Paths

A Path is a recipe for the fundamental manner in which a hero meets danger and changes the world. Every hero chooses one Path at creation, gaining its Gift and access to its Talents.

A Path guides a concept without functioning as a class. Its suggested competencies illustrate the concept but impose no requirements: use them, alter them, or replace them completely.

One Path

A hero has one Path, but the Path does not fence off ordinary competence. A Blade may master Stealth, learn Phasmic Formulae through a vinculum, or ignore Combat entirely. A Shadow may become the group’s finest combatant. The Path identifies a dramatic method through its Gift and Talents rather than policing the build.

Changing Path is possible only as a major event in the story. A Blade chosen by a Monitor might become an Emissary, but the character changes Path rather than collecting pieces of both. Retain the character’s earned Advances and rebuild only the abilities supplied by the former Path.

Path Recipes

Path	Suggested use of seven choices
Blade	Combat Expert; five other Trained Skills
Shadow	Seven Trained Skills chosen for mobility, subtlety, and preparation
Magister	Three Trained Formulae; four Trained Skills
Emissary	Two Trained Formulae; five Trained Skills

Gifts and Path Talents

Every Path grants one Path Gift at character creation. A Path Gift is an automatic, Path-exclusive Talent: short, memorable, and unavailable to heroes of other Paths. It expresses the Path’s defining advantage.

Path Talents are standalone choices. They never require another Talent as a prerequisite. A powerful Talent may require a Path, Skill rating, or particular Phasmic Formula, but no hero purchases an uninteresting ability merely to unlock an interesting one. Related Talents may share a theme without forming a chain.

Blade

The Blade meets danger directly. Blades include duelists, soldiers, guardians, hunters, champions, and others whose defining excellence is disciplined action under threat. A Blade need not be brutal, heavily armored, or devoted solely to combat; the Path represents command of violence rather than a particular profession or temperament.

Recipe. Expert Combat and five other Trained Skills. Awareness, Athletics, Command, Medicine, and Wayfaring suit a protective road-warden; replace any of them freely.

Identity. The Blade Gift and Talents reward meeting danger directly; the recipe suggests combat excellence but does not require it.

Gift: First into Danger

First into Danger — Spend 1 Nerve when a conflict begins to take one short action before the first turn.

Talents

A Blade may choose General and Blade Talents.

Cleave (Blade) — Once per round, when you incapacitate an opponent in melee, immediately attack another opponent within reach.

Counterstrike (Blade) — Once per round, when an opponent misses you in melee, make a melee attack against that opponent as a reaction.

Guard (Blade) — When an adjacent ally is targeted but before the attack roll, interpose as a reaction and become the target.

Hold the Line (Blade) — When an opponent moves within your reach, attack them in melee as a reaction; a hit ends their movement.

Rally (Blade) — As a short action, attempts to frighten or coerce allies who can hear you suffer a penalty die until your next turn.

Relentless (Blade) — When you incapacitate an opponent, move up to your normal speed without spending an action.

Shadow

The Shadow succeeds through subtlety, movement, preparation, and misdirection. Shadows may be scouts, spies, investigators, negotiators, wanderers, or audacious opportunists. The Path is broader than theft or assassination: it belongs to heroes who understand that position, knowledge, and timing can decide a conflict before force is applied.

Recipe. Seven Trained Skills. Combat, Finesse, Stealth, Awareness, Guile, Insight, and Technics suit a ruin-courier; replace any of them freely.

Identity. The Shadow Gift and Talents reward preparation, movement, and misdirection rather than a prescribed profession.

Gift: Always Prepared

Always Prepared — Spend 1 Nerve to produce a plausible item, useful fact, or minor precaution that you arranged earlier.

Talents

A Shadow may choose General and Shadow Talents.

Ghost (Shadow) — You may move at full speed while using Stealth.

Quick Hands (Shadow) — Once per turn, draw, stow, plant, or palm a small object without spending an action.

Slip Away (Shadow) — When an opponent misses you in melee, move up to 3 squares as a reaction.

Surprise Attack (Shadow) — Gain a bonus damage die against an opponent who has not perceived you.

Vanish (Shadow) — Spend 1 Nerve while unobserved or concealed to become Hidden without making a roll.

Weak Point (Shadow) — After observing a target for one round, your next attack against it ignores its Protection.

Magister

A Magister controls internally generated phasm through an organ called the vinculum. Small and lens-like, it focuses the phasm before the Magister releases it into the world. Optimates already possess vincula as part of the anatomy for which their people were designed, and their natural integration with the organ helps explain their excellence with phasm.

Members of other peoples acquire a vinculum through the mysterious process called reintegration. Its formal technical name is architectonic surgery, but nothing so primitive as a knife is involved. The apparatus simply adds a vinculum to the subject’s quantum wave function. The body thereafter resolves as a body that includes one, fully integrated rather than implanted.

Reintegration works upon biological and synthetic bodies alike; the principle is easy to state, although no living practitioner could reproduce the means. Training teaches every Magister to shape and survive the resulting power. A Magister is a living source, not a petitioner receiving power from elsewhere.

Recipe. Three Trained Phasmic Formulae and four Trained Skills. Awareness, Lore, Medicine, and Technics suit a phasmic investigator; replace any of them freely.

Identity. The Magister Gift rewards an internal source of phasm and risky improvisation; competency choices determine the hero’s actual training.

Gift: Living Font

Living Font — Once per scene, compute a Formula you do not possess as Trained; mark 1 Fatigue after the working resolves.

Talents

A Magister may choose General, Magister, and Phasmic Talents.

Emissary

The Emissary receives phasmic power from a Monitor. An Emissary is neither a conventional priest nor a Magister by another name: the power originates in an external intelligence and expresses an ongoing relationship with it. The Monitor determines what it offers, what it withholds, and why it chose the Emissary at all.

Recipe. Two Trained Phasmic Formulae and five Trained Skills. Combat, Awareness, Influence, Command, and Lore suit a Monitor’s field representative; replace any of them freely.

Identity. The Emissary Gift rewards phasm used in service of a Monitor’s mandate; competency choices determine how the Emissary carries it out.

Gift: Monitor’s Mandate

Monitor’s Mandate — Once per scene, Overreach without taking Fatigue when the working directly serves your Monitor’s declared purpose.

Talents

An Emissary may choose General, Emissary, and Phasmic Talents.

Expanding the Paths

A new Path is a new character recipe, not a new rules engine. Give it a clear identity, one exclusive Gift, a small group of thematic Talents, and an example use of the ordinary seven competency choices. Its recipe grants no extra Skills or Formulae. Do not create a Path merely to describe a profession that Skills and Motive already cover.

Seventh Sun Codex
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