify rival schools or opponents techniques. A Lore roll can create an advantage, if you correctly guess
the opponents teacher or school of fighting.
If you add a specialized Kung Fu skill to your game, any abilities that fall
outside the norm of Fight or Athletics, like leaping and wall walking, require
a Kung Fu roll instead. This can be useful if you really want to differentiate
Kung Fu actions from regular activity.
Kung fu practitioners often have specialty moves or secrets known only
to them and their masters. In a game with a lot of martial artists, these special moves are a good way to make characters unique and create a sense that
there are many different styles. Special moves can be modeled using stunts
and aspects.
While most kung fu moves probably have names, a kung fu master has
one or two signature moves that exemplify their personal style. These can be
represented by aspects, like Dim Mak Touch or Hidden Blade Style. When
invoked, a player can describe in detail the mystical or amazing nature of
the action. These aspects should make the character look especially cool, and
you can use them to show that NPCs know the character and their style, like
Dont get too close, shes a master of the Hidden Blade Style! They can be
compelled if an opponent knows an opposing move, just as a player can use
his own characters kung fu knowledge to analyze an opponents style and
come up with counters of his own.
For a more mechanically robust version, use the stunt system to create
moves. You can create a whole school of kung fu using stunts, with earlier,
easier stunts required to unlock more advanced ones. Use the description of
your stunts to create an evocative kung fu fighting style, with the names and
effects of the moves driving home the theme of your fighting style.

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SUBSYSTEMS

The Kung Fu Skill

149

DRUNKEN FIST

Heres an example of a kung fu stunt tree, for the Drunken Fist Style of
kungfu.
The Drunkards Stagger: You sway and stagger on your feet, evading enemy
blows seemingly by chance. When you succeed in a defensive Athletics roll
using this technique, you gain +1 on your next attack against the opponent
who tried to hit you. If you succeed with style, gain +2.
The Drunken Shove: Your rude and artless push contains a greater power
than seems possible. You gain +2 to use Physique to create an advantage on an
opponent by knocking them off balance.
Drinking from the Jug: You pause to take a swig of wine from your jug, fortifying yourself for the battle. When you have a drink during a fight, clear your
lowest stress box. This requires you to take an entire action drinking.
The Falling Drunkard: (Requires Drunkards Stagger) When an enemy
attacks, you lose your balance and fall to the ground, rolling back to your
feet quickly, but your enemy now finds himself dangerously overextended.
Roll Athletics to dodge. On a success, place a boost on your opponent such as
Overextended or Off-Balance that anyone may use against him. On a success
with style, place a second boost on your opponent.
The Drunkard Swings Wide: (Requires Drunken Shove) Your blows are
crude and telegraphed, but in dodging, your opponent seems to be struck by
an elbow or a knee by accident. Make your Fight roll as normal. If you strike
your opponent, you do stress as normal. If you miss or tie, your opponent
takes one physical stress anyway.
Pouring Wine: (Requires Drinking from the Jug) You take out a cup and
pour a drink from your jug. This elaborate and difficult task causes a pause
in the battle. No one may attack you while you pour, and you remove your
lowest stress mark. This technique requires an entire action, and you may not
perform the technique more than once in a row.

SUBSYSTEMS
150

The Drunkard Stumbles: (Requires Falling Drunkard) You stagger and stumble without control, but your enemy always seems to miss you and strike a
nearby obstacle, causing damage to themselves. When you dodge a blow with
Athletics, your opponent takes one stress, or two stress if you succeed with
style.
Steady the Drunkard: (Requires Drunkard Swings Wide) You stagger and
seem about to fall, so you reach out and grab your opponents arm to steady
yourself. This seemingly unintentional grip blocks chi and paralyzes your
opponent. You may place a Chi Blocked situation aspect with a free invocation on your opponent. Your opponent may not use any kung fu stunts until
they remove this aspect.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

CYBERWARE
The easiest way to handle cyberware in a Fate game is with the existing tools.
Want to be a cyborg? Tie an aspect or two to the fact that youve got some
augmentations. Do your cyber-arms make you superhumanly strong? Make
Physique or Fight your peak skill. Do your eyes grant you thermal imaging? A
stunt can do that for you.
If you want a system for cyberware that stands on its own rather than
reskinning existing systems or a justification for things you were going to take
anyway, thats what this section is for.
Cyberware takes a toll on a person, it has a cost. Plenty of people out there
have the odd cyber-prosthesis, a simple limb meant to mimic the functionality of its human counterpart, attached to compensate for a loss or injury. All
these new pieces will cost you is some money and time spent in a rehab facility,
and youll be right as rain, back to your old selfmostly. If all you want is a
prosthesis or two, you dont need to pay any refresh and you dont need to tie
any aspects to your cyber-prostheses unless you want to.
Augmentations, or augs, are quite another matter. Where a prosthesis is
designed to integrate into the body, mimicking natural function as best it
can, an aug is meant to improve the human body, making a person stronger,
faster, more durable, bristling with natural weaponry, or capable of things that
humans just cant do on their own. Where a person usually gets a prosthesis to
replace a lost piece and become whole again, many people get body parts cut
off to have augs installed.
These augs need a power source, something beyond the normal bio-electric
energy that the human body produces. To that end, people who get augs first
get a cyber-heart. A cyber-heart isnt a literal heart. It doesnt replace your
human heart unless you need it to, though it does work as a decent backup, if
youve already got a functioning ticker. What a cyber-heart is, first and foremost, is a power source. Its a capacitor that charges from your own bio-electric currents, can be supplemented by plugging into a wall outlet, and allows
you to power one or more augs.
This means two things in-game. First, it means that you must tie at least one
of your aspects to the fact that youre a cyborg. Youve willingly transcended
your human limitationsthats a defining feature of any person who chooses
this path. The second mechanical cost is that you must reduce your refresh by
1, in exchange for the following aug.
Cyber-Heart: You can install and use other cyber-augs. The heart also acts as
a backup for your natural heart and filters impurities and toxins from your
blood. If youre subject to a poison or toxin, spend a fate point to ignore it.
If youre ever killed by something the cyber-heart could conceivably save you
from, spend a fate point to concede instead of being taken out.

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Prostheses vs. Augs

151

Types of Augs

There are two types of augs: minor augs and major augs. Getting either
installed costs you both money and time, and might cost you refresh as well.
Minor augs are small changes, things that dont tax the body overmuch
or require huge changes to your underlying biological systems. A new eye, a
hand, a skin implant, or an upgrade to an existing augthese kinds of things
are all minor augs. If you buy and install a minor aug in-game, it requires a
Resources roll at Average (+1), +1 for each additional minor aug youre having
installed. Youll also need to recover from surgery. Doing so puts a moderate
consequence on you, from which you recover normally. Whether you pick up
your minor augs at character creation or during play, every three minor augs
you take cost you 1 point of refresh. Once you take your first minor aug, drop
your refresh. When you hit four, drop it again, and so on. Getting a prosthesis
installed carries the same Resources and consequence costs, but doesnt carry
the refresh cost.
A major aug requires major surgery and replacing a large part of your body.
Limbs are always major augs, as are organs and anything that jacks into your
brain. When you get a major aug during play, it requires a Resources roll
at Good (+3) for each major aug you get. In addition, having a major aug
surgically installed also puts a severe consequence on you, from which you
recover normally. Whether at character generation or during play, each major
aug costs you a point of refresh.

Example Augs
Cyber-Eye (minor): You get a +1 bonus to sight-based Notice rolls. In addition, choose one of the following aspects. Adding an additional aspect is
another minor aug.
Image Filtering Low-Light Vision Sonar Imaging Targeting Interface
Thermal Imaging Visual Net Interface Zoom Magnification

SUBSYSTEMS
152

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Cyber-Legs (major): Both of your legs have been replaced by much more
powerful cybernetic legs. You can move two zones as a free action, and you
get a +2 to Athletics rolls made to run or jump. In addition, pick one of the
following add-ons. Additional add-ons are each a minor aug.
Hidden Compartment: Youve got a compartment where you can hide
things, like a hand gun or a brick of cocaine.
Magnetic Grip: If youre standing on a metallic surface, you cant be
knocked down. You can also walk up steep or even vertical metallic surfaces, albeit clumsily.
Pneumatic Kick: If you kick someone, your kick is Weapon:2.
Neural Interface (major): You can access the Net from anywhere, with a
thought. You can hack low-security systems automaticallythey just do what
you want them to do. Even high-security systems are easyyou get a +2 to
Computers rolls to get through them.
Razor Nails (minor): Youve got one-inch, razor-sharp blades that pop out
of your finger tips; you can retract them at will. These blades are Weapon:1.
Subdermal Plating (major): You can oppose most physical attacks using
Physiquefists, blades, truncheons, and small arms fire have trouble getting
through the plating beneath your skin. In addition, once per scene you may
ignore any one mild or moderate physical consequence from such an attack.
Thermoptic Camouflage (minor): You can spend a fate point to become
invisible to the visual and thermal spectrums, for as long as you dont move.
Though not explicitly stated above, every aug has drawbacks. A neural interface can be hacked, giving a hacker access to your brain. Thermoptic camouflage might short out when youre doused in water, delivering a nasty electric
shock. Thats why you have an aspect tied to the fact that youre a cyborg.
GMs, feel free to enforce the downside of an augwhatever your group
determines that might be. Doing so is a compel on the cyborgs aspect, which
means that a player you put in such a situation can refuse your compel or take
a fate point for the trouble you put her in.

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

The Downside of Augs

153

GADGETS AND GEAR

Equipment in Fate Core can be as simple as an aspect, like Magnetic Grapnel
Gun, or a stunt, like Magnetic Grapnel Gun: +2 to overcome with Athletics
by climbing or swinging when theres a metal anchor around. But for a little
more depth, you can combine those into a single extra as a gadget.

Functions and Flaws

Gadgets come with two aspects for freea function aspect and a flaw aspect.
The function tells you the gadgets purpose, and the flaw tells you whats
wrong with it. You can think of its function as its high concept and its flaw as
its trouble or a consequence that never goes away. These do not take up any of
your characters personal aspects.
MAGNETIC GRAPNEL GUN
Function: High-Powered Electromagnetic Swingline
Flaw: Still Working Out the Bugs

Stunts

Give the gadget one or more stunts to reflect the reliable mechanical advantages it confers on its user. These stunts cost one refresh apiece.
MAGNETIC GRAPNEL GUN
ASPECTS

Function: High-Powered Electromagnetic Swingline

Flaw: Still Working Out the Bugs
STUNTS

SUBSYSTEMS
154

CLANG!: Spend a fate point to secure the magnetic grapnel

to a metallic object in a dramatic way, grabbing a swiftly
moving vehicle, a falling pulse rifle, or the wall on the other
side of a yawning chasm in an oddly built space station.
Trick Shots: +2 to create an advantage with Shoot when you
use the grapnel gun to swing around, disarm an opponent,
or create a barrier.
COST: 2 REFRESH

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Gadgets dont have to be literal gadgets, either. For example, you can just
as easily use these rules to create magic items in a fantasy setting.
THE RING OF TRUTH
ASPECTS

Function: Magical Lie Detector

Flaw: Wearer Is Cursed to Tell the Truth
STUNTS

Pierce the Veil of Lies: Spend a fate point. Three times

during the scene, you can ask the GM if someone is lying,
and she must answer you truthfully.
COST: 1 REFRESH

You can take additional flaws to reduce a gadgets refresh cost, at a rate of one
refresh per additional flaw. The minimum cost for a gadget with any stunts is
1 refresh, regardless of how many flaws it has.
GMs, it cant be some weaksauce flaw, either, like Kinda Glitchy on the
Ocean Floor. And if you do let something like that slip by, make sure the
player knows they can expect to spend a surprising amount of time underwater. Deep, deep underwater.

SUBSYSTEMS

Additional Flaws

An additional flaw for the Magnetic Grapnel Gun might be Heavy

and Unwieldy.
The Ring of Truth could have an additional flaw of Hunted by the
Servants of Ssask, God of Lies.

CHAPTER 9

155

MONSTERS
The rules for NPCs in the Fate Core book are great for creating people
other humans whose goals put them into conflict with the PCsbut as the
GM, you might also want to include a few monsters in your game. With these
tools, you can create monsters that are inhuman and tricky, challenging players to find clever approaches when dealing with monstrous antagonists.

Instinct Aspects

To create interesting monsters, start by laying out some of the core drives
that spur the monsters to action. What makes them take risks and chances?
What do they care enough about to get in fights with the players about? Its
likely they have inhuman drivesdesires that ordinary humans would probably never have.
Take your initial thoughts and condense them down into an instinct
aspect. Monster characters can use their instinct aspect as normal, but they
may add +3 to their roll instead of +2 when they invoke it. Monsters are often
singularly driven to obtain their goals, and the players will have to work to
overcome these foes.
Rey is running a game of urban horror. When he writes up a set
of zombies, he gives them the instinct aspect Hungry for Brains.
Anytime that he invokes their aspect, they get a +3 to their roll.

SUBSYSTEMS
156

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Monster Abilities

Monsters are distinct from other NPCs because their abilities tend to challenge the rules and disrupt the normal flow of conflicts. Many monsters are
entire fight scenes waiting to happen, as the players have to figure out how to
defeat an enemy that is changing up the rules on them.
Some examples of interesting monster abilities:
Hard to Kill: Monsters can survive much more damage than other characters, either because of longer stress trackslike Frankensteins monsteror because they can regenerate quicklylike the Hydra.
Immune to Damage: Monsters are often immune to all damage save one
typesuch as vulnerability to silveror until a specific condition has
been metsuch as destroying a specific magic item.

Rey decides to create a demon named Masabra. He gives Masabra

a stunt that makes the demon immune to physical stress at the
cost of a fate point. Rey wants Masabra to be extremely dangerous,
so he gives him a greater weakness of blessed weapons, allowing
Masabra to use the stunt without paying a fate point cost. If the
PCs ever acquire blessed weapons, Masabra would lose access to
this stunt when he faced them.

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

Prone to Change: Monsters tend to transform themselveslike vampires who turn into bats to fleeor the environmentsuch as summoning additional minions in the middle of a fight.
While its easy to see how these traits could be turned into stunts, they are
often too powerful to be activated without spending a fate point. However,
if you add such a cost, the players can grind down an enemy like the Hydra,
waiting for you to run out of fate points. In addition to making your monsters
weak, such costs make conflicts a drag. Who wants to play until the GM runs
out of fate points?
Rather than add a cost, you can instead add a weakness to a monster in
order to be able to activate a stunt without paying the fate point cost. If you
add a lesser weakness, you must still pay a fate point at the start of the scene
in which the monster uses the power, but if you add a greater weakness, you
dont have to pay any fate points at all to use the stunt.
When the PCs discover and use a lesser weakness, the monster can still
use the stunt, but must now pay each time that it uses the stunt. If the PCs
discover and use a greater weakness, however, the monster loses the stunt
completely.

157

Multiple Zone Monsters

For very large monsters (VLM), you can go even further by treating the monster itself as a map with several zones. In order to defeat such a monster, the
characters need to defeat each zone independently, while navigating the obstacles between the zones. By statting up the monster in pieces, you can split up
the PCs and give the monster a number of extra actionsone per zoneto
convey the size of the foe and keep the conflict interesting.
The Elder Dragon of Ormulto is a VLM in Reys game. Hes so large
that he has four separate zones: his two claws, his head, and his
tail. When the players try to keep him from destroying an apartment building, they will need to deal enough stress to his head to
bring him down. However, if they dont do anything about his claws
or tail, he will quickly rain destruction down upon the people the
heroes are trying to protect. They will have to split up among the
zones to keep him in check.

In addition to the size of VLMs, you can also create stunts that help to
convey the theme and style of the monster. Many of these involve transformations, stunts that fundamentally alter the monster or change the nature of the
fight, changes that are familiar to players who have previously fought video
game boss monsters. As with smaller monsters, you can tie these stunts to
weaknesses if youd like to be able to activate them for free.
In order to mark the importance of the intermediary steps needed to defeat
a gigantic monstersuch as destroying a part of it or closing a portal from
which it draws strengthVLMs gain an additional transformation stunt tied
to their partial defeat.
Since his claws and tail are much weaker than his head, the Elder
Dragon of Ormulto has a transformation stunt tied to the destruction of those zones on the map called Breath of Fire. If the PCs
destroy one of his appendages, the Dragon activates the stunt to
deal two stress to each character on the map, regardless of zone,
and adds the situational aspect (Name) Is On Fire! where (Name)
is an important building or person near the fight.

SUBSYSTEMS
158

Many of the rules here can also be used to add interesting

features to nonhuman characters that arent antagonists in
the story. You could give the players familiar a stunt with
a weakness that human NPCs could attempt to discover,
or map out a spirit guardian the players summon across
multiple zones.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SQUAD-BASED ACTION
What if you want to play a squad
of characters who are conscripted
to storm the beaches at Normandy
on D-Day? Can you use Fate to
play a squad of space marines?
Yes, sir. Yes, you can.

These rules, like everything in Fate,

are flexible enough to work with a
variety of skins, accommodating
modern military units, World War
II squads, high fantasy armies, and
futuristic bug-hunting mechs.

Creating Squads

First, create characters normally (see Fate Core, page 30). While youre writing up your characters, name your squad and describe the role it plays in the
greater force. Is it a ragtag bunch of ex-felon soldiers? Or a highly trained force
of well-equipped professionals?
Whatever you decide, turn the description into two aspects, a squad concept for your squad, and a squad trouble that always seems to plague your
unit. Any player in the unit can invoke these aspects and be compelled by
them.
Lara, Antonio, and Michelle decide that their squad is a bootstrapped group of survivors who are fighting back after alien forces
nearly destroyed New Orleans. After creating individual characters,
they name their squad the Ninth Ward Defenders, giving it the
squad concept Dogs of War to represent their scrappy resilience
and the squad trouble In Over Our Head to show that the aliens
are dominant.

Squad Skills

Unlike individual skills, squad skills can be used to reshape the whole battlefield. For example, your soldier might lead a charge against the enemys line or
call in reinforcements to soften hardened defenses.
After creating the unit aspects, give your unit:
Two Average (+1) squad skills
One Squad Stunt

If you want to emphasize the

squad over the individual characters, reduce your characters
starting stunts and refreshes from
three to two, and cap your skills at
Good (+3) instead of Great (+4).

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One Fair (+2) squad skill

159

Operations

The Operations skill measures your units ability to work together on the battlefield, eliminating enemy units and securing key strategic positions.

Overcome: Operations allows you to overcome obstacles as a unit, such

as when you lay down cover fire to reach a wounded soldier safely or work
together to climb over a wall.

Create an Advantage: When you create an advantage with Operations,

your unit is setting traps (Ambush!) or charging directly at the barricades
(Panicked Grunts).

Attack: Operations allows your squad to launch coordinated attacks

against targets and should be rolled instead of an individual characters Fight
or Shoot whenever the squad acts as a unit.

Defend: Operations is rolled for defense when your unit attempts to

retreat from the larger combat zone or otherwise avoid an enemy attack as a
group.
OPERATIONS SAMPLE STUNTS

Hard to Pin Down: Take a +2 on any Overcome roll made to retreat from a
combat zone.
Blitzkrieg: Your squad is fast, light, and deadly. Take +2 on all Operation rolls
in which your attack focuses on catching the enemy off-guard.

Equipment

The Equipment skill represents the resources your squad has available to
pursue its objectives.

Overcome: Like the Resources skill, Equipment can be used to get the
squad through a situation that requires some additional gear. The squad might
call in some trucks to carry them over rough terrain or even call in a bombing
run.

SUBSYSTEMS

Create an Advantage: Your squad might use Equipment to get some

high-powered weaponry for a particular mission (Flamethrowers!) or to procure resources that are crucial for navigation (Topographical Maps).

ADAttack / Defend: Equipment isnt used to attack or defend.

EQUIPMENT SAMPLE STUNTS

Hi-Tech Gear: You can use Equipment instead of Operations in any situation
where raw technological superiority would win the day.
Well-Stocked: You gain a +2 on all Equipment rolls made to create an advantage when you are accessing your preexisting supplies.

160

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Recon

Overcome: Recon isnt used often to overcome obstacles, but it can be

used, like Notice, to give the squad a chance to head off ambushes or traps.

Create Advantage: Your squad can use Recon during a battle to pierce
the fog of war, gathering information beyond your immediate location.

ADAttack / Defend: Recon isnt used to attack or defend.

RECON SAMPLE STUNTS

Codebreakers: On a successful Recon roll to create an advantage while monitoring enemy communications, you can discover or create one additional
aspect (though this doesnt give you an extra free invocation).

SUBSYSTEMS

Counterprogramming: You can use Recon instead of Operations to set a trap

when you use the enemys communications system against them.

CHAPTER 9

161

Rolling Squad Skills

In order to make a squad skill roll or use a squad stunt, one player must decide
to give up his personal action to rally the group. The nature of rallying will
depend on the situationmilitary units typically follow ordersbut generally the player will need the support of most of the other player characters.
If hes successful in directing the squad, the difficulty of the task drops by
1 for each additional squadmate who sacrifices their next action to the new
goal, as the group turns all its attention to accomplishing the goal. In addition to reducing the difficulty, the success or failure of the roll is carried across
the whole unit, as the squads skills have the potential to reshape the battlefield and win the dayor cause the squad to suffer together. As such, stress
inflicted on the squad as a whole is inflicted on each squadmate equally.
Rather than make a roll to try to breach an alien barrier by herself, Lara decides to rally the Ninth Ward Defenders to knock it
down together. The difficulty of accomplishing the task falls from
Fantastic (+6) to Great (+4). If she succeeds, the whole unit will get
the benefit of breaching the enemy barrier without having to roll
a second time. If she fails, the whole unit will suffer stress from the
alien counterattack.

Squad-Based Combat

To run a great squad combat, use Operations rolls to move directly to the
heart of the action. Rather than start at the beginning of the fightwhen
the conflicts are boringget the squad to develop a plan of attack and roll
Operations as an Overcome with a difficulty appropriate to the target to see
how things turn out.
If they are successful, the players should narrate one good outcome for every
shift above the target. If they fail, the GM will narrate one negative outcome
for every shift below the target. Either way, jump straight to the exciting
action. Repeat when things start to drag in the middle of the fight.

SUBSYSTEMS
162

After breaching the alien barrier, Lara is pretty sure that her PC can
get close enough to the alien queen to kill her before the rest of the
aliens regroup. She rallies the Ninth Ward Defenders to charge the
enemy line, rolling their Fair (+2) Operations against a difficulty of
Great (+4) set by her GM. She gets a +2 on her roll, but invokes the
Dogs of War to get another +2 for a total of Fantastic (+6). For her
first shift, she narrates that they charge the line successfully, and
for her second, she states that her character gets close enough to
kill the queen.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

THIS MEANS WAR: MASSCOMBAT

Suitable for inserting into any Fate
Core game or for playing on its own as
a minigame while waiting for the pizza
guy to show up, this hack gives you simple
tools to play out conflicts on a grand scale.
These rules are not compatible with the
squad-based rules presented above, as they
encompass the actions of groups larger
than a handful of people.

Basic Training

YOU WILL NEED:

Index cards, for use as unit
sheets and keeping track of
zones.
Tokens or miniatures to
represent units and leaders.
Friends, Fate dice, and all
the usual stuff you need to
play Fate Core.

Combatants are units on a battlefield

made up of zones. All three of these are
fairly abstract concepts, mutable enough to suit your particular game and
conflict.
Units are built like characters, with skills, aspects, and consequences, but
no stress boxes or stunts. A unit might consist of a few battleships, a dozen
biplanes, or a thousand shrieking orcs, but they all act as one in battle.
Represent each zone of the battlefield with an index card, or zone card.
Represent every unit with an identifying token or miniature of some kind,
and place it on a zone card to indicate its current location on the battlefield.
A unit can have a leader attached to it, in the form of a PC or a supporting
or main NPC. Leaders make their units more efficient, and can engage each
other one-on-one in the midst of battle.

When activated, a unit can move one zone for free, as long as there isnt an
obstacle in the destination zone, such as an enemy unit or obstructing terrain.
It can also take one actionovercome, attack, or create an advantage, detailed
below.
If the unit has a leader attached to it, the leader may give up their action to
give the unit a second action. A player can also spend a fate point to give one
of their units without a leader a second action.
Regardless, no unit can take the same action twice in a turn, and attacking
always ends a players turn.
If you have a unit with a leader attached, it can move one zone
and attack, create an advantage and attack, and so on, but it cant
attack twice, create an advantage twice, or attack and then create
an advantage or move.

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

Unit Actions

163

CCreate an Advantage

This can take the form of scouting the terrain, intimidating another unit,
using the environment, or anything else that makes sense in context. Here
are some specific ways to use this action to make your battles more dynamic.
Ambushing: A unit can use Stealth to put a situation aspect like Its a Trap!
into play. This cant be attempted if the unit has an enemy in its zone.
Intimidating: A unit can use Provoke to put a situation aspect into play, such
as Frenzied Berserkers, The Might of the Imperial Fleet, or Hesitant.
Pinned Down: Use Shoot to put a Pinned Down situation aspect on one
enemy unit. A unit with this aspect cant move into another zone unless it succeeds on an overcome action opposed by the attackers Shoot skill. The aspect
goes away if the defender successfully moves or if the attacker doesnt use an
action to maintain it from turn to turn.
Scouting: A unit can use Notice to put a new zone aspect in play in an adjacent zone that doesnt already have a unit in it. The difficulty is Fair (+2), +2
for each aspect the zone already has. For example, if a zone has the aspect
Tangled Woods, the difficulty to give it a second aspect would be Great (+4).
Surrounded: A unit can put a Surrounded into play if it has more allies than
enemies in its zone. Each allied unit in the zone gets a +1 to its attacks as long
as this aspect remains in play.

OOvercome

SUBSYSTEMS
164

Use a skill to move into a zone with an obstacle or enemy unit:

If the zone has an aspect that would hinder movement, such as Dense
Forest or Asteroid Field, the difficulty equals twice the number of hindering
aspects. For example, the difficulty to enter a zone with Rocky Terrain and a
Raging River would be Great (+4).
If the zone contains one or more enemy units, one of them can actively
oppose the attempt with a defend action, usually using Athletics, Drive, or
Pilot. Each additional unit in the zone allied with the defender gives the
defender a +1 to their roll.
Either way, use the usual outcomes for overcome to resolve the action.
Use a skill to move one or two additional obstacle-free zones:
On a tie or success, move one zone (with a minor cost, in the case of a tie).
On a success with style, the unit can forgo the boost to move a second zone
instead.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

AAttack

If your battle uses both Fight and Shoot, attacks against enemies in the same
zone use Fight, and attacks against enemies in an adjacent zone use Shoot. If
your battle only uses Shootas is typical in a dogfightthen all attacks are
made with Shoot, regardless of range. Attacking an enemy two zones away
gives the defender a +2 to their defense roll.
Provoke cant be used to attack, only to create an advantage. See Intimidating,
on the prior page.
Depending on the venue of the battle, you may want to tweak the way
defenses work. For example, in medieval warfare, maybe the only defense
against Shoot is Willyou dont dodge arrows, you stand your ground and
keep your wits about you. This takes some functionality away from Athletics,
but applies to all units equally, so no ones especially disadvantaged.

Unit Quality

A units qualityAverage, Fair, or Gooddetermines how many skills,

aspects, and consequences it has.
Average: Conscripts. One Average (+1) skill. One aspect. No consequencesa single hit takes out an Average unit.
Fair: Grunts. One Fair (+2) skill, two Average (+1) skills. Two aspects.
One mild consequence.
Good: Elites. One Good (+3) skill, two Fair (+2) skills, three Average (+1)
skills. Three aspects. One mild consequence, one moderate consequence.
UNIT SKILLS

Athletics

Provoke

Drive/Pilot

Shoot

Fight

Stealth

Notice

Will

Not all of these skills will be appropriate for every unit

in every conflict, of course. If its a spaceship battle, youre
not going to have much use for Fight or Drive, and a subterranean battle between dwarves and undead probably
wont involve Pilot. Use common sense.

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

Heres a sample list of skills taken from Fate Core that units
might have.

165

Unit Aspects

A units first aspect is its name, which doubles as its high concept: Rebel
Starfighters, Dwarven Grenadiers, 27th Heavy Infantry, etc.
If the unit is Fair or Good, define those extra aspects however you want.

Building Units

Each player gets a battle chest of build points for the battlethe higher
the number, the more units and the bigger the
Average unit: 1 build point
battle. Spend build points to create units or to
Fair unit: 2 build points
buy additional fate points to spend during the
Good unit: 3 build points
battle.Fivebuild pointswould make for a small
Fate point: 3 build points
battle with relatively low-quality units, while
20 would be fairly epic. 10-12 is a good middle
ground. Leftoverbuild pointscan be spent during the battle,but any remaining go away afterward, as do any fate points purchased with build points.
Write each units particulars on its own index card. If its defeated, turn it
overbut hang onto it, so you can use it again in a future battle.

Zones

A zone might be a single hill, a hundred yards of open meadow, or a sector of

space. The specifics depend on your game and the scale of the conflict.

Number of Zones

As a rule of thumb, give the battlefield a number of zones equal to one more
than the number of players you have. That includes the GM, so a game with
a GM and three players would have five zones. If that feels claustrophobic for
the number of units you have in play, throw in a couple more index cards.

Adding Zone Aspects

For a fate point, a player can write an aspect on an empty zone card after its
been placed on the battlefield but before the battle begins. Put the zone card
back on the battlefield face down. When a unit moves into the zone, or scouts
it, turn it face-up to reveal the aspect.
If a player puts a new aspect on a zone by creating an advantage during play,
write it on the zone card for everyone to see.

SUBSYSTEMS
166

Creating the Battlefield

Players take turns placing zone cards, starting with whoever has the most fate
points left in their battle chest. Each zone card must be adjacent to an existing
zone card. Try to avoid an overly linear battlefieldmultiple ways in and out
of most zones will make for a more interesting battle.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Leaders

Any PC or a supporting or main NPC can be a leader. Use a miniature or some

other marker to represent each leadersomething that can be attached to a
unit card as well as placed directly on the battlefield, if their unit is defeated or
when they are otherwise acting independently. Defeating a unit doesnt defeat
its leaderonly a leader can directly attack and defeat another leader.
Attaching a leader to a unit, or detaching one from a unit, doesnt require an
action, but a leader cant do both in the same turn.
An attached leader can take their action whenever their unit does. They
can give this action to their unit, to let it take two actions, or they can do
something else, like engage another leader in combat or remove a consequence
from the unit.
An attached leader provides several other benefits to their unit.
All of a units skills with a rating below the leaders Will get a +1 bonus as
long as the leaders attached. If your game has another, more suitable skill
for this, use that instead.
The leader can invoke their aspects on behalf of their unit.
The leader can use Will to remove a consequence, at the usual difficulties
outlined in Fate Core. This counts as the leaders action for the turn.
The leader can use their action to put a boost on their unit, such as
Charge!. This doesnt require a roll unless the units taken a consequence,
in which case the leader uses Will with a difficulty equal to twice the
number of consequences the unit has.
An independent leader has to be activated to do anything, just like a unit.
1. Pick one of your leaders and roll their Will. Highest roll goes first, and
so on, down the line. In the case of a tie, highest Will wins. If thats a tie,
too, then the player with the most units wins.
2. When its your turn, choose and activate one of your units or independent leaders. If you choose a unit with a leader attached, the leader gets
to take their action as well. If you choose an independent leader, they
cant affect units, but they can interact with other leaders (violently, in all
likelihood). Every unit and leader on a side must act before any unit or
leader on a side may act again.
3. When all non-allied players lose all their units or concede, the battles
over.

Winning

Everyone on the winning side gets a fate point. Every player who defeated an
enemy leaderwhether in battle, by persuading them to surrender or switch
sides, or whatevergets a fate point for each leader they defeated.

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

Sequence of Play

167

SWASHBUCKLING DUELS

SUBSYSTEMS

The kind of cinematic, heroic action that typifies swashbuckling stories is

near and dear to Fate Cores heartthats just the nature of the game. But
those climactic one-on-one fights between our hero and a dastardly villain
almost always involve a lot of back-and-forth before one of them lands a
blow. In the meantime, they might trade witty repartee or provocative insults,
swing from chandeliers, leap off balconies, baffle their opponent with their
cloak, or a thousand other things. Look at DArtagnan and Jussac in The
Three Musketeers, Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in the 1938 film The
Adventures of Robin Hood, Cyranos poetry-laden duel with Valvert in
Rostands Cyrano de Bergerac, or Luke Skywalker and Darth Vaders duel
in The Empire Strikes Back.
The create an advantage action in Fate Core makes it easy to model these
sorts of conflicts, but most players will still gravitate toward the most efficient means of dispatching the opposition, especially if there arent other PCs
around to give them an excuse to create situation aspects. Thats what this
hack doesrequire players to rely on skills other than Fight in a conflict, with
colorful results.
These one-on-one dueling rules introduce something called the upper
hand. Only the duelist with the upper hand can actually use a skill with the
attack action to inflict harm. The other duelist can take any other action, but
cannot attackuntil they get the upper hand, of course.
How does one get the upper hand? By succeeding with style with a skill
other than one that deals harm in physical conflicts (Fight or Shoot, or whatever the equivalent is in your game). As soon as one combatant succeeds with
style with one of these other skills, they get the upper hand. This replaces the
actions usual reward for succeeding with style, such as getting a boost or an
extra free invocation. You get either the upper hand or the usual reward, but
not both.
Use a token of some kind to represent the upper hand. Whatever it is, it
should be something that can easily be handed back and forth, like a coin, a
little plastic cocktail sword, an index card with a hand drawn on it, a fencing
glovewhatever works for your group.
At the beginning of a physical conflict between two (and only two) participants, determine the turn order, as usual. If this involves a skill roll, and one of
the two succeeds with style, they start the conflict with the upper handthey
got the jump on the other guy.
After that, the combatants can do any of the following every turn:
Attack, if they have the upper hand
Try to get the upper hand, if they dont
Do something elseput down situation aspects, try to escape the conflict, etc.

168

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Dekka, an Imperial Lawkeeper of Porthos V, is facing off against her

arch-nemesis Xoren, the scheming cyborg and would-be usurper
of the Celestial Throne, in the midst of the coronation ceremony.
Each is a master of the photon blade, as theyve demonstrated to
one another multiple times in the past. Their high-tech weapons
flicker brilliantly with a copyrighted hum. Its on.
Dekka wins initiative with a +5 to Xorens +3a success, but not
one with style. She starts things off with a little patter, hoping to
discover one of his aspects using Empathy. Whats your damage,
Xoren? Is there an algorithm for evil somewhere in your neuromatrix? Or do you actually think this ploy is going to work? She
gets a +6, while Xoren gets a +2. Success with style!
Evil? he spits back. Spend one day as a cyborg in this wretched
wreck of an empire and youll gain a new appreciation for true evil!
She discovers the aspect All Shall Suffer for My Pain!, and
chooses to gain the upper hand instead of taking the extra free
invocation.
Now its Xorens turn. Being an evil cyborg, he grabs a bystander
and flings him at Dekka, hoping to create an advantage with
Physique. He beats Dekka by 4 shiftsenough to gain the upper
handbut she uses that free invocation on All Shall Suffer for My
Pain! to reduce that to 2 shifts. Her player explains that Xoren, in
his righteous rage, accidentally telegraphed his move. The GM buys
it. Xoren puts a situation aspect of Civilians in Danger in play, with
one free invocation.
Dekka still has the upper hand, and she means to use it. Shoving
the poor onlooker to one side and springing forward at Xoren
with her photon blade, she attacks with Fight at +4, beating his
Fight defense of +3. He capitalizes on the fact that shes distracted
by those Civilians in Danger, using his free invocation to bump
his total up to +5. After trading a couple more fate points, Dekka
comes out ahead by a single shift. Since theyre using the StressFree variant, that means a mild consequence for XorenFaltering
Confidence.

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

Its highly recommended that you use the Stress-Free variant (page60)
with these rules. Otherwise, theres a real risk of combats dragging out, instead
of knocking down and dragging out.

169

VEHICLES
In a game that largely revolves around personal activity, vehicles occupy a
strange space. They extend the characters capabilities like tools or weapons,
but theyre external to the character, in the manner of allies and resources. Its
a space that is easily overlooked, but which can be utterly essential, depending
on the priorities of the player or campaign.
In describing vehicles, this section generally assumes cars and trucks, but
many of these ideas are easily extrapolated to horses, chariots, spaceships and
beyond.

Incidental Vehicles

In many games, vehicles are merely incidental to play. That is, they come up
when the situation demands, but otherwise arent given a lot of thought. In
this case, vehicles are frequently just an enabler for using the Drive skill. When
the bad guys are getting away in a car, and you hop in a car to pursue, its all
about the skills from there.
If theres ever a need to differentiate vehicles in this context, it should most
often take the form of aspects. A vehicle will usually have between one and
three aspects, the specifics of which depend very much on your tables interest
in cars. Aspects like Big, Fast, Off-Road, or Clunker are totally valid, as are
Hemi, Canted Wheels or Five-Speed, Fuel-Injected.
For most games this is enough, but in a game where driving is critical,
theres a good chance that vehicles may end up being more or less disposable.

Personal Vehicles

A personal vehicle is most likely to be represented by an aspect, but details

beyond that depend a lot on your game. A more down-to-earth game may
simply have a signature vehicle, like a detectives sports car, but some games
might be better suited to gadget-festooned supercars.
The basic rules for vehicles need be no more complicated than the incidental vehicles rules, and for more complicated vehicles, extras start becoming
appropriate.

Repair
SUBSYSTEMS
170

An item represented by an aspect cannot usually be destroyed, yet despite this,

it can stretch credulity to have a vehicle prove entirely immune to damage. As
a rule of thumb, allow a personal vehicle to be damaged normally, but say that
the damage was repaired without difficulty between sessions.
Unless, of course, the player wants to work with the damage. Having a car
in need of repair is a great scene frame and occasional motivatorperhaps
it requires a particular part. If a player opts to treat the car as damaged, then
the first time in a session they expressly touch on the necessary repairssuch
as having a conversation while working on the enginethat is effectively a
compel, and grants the player a FP.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Group Vehicles

SUBSYSTEMS

An idea that sees frequent use in fiction and gaming is that of a common
vehicle, usually some sort of ship, van, car, or the like that serves as group
transportation and often as a mobile base of operations.
An easy way to do this is to make the vehicle in question an aspect for everyone in the groupor at least everyone tied to the vehicle. Doing so makes a
strong statement about the centrality of the vehicle to the game.
Its also possible to take a more nuanced approach, and have each character
take an aspect that reflects their relationship with the vehiclea spaceships
captain and her engineer may have very different perspectives on the nature
of their ship.
Whatever the case, a group vehicle can have aspects like an incidental vehicle, but theres a lot more leeway in terms of what exactly those aspects should
be. Each player aspect related to the vehicle allows that player to assign an
aspect to the vehicle. This allows for differing levels of investment built organically from player interest.

CHAPTER 9

171

Quick and Dirty Vehicle Rules

Vehicle Mismatches

The quick and dirty hierarchy of speed goes as follows:

Foot
Bike/Horse
Car/Motorcycle
Helicopter
Airplane
When a chase involves a speed mismatch, the faster driver gets a number
of free invocations of vehicle aspects equal to the difference between the tiers.
This can be mitigated by circumstancesfeet and bikes can outpace a car in
a traffic jam, and a car might help you catch up with a plane before its airbornebut it should be enough to cover edge cases.

Stealing a Car

Attempting to steal or otherwise acquire a car should be treated as an overcome

action, with the appropriate skillusually either Burglary or Resources
against a difficulty based on the situation, taking into account both security
level and range of options. Upon success, the aspects created are the aspects
of the stolen vehicle. This assumes the character is just taking what they can
gettrying to steal a specific car will be an overcome roll against the specifics
of that situation.

Custom Cars

Car customization is an application of the Crafts skill that requires a shop

and appropriate tools. Baseline difficulty of the overcome roll is 0, +2 for each
aspect on the vehicle. With a success, an aspect can be added to the vehicle,
or if its feasible, removed. The maximum number of aspects a vehicle may
have is 5.

Vehicle Damage
SUBSYSTEMS
172

Vehicles dont have stress, but can take consequencesusually to turn a failed
Drive roll into a success using the Extra Effort optional rule (see page60).
An average vehicle3 or fewer aspectscan take one mild consequence. An
exceptional vehicle4 or 5 aspectscan take one mild and one moderate
consequence. A vehicle with an aspect like Rugged or Military Grade may be
able to take one severe consequence.

Vehicle Stunts
Car Thief: When stealing a car, use Drive in lieu of Burglary.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SUPERS
Fate characters are already incredibly competent and accomplished folks, but
sometimes your group might want to push the system even further, telling
a story of actual superheroes who fight crime and supervillains who want to
conquer the world. This section will give you a few tools to make superheroes
work for your group!

Origin Stories

SUBSYSTEMS

Fate superheroes are a lot like regular Fate characters, but they can replace the
trouble phase of character creation with an origin story, an aspect that quickly
summarizes how the character acquired superpowers and/or why those powers
cause the hero problems. Remember that aspects should always be doubleedged, noting the characters strengths and weaknesses. For example, a hero
might take the high concept Genetically Engineered Supersoldier to represent his superhuman strength and agility and the origin story Dimensional
Traveler to simultaneously note that hes a fish out of water in our world.

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173

Super Skills

One way of creating superpowers in Fate is to allow players to designate skills

as superpowers, instead of taking stunts. A hero born on an advanced alien
world might take Super Lore. A teen touched by the powers of an ancient, primordial god might take Super Athletics. Heroes that use technology or magical items can invest the skills into the item itself as skill extras, carrying Spears
of Destiny (Physique) or building fantastic clockwork robots (Shooting).
Heroes can use the skill as normal, but can also opt to make use of the
power by spending a fate point. When activated, the superskill allows the hero
to attempt fantastic feats, doubling his current skill bonus. After rolling, the
characters must step back the skill by one. As long as the skill is not reduced
to zero, the power refreshes next scene. If the power is exhausted, however,
the hero will have to find some way to rest or recharge before using it again.
Maxine, a Valkyrie with Superb Physique (+5), can spend a fate
point to throw a car at a supervillainadding 5 extra shifts to her
rollbut after the roll the skill steps back to Great (+4). If she continues to use her superstrength to the point that her Physique is
exhausted, she will need to journey to Valhalla to drink from the
Horn of Might to regain her strength.

This system lends itself to Golden Age-style heroes who achieve amazing
feats with few downsides beyond getting tired or running out of power. It
also gives the GM a chance to set up interesting refresh scenes (see Refresh),
when the heroes have to recharge their powers, reconnect with their human
lives, or rest for long enough to face the villain at full strength. For example,
a teenage hero might need to head back home to connect with her dad, while
a shapechanging nightstalker might retire to his lair to sleep through the day
before resuming his hunt.

Creating Super-Powered Stunts

SUBSYSTEMS
174

If your group prefers more defined superpowers, you can allow players to
purchase superpowers as stunts, perhaps even giving them an extra stunt or
two for free. For a low-powered superhero game, emulating gritty 1980s antiheroes, the existing stunts in Fate Core are probably finethe heroes arent
empowered paragons, just extraordinary people who put on costumes.
If you want to tell more epic superhero stories, you can also write stunts
that allow for stronger powers but require the player to bid fate points. Static
obstacles may be defeated by spending a single fate point, but other superpowered characters can accept, cancel, or raise the action by bidding a fate point
back and narrating opposition. This goes back and forth until one character is
unwilling to spend any more points. If the action ends in a tie, the points are
given to the GM, but if one character clearly wins, the loser gets all the fate
points bid. Note that this might result in dramatic swings in the fate point
economy, as one player is going to catch a windfall of fate points at the end
of a conflict.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Sergio is a hero with Bend Bars, Lift Gates, a stunt that allows
him to destroy physical impediments by bidding a fate point. If
no superpowered characters oppose him, the action is successful
without a roll. However, if Maxine uses her Norse powers to shock
him through the metal bars hes trying to bend, she can spend a
fate point to cancel his action or spend two fate points to try to
apply her power (Lighting Storm) in addition to canceling his stunt.
If she spent two fate points, Sergio would get a chance to bid back
to cancel or raise, or he could accept her action and claim the two
fate points she bid.

The Fate Worlds setting Wild Blue has some awesome ideas for creating powers as stunts with narrative costs, such as time travel that a
hero cant quite control, or telepathy that always uncovers unwanted
information. Check it out for another way of creating powers in Fate!
Similarly, superpowers by any other name might be called magic.
Have a look at the previous chapter to get an idea of how you could
do something more involved and intricate with your superpowers by
way of building them as a magic system.

Fate already has great rules for generating NPCs (starting on page 213 of Fate
Core). For superhero stories, the GM can designate these as minions, villains,
and supervillains to better signal to the heroes the level of danger each group
poses.
Pay particular attention to the suggestions in Fate Core for grouping up
minions and treating them as obstacles. Sometimes the best way to portray a
hero beating up on a group of low-level thugs is a single roll or expenditure
of a superpower.
Villains should look a little more like the heroes themselves, probably picking up a superpower or two. Ideally you want a group of villains to be able to
take on your heroes toe-to-toe for long enough to make a contest interesting,
but they probably arent the real threat your heroes face.
Supervillains, however, can be full-fledged characters, complete with high
concepts, origin stories, superpowers, and extras of their own. Dont skimp
on origin stories for your supervillains; they are a great place to get the flavor
of the character across to the players. An evil cultist might have the origin
story Ive Lost the Only Man I Could Ever Love while a demonic supersoldier might have the origin story Doomed to Wander the Earth by Forces
Infernal.
Heroes can also pick up sidekicks (see Sidekicks vs. Allies) and minions of
their own as your story goes on, purchasing them as extras when they achieve
milestones.

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

Villains and Sidekicks

175

THE HORROR PARADOX

At face value, Fate is a bad fit for the horror genre. Its right there in the
opener of Fate Core: works best with any premise where the characters
are proactive, capable people leading dramatic lives. Horror does its dark
work by placing characters in deadly, inescapable circumstances beyond their
control. In horror, characters are often forced to react, rather than act. Despite
their capabilities, characters face threats that outclass them; their competence
isnt enough to win. Defeat seems inevitable, and success comes at a high cost.
Rather than charge in and win the day, characters focus more on surviving the
next few minutes and making good on an escape.
How do we reconcile these two realities? How do we take a system built for
proactive, capable characters and make it serve the needs of the horror genre?
Thats the Fate-plus-horror paradox. This is how we solve it.

The Elements of Horror

Horror is really all about the visceral, emotional response the players have to
the game. System is absolutely able to drive this, with your help. For our toolkit purposes, horror is a combination of oppressive atmosphere, impossible
circumstances, and stark desperation.

Oppressive Atmosphere
Compels Aplenty: While compels arent tools for forcing outcomes, they are
tools for making things go wrong. So make them abundant. Place aspects on the
scene, the story, the campaignand compel them to make things go wrong
for everyone. Simply dropping Death Comes for Everyone onto the story
and compelling it at the exact worst time (for the players) to make things that
much worse will get lots of traction. Yeah, the players affected will walk away
with some fate pointswhich theyll need in order to survivebut theyll also
feel the emotional gut-punch of the momentand will wonder when the next
compel is going to land. Make them hurt. Make them worry.

SUBSYSTEMS
176

Every Path a Dark One: Aspects arent the only way to evoke atmosphere.
You can deliver, too, with obstacles and zones. Its never easy to run away
from horror, so clutter the path to salvation with obstacles. (Read more on
obstacles, below.) And when youre drawing your zone maps, make it all more
claustrophobic than usual: more zones covering less space. While the physical distances arent any different, its just plain harder to get away from the
dangerous places in horrorin a regular house, the front door might just be a
zone away. In a haunted house? Try more like five or ten and never let them
sprint the full length.

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Just because the characters are empowered protagonists doesnt mean things
have to be easy for them.
Any obstacles difficulty set at two higher than the skill to overcome it is
likely to need an invoke. With players best skills topping out at Good or
Great, that means your starting level for difficulties should be in the same
range, and go up from there. Dont skimp on this. Really turn the screws!
With high difficulties come higher chances of failure. Rather than turn this
into player paralysis and apathy, make heavy use of succeed, but at a cost as
an alternativeand give the potential costs some real teeth. Make the price
uncomfortable. When paying you your due, the players will feel horrors bite.
Every step forward spills just a little more blood. Its death by degrees.
In fights against impossibly tough foes, the players will be inclined to concede, to try to wrest some control of the situation. Theres no reason not to
accept these concessions, but you should always advocate, hard, for concessions that truly hurt. Here, too, is where they will pay a price, and feel the
teeth bite down.
All of this drives towards a feeling of desperation. And so

CHAPTER 9

SUBSYSTEMS

Impossible Circumstances

177

Stark Desperation

Desperation arises from threatened, sparse resources and hard choices made
under pressure. A player characters finite resources include fate points, stress,
and consequences. Limit these without making them absent. Consider:
Low refresh: If the players only have a few fate points, those fate points
will feel precious. Theyll need to spend them if they want to succeed
cleanlyor at all. The tension in this choice heightens anxiety.
Minimal stress tracks: Dont give them more than a box or two, if you
give them any. In horror, characters shouldnt have much of a buffer before
they start to break and bleed. Additionally, if you use a mental or sanity
stress track, lasting trauma, terror, and madness are just momentsaway.
Weaker consequences: Consider making consequences soak less damage.
The default dial is -2/-4/-6 for mild, moderate, and severe, which is pretty
hefty. For horror, think about halving all those numbers, or trying -1/2/-4. It wont take much of a hit to really hurt the characters, making any
kind of conflict all the more dangerous.
Pair your system design with hard choices for the characters that theyll have
to make under pressure. This will take away clean, easy victories. After all, the
PCs themselves are finite resources: they cant be in two places at once. And
pressure arises from a lack of time. Time is the final finite resource that you as
the GM can control. In horror, there should never be enough time.
So give your players too much to do and not enough time to do it. The
people and things characters care about are also finite resourcesand for a
GM, theyre often easier to threaten than the character himself. Save your husband or your child: but never boththeres only one of you, and two bombs
at opposite ends of the house.
Your players will hate you for it. And if they came to all this to really revel
in the horrortheyll love you for it, too, screaming all the way.

SUBSYSTEMS
178

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

INDEX
Access opportunity, 141
Accounting of Small Things, 96
Acrobatic aspect, 26
Action, 76
Advancement, Vizier, 100
Advantage creation, 161
conjuration skill, 109
earthquake, 87
equipment, 160
flood, 87
glacier, 87
inferno, 88
magic, 103
mass combat, 164
squad, 160
storms, 85
thunder, 88
Adventure design, 45
Adventures of Robin Hood, The, 168
All Shall Suffer for My Pain!, 169
All Things in Their Place, 98
Allies, 68
permanent vs. temporary, 68
Allys Shield, 34
Always Armed, 13
Ambush!, 160
Ambushing, 164
Angry condition, 18
Annoyance spell, 105
Anti-Mutant Hysteria, 61
Approaches, 24, 25
Architecture of the Heart, 99
Armor
alternatives, 70
aspects, 71
blue dice for, 72
ratings, damages, 70
Armor of the Light, 144
Army on the Edge of My Blade, 97
Arrow, 136, 137
Ars Magica, 130
Aspect(s), 12, 144
adventure design, 45
choosing nw, 44
effect, 12
effect cost, 13
effect limitation, 12
events, 46
extra, 31
magic, 81
only, 26
power level, 48
rituals, 120
skills and, 25
storm, 83

Aspected stunts, 34
Asteroid Field, 164
Athletics, 95, 149
Attack
barriers and, 86
conjuration, 109
earthquake, 87
flood, 87
glacier, 87
inferno, 88
magic, 103
mass combat, 165
perfect aspect and, 14
skills, 27
squad, 160
storms, 85
thunder, 88
Attendants, 108, 110, 111
Augs (Augmentations), 151
Downside of, 153
example, 152-53
types of, 152
Availability, magic, 77, 79
Bad Luck, 105
Balance, 128
group, 128-29
in play, 130
setting, 129
Bargain with the Prince
of [storm], 108
Barrier, 86
Basic training, 163
Battle Wisps, 113-14
Battlefield, 163
creating, 166
Beings of Power, 133
Berserk Rage, 34
Big aspect, 170
Binding, 119
Blaze, 89
Blessing of a Thousand
Tongues, 94
Blitzkrieg, 160
Blood Magic, 132
Bonds of Man Stretch to
the Horizon, 99
Bonus Only, 60
Boost, 73
Borrowed Power, 132-33
Breath Attack upgrade, 114
Broad stunts, 35
Broken condition, 18
Bronze Rule, 9, 54, 114
Build points, 166

Building Is on Fire!, The, 14

Burglary, 96
Burning Rot, 124
Burnout, 131
By My Hand, Set the World
in Motion, 95
Calm, 89
Cant Keep His Big Mouth Shut, 34
Canted Wheels aspect, 170
Car stealing, 172
Car thief, 172
Ceiling Is Collapsing!, The, 14
Chain Lighting, 88
Challenges, 55
Channeling, 131
Character
creation, 9
generation options, 40
Charge Like Ox, 34
Charisma spell, 105
Chases, 52-53
Check Two (boxes), 60
Chi Blocked situation, 150
Chosen of the Steward, 92
Civilians in Danger, 169
Clarity spell, 105
Clarke, Arthur C., 77
Clumsiness spell, 105
Clunker aspect, 170
Codebreakers, 161
Collateral consequences, 61
Combat curses, 106
Combined stunts, 35
Compel
adventure design, 45
oppressive atmosphere, 176
Concrete Wall, 13
Conditions, 18-19
Conflicts, 55
Confusion spell, 105
Conjunction of Form, 99
Conjuration skill, 109
Conjuror, 107, 113
elemental bargains, 112
Connect the Dots, 66
Connolly, Harry, 115
Consequences, 18, 60-61, 145
sidekicks, allies, 68
weaker, 178
Contacts, 99
Contests, 55
Corroboration of Coincidence, 96
Corrupt Cops, 64

INDEX

179

Cost(s)
magic, 77, 78
sidekicks, allies, 68
Counterprogramming, 161
Cover Everywhere, 14
Crafts, 99
Creatures
powers and, 120
sample, 121-26
Crescendo aspect, 46
Crown of Menace, 98
Custom cars, 172
Cyber-Eye, 152
Cyber-Heart, 151
Cyber-Legs, 153
Cyberware, 151
Cyrano de Bergerac, 168
DArtagnan, 168
D6-D6, 66
Dangerous zone aspects, 62
Dapper Gent, 125
Dark Viziers, 100
Darkcallers, 89
Darkness, 89
Death Comes for Everyone, 176
Deceive, 96
Defend
conjuration, 109
earthquake, 87
flood, 87
glacier, 87
inferno, 88
magic, 103
squad, 160
storms, 85
thunder, 88
Dense Forest, 164
Dice
options, 66
red and blue, 72
Dim Mak Touch, 149
Dimensional Traveler, 173
Distracted, 73
Dogs of War, 159, 162
Doom Points, 119, 120
Doomed to Wander the Earth
by Forces Infernal, 175
Dramatic change, 40
Dresden Files RPG, The, 140
Drinking from the Jug, 150
Drudges, 108, 110, 111
Drunkard Stumbles, 150
Drunkard Swings Wide, 150
Drunkards Stagger, 150
Drunken fist, 150
Drunken Shove, 150
Dwarven Grenadiers, 166

180

Dwarven Shield-Maiden, 34
Earth, 110
Earthcaller, 82
Earthquake, 82, 83, 85, 87, 107
Effects, 134, 143
tweaks, 135
Elemental(s), 107, 108
bargains, 112
bonuses, 110
in combat, 113
summary, 110
Elf (race), 43
Empathy, 99
Empire Strikes Back, The, 168
Energy, 89
Enmity of a Prince of Thunder, 112
Equipment
sample stunts, 160
squad, 160
Event list, 46
Every Path a Dark One, 176
Evil Eye, 105
Exhausted condition, 18
Extra Effort, 60
Extras, 145
magic and, 81
Extreme Effort, 60
Eye, 91, 93-94
Eye Gazes in All Directions, 94
Eye Sees All Paths, 94
Fail
advantage creation, 109
overcome, 109
Falling Drunkard, 150
Faltering Confidence, 169
Fast aspect, 170
Fastest Gun in the West, 13
Fate, 80
Fate Accelerated Edition, 24
Fate Worlds, 175
Fear of [character], 137
Feng shui, 105
Few Clean Streets, A, 64
Fiat, 143
Fight, 27, 97, 149
Fight Fire, 19
Fighter (profession), 41
Fire, 110
Five-Speed, Fuel-Injected
aspect, 170
Flamethrowers!, 160
Flashback scenes, 63
Flavored force, 78
Fleeting condition, 18, 19
Flexible stunts, 34
Flood, 82, 83, 87, 107

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Flynn, Errol, 168

Focused skill, 29
Follow My Boss Orders, 55
4d6, 66
Freeform skills, 25
Freet, 124
Frenzied Berserkers, 164
Friend in Every Port, A, 35
Frightened condition, 18
Gadgets, 154
additional flaws, 155
functions and flaws, 154
stunts, 154
Game making, balance, 128-29
Gamemaster
aspect effect limitation, 12
gear aspects, 16, 17
Gameplay opportunities, 141
Gear, 154-55
aspects, 16
Genetically Engineered
Supersoldier, 173
Genre aspects, 15
Giant, 90, 91, 94-95
Giants Appetite, 95
Glacier, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 107
Good Friend of Dr. Watson, 68
Gritty Noir, 49
Group balance, 128-29
Group consequences, 61
Group vehicles, 171
Hacking, 8
Hard to Kill, 157
Hard to Pin Down, 160
Hat effects, 134
Health spell, 105
Heavy armor, 71
Heavy and Unwieldy flaw, 155
Heavy weapons, 71
Hemi aspect, 170
Hesitant, 164
Hidden Blade Style, 149
Hidden Compartment, 153
Hi-Tech Gear, 160
Holmes, Sherlock, 68
Horror, 176-78
elements of, 176
Hungry for Brains, 156
Hungry condition, 18
Hunted by the Servants of
Ssask, God of Lies, 155
Ive Lost the Only Man I
Could Ever Love, 175
Ice, 110
Icecaller, 82

Immune to Damage, 157

Impossible circumstances, 176, 177
In Over Our Head, 159
Incidental vehicles, 170
Inferno, 82, 83, 84, 88, 107
Injured Bystanders, 61
Inky Darkness, 14
Inner Eye Sees Inner Truth, 99
Instinct, 54, 56
aspects, 156
modifying, 55
Interior Decorator, 105
Intimidating, 164
Investigation, 93
Invocation, scaled, 13-14
Invoke for effect, 12
Ironskin, 136, 137
Its a Trap!, 164
Items of Power, 132
Jussac, 168
Keen Senses, 15
Keep the Hotel Running
Smoothly, 55
Keep My Job, 56
Keep the PCs Out, 55
Kinda Glitchy on the
Ocean Floor, 155
Knight aspect, 26
Knight of the Chalice, 25
Knight of the Stars aspect, 26
Kung fu, 148
existing skills, 149
stunts, 150
Ladies Man aspect, 26
Lasting condition, 18, 19
Lazarus eyes, 123
Leader(s), 163, 167
Led by the Guards, 56
Lesser weakness, 157
Light, 89
Light armor, 71
Light weapons, 71
Lightcallers, 89
Lightning, 110
Lightning worms, 122
Limitation(s), 138, 139
of opportunity, 139
of use, 139
Limits, 131
magic, 77, 79
Local Drug Pushers, 64
Lore, 94
Love spell, 105
Low-powered aspects, 15
Luck spell, 105

Magic, 76-77
aspects and, 81
design notes, 101
effects and, 106
extras as, 81
Fact and, 80
mechanics, 102
quick overview, 102
reality and, 101
skill, 80 102
stunts and, 81, 105
system, 76
variations, options, 106
Magical societies, description, 101
Magnetic Grapnel Gun, 154, 155
Magnetic Grip, 153
Major augs, 152
Make Lots of Money, 55
Mana Points, 132-33
Marked by (Vizier), 91
Marked by the Giant, 91, 92
Marked by the Villager, 92
Martial arts, 148-50
Martin Half-Heart Must
Be Stopped!, 15
Mass combat, 163-67
play sequence, 167
winning, 167
Master of the Mantis Style, 148
Medium armor, 71
Mental Eavesdropper, 12
Mental zones, 62
Might of the Imperial Fleet, 164
Military grade aspect, 172
Mind Is the Greatest Mountain, 95
Mineo Toadstool, 126
Minor augs, 152
Monster(s), 156
abilities, 157
Montage creation, 65
Morningstar, Jason, 19
Motivation, 54, 56
discovering, modifying, 55
Mountain, 89
Movement, through zones, 62
Multiple Zone Monsters, 158
My Fathers Service Revolver, 16
My Well-Used, Modified XM21, 16
(Name) Is on Fire!, 158
Name Is a Mask to the World, 96
Neural Interface, 153
Neutral magic, 78
Never Broken, 95
Ninja of the Serpent Clan, 13
Ninjutsu, 148
None May Bind the Giant, 95

Non-player characters
(NPCs), origin story, 44
Not to Be Trifled With, 35
Notebooks, 117
Notice, 94
Obscured view, 73
Obscurity spell, 105
Off-Balance boost, 150
Off-Road aspect, 170
One with the Earth, 12
One-Shift Boxes, 60
Only the Wind Beneath Us, 97
Only the Wind Will See Me Go, 96
Opinionated magic, 78
Opportunity, 141, 142
Oppressive atmosphere, 176
Orc (race), 43
Origin story, 44, 173
ending, 44
Outcome, 138
action, storms, 85
conjuration skill, 109
earthquake, 87
equipment, 160
flood, 87
glacier, 87
inferno, 88
magic, 103
mass combat, 164
recon, 161
squad, 160
thunder, 88
Overextended boost, 150
Pallet of Propane Tanks, 14
Panicked Grunts, 160
Parsing difficulty, 117, 118
Patron of the Baker Street
Irregulars, 68
Perfect invocation, 14
Permissions, sidekicks, allies, 68
Personal vehicles, 170
Physique, 95, 149
Pieces of the Puzzle, 93
Pile of Garbage, 13
Pinned Down, 164
Places of Power, 133
Pneumatic Kick, 153
Pomp, 136, 137
Pouring Wine, 150
Power(s), 81
borrowed, 113
creature, 120
names, 96
pieces of, 138
Void, 116

INDEX

181

Power level, 47-48

examples, 49
Vizier, 100
Press Pass, 16
Pristine Colt .45, 16
Professions, 24, 25, 40, 41, 42
Prone to Change, 157
Prosperity spell, 105
Prostheses, 151
Protect His Students
from Harm, 54
Provoke, 27, 28, 98
Pulp Adventure, 49
Put Out the Fire!, 55
Pyramid skill structure, 26
Quest aspects, 15
Races, 40, 41, 43
Rage, 92
spell, 105
Raging River, 164
Rapport, 98
Rathbone, Basil, 168
Razor Nails, 153
Rebel Starfighters, 166
Recon, 161
sample stunts, 161
Recovery scenes, 63
Reflection scenes, 63
Refresh, 63, 140
adjusting starting, 37
low, 178
power level, 47
reducing, 37
stunts and, 139
Relevant invocation, 13
Renegade Knight of the
Stars aspect, 26
Resilience, increasing, 114
Resources, 98, 142
Revolver, 16
Ride, 97
Rider, 136, 137
Ring of Truth, 155
Risk, magic, 78
Ritual(s), 119
aspects, 120
magic, 89
Rivers of Gold, 98
Rocky Terrain, 164
Rostand, 168
Rotted Support Columns, 14
Rugged aspect, 172
Rules, 8, 9
Rulings, 8-9

182

Safety spell, 105

Savate, 148
Save My Own Skin, 55
Scale, 67
as extra, 66
steps, 67
Scorch Marks, 14
Scouting, 164
Sea, 89
Sell the Drugs Cheap, 55
Sell the Drugs at Market Prices, 55
Sent by the Feds, 68
Servitors, 108, 110, 111
Setting, 143
aspects, 64
modification, 64
Shadow, 91, 96
Shadow Step, 144
Shaky aim, 73
Sharp-Eyed Elvish Scout, 13
Shell upgrade, 114
Shoot, 27, 28, 97
Shoot to the Horizon, 97
Shoot to the Stars, 97
Sidekicks, 68, 175
Sight, 136, 137
Silenced XM21, 16
Situation aspects, 54, 158
detonating, 14
Six Profanities, 136-37
Six Viziers system, 90
Skill(s), 22, 25, 144
aspects and, 25
choosing new, 44
extra, 31
functions, 27-28
improving, 30
increasing, 114
kung fu, 149
magic, 80, 102-3
modes, 29-31
new, 139
power level, 47
ranking, 27
ratings, 29
stormcaller, 85
summoning, 112
superhero, 174
Skill list
adding, removing, 23
expansion, compression, 23
larger steps, 26
new, 24
reskinning, altering, 23
structural changes, 26
tweaking, 23
Skywalker, Luke, 168
Sniper Rifle, 16

FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

Snowfall, 89
Social conflict, 54
Social zones, 62
Soldier, 90, 91, 97
Source, magic, 77, 79
Spears of Green Wood, 97
Specialized skill, 29
Specific aspect, 139
Spell(s), 104-5
By Rote, 105
target, 103
Spellbooks, 117
Spellcasting, 131
Squad
concept, 159
creation, 159
equipment, 160
operations, 160
sample stunts, 160
skill roll, 162
skills, 159
trouble, 159
Squad-based action, 159
Squad-based combat, 162
Standard weapons, 71
Stark desperation, 176, 178
Stars Illuminate the Night, 94
Starting refresh, adjusting, 37
Starting stunts, 36
Stasis, 89
Steady the Drunkard, 150
Stealing Words from the Wind, 96
Stealth, 96
Step Down, 60
Steward, 91, 98
Sticky condition, 18, 19
Stop the Cops from Arresting
My Boss, 56
Storm(s)
aspects, 83
multiple, 89
Storm Bargain, 113
Storm summoner(s), 89, 113
description, 107
design notes, 107
mechanics, 108
quick overview, 108
variations, options, 113
Stormcaller(s), 82, 128
barriers and, 86
description, 82
mechanics, 83
quick overview, 82
skill, 85
variations, options, 89
Strength of One Becomes the
Strength of Many, 99

Stress, 145
power level, 48
Stress boxes, 52
other options, 60
Stress track(s), 52-53
minimal, 178
sidekicks, allies, 68
wealth, 69
Stress-Free, 60, 169
Strides of the Giant, 95
Strong aspect, 26, 92
Strong Like Bull, 13
Strong Like Ox, 34
Structure, Vizier, 100
Stunned, 88
Stunt(s), 34, 140, 145
adjusting starting, 36
choosing new, 44
costs, 36
costs, adjusting, 37
kung fu, 150
magic, 81, 105
power level, 47
refresh and, 139
super-powered, 174-75
vehicle, 172
Subdermal Plating, 153
Subject, of spell, 104
Success
advantage creation, 109
overcome, 109
Success with Style
advantage creation, 109
overcome, 109
Summoned Power, 131
Summoning, 112
storms, 89
Voidcallers, 117-19
Summoning difficulty, 117, 118
Dapper Gent, 125
freet, 124
Lazarus eyes, 123
lightning worms, 122
Mineo Toadstool, 126
wound-eating beetles, 121
Superhero, 173-74
skills, 174
Super-Heroic, 49
Super-powered stunts, 174-75
Supplemental actions, 73
Supplication of Locks, 96
Surrounded, 164
Swashbuckling duels, 168Swordsman aspect, 26

Taking Heavy Fire, 62

Tangled Woods, 164
Target, of spell, 104
Teflon Troublemaker, 34
Tenuous invocations, 13
Terror, 137
Thermoptic Camouflage, 153
Thief (profession), 42
3d6, 66
Three Musketeers, The, 168
Thunder, 82, 83, 84, 88, 107
Thunderbolt, 88
Tie
advantage creation, 109
overcome, 109
Tight zones, 62
Toadstool, 126
Tone, magic, 77, 78
Tools Are Lesser than
the Hand, 99
Topographical Maps, 160
Tough shell upgrade, 114
Trained skill, 29
Trained at the Wudang
Monastery, 148
Training guide, 5
Triggered stunt effects, 35
Truth of Who You Are, 98
25 Karat Watch, 16
Twenty Palaces, 115
27th Heavy Infantry, 166
Udru Khai Killed My Family, 14
Unit(s), 163
actions, 163
aspects, 166
quality, 165
skills, 165
Upgrades, 114
Upper hand, 168, 169
Useful Little Things, 34
Vader, Darth, 168
Valvert, 168
Vance, Jack, 76
Vancian magic, 76
Vault of the Eye, 93
Vehicle(s), 170
damage, 172
mismatches, 172
repair, 170
rules, 172
stunts, 172
Very large monsters, 158
Villager, 91, 99
Villains, 175

Vizier(s), 90
active, 100
advancement, 100
dark, 100
mechanics, 92
others, 100
quick overview, 91
variations and options, 100
Viziers mark, 91, 92
Void, 89, 115
Voidcallers, 89, 129
barriers and, 86
binding, 119
description, 115-16
design notes, 115
huge rituals, 119
mechanics, 117
quick overview, 116
summoning, 117-19
variations, options, 127
Walking with Storms, 98
Walton, Jonathan, 66
War of Papers, 98
Water, 110
We Ride as One, 97
Weakness, 157
Wealth, 69
gaining, 69
starting, 69
Weapons
aspects, 71
alternatives, 70
ratings, damages, 70
red dice for, 72
Well-Stocked, 160
Whirlwind Step, 35
Wild Blue, 175
Will, 95
Wind, 89
Wisp(s), 108, 110, 111
masters, 113
training, 114
Wisp Training skill, 113
Wizards duels, 106
World opportunities, 141
Wound-eating beetles, 121
Wounded condition, 18
Zone(s), 62, 163, 166
aspects, 166
card, 163

INDEX

183

MENTAL STRESS (Will)

PHYSICAL STRESS (Physique)

EXTRAS

Frightened

Angry

Goes away when you get a chance to

catch your breath and calm down.

1
1

FLEETING

CONDITIONS

Average (+1)

Fair (+2)

Good (+3)

Great (+4)

Superb (+5)

Trouble

SKILLS

ASPECTS

High Concept

Description

Name

ID

Hungry

Exhausted
Stays checked off until a specific
event occurs (get sleep, eat food).

2
2

STICKY

STUNTS

Refresh

Wounded

Broken
Takes a recovery action to begin removal.
Second box may be checked only if the first isnt.

4 4
4 4

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