Hawkmoon:Marks of the Ancients

Marks Of The Ancients

The world of Hawkmoon is old beyond reckoning, and the blood of mankind has not passed through those ages unchanged. Some mutations arise naturally in isolated populations or long-blighted regions. Others are inflicted deliberately through the arts of Granbretan, the handling of forbidden devices, or the lingering poisons of ancient wars.

These changes are known by many names: mutations, blood-signs, warping, elder marks, witch-flesh, beast-blood, or the Marks of the Ancients.

In game terms, mutations may be taken as Edges or Hindrances, depending on whether they chiefly aid or burden the character.

A mutation should always be visible, tangible, or socially meaningful. It is not just a bonus. It changes how the world sees you.

Mutation Guidelines

A character may take one beneficial mutation Edge at character creation.

A character may also take one mutation Hindrance, if desired.

At the GM’s option, especially strange or dramatic mutations may require an associated Hindrance, social penalty, or narrative complication.

Mutations may be:

• natural bloodline traits
• regional adaptations
• relic-scars caused by forbidden science
• the results of deliberate experimentation
• signs of ancient contamination

Mutation Edges

Beast-Blooded

Requirements: Novice, Vigor d6+

Your body carries visible animalistic traits: fur, unusual musculature, slit pupils, vestigial claws, heavy bones, or some other stable alteration.

Gain a +1 bonus to Athletics rolls and a +1 bonus to Toughness against unarmed attacks, falls, and environmental scrapes and battering.

Giant Blood

Requirements: Novice, Strength d8+, Vigor d6+

Somewhere in your lineage, something larger than common humanity entered the line. You are broad-boned, long-limbed, and unusually powerful.

Gain +1 die step to your lifting and carrying capacity and +1 to rolls to resist being pushed, grappled, or knocked prone.

Keen Scent

Requirements: Novice, Notice d6+

Your senses are subtly inhuman. You can smell blood, smoke, fear, wet stone, and spoor better than ordinary folk.

Gain a +2 bonus to Notice or Survival rolls when tracking by scent or detecting hidden creatures, blood, smoke, poison, or nearby animals.

Night Eyes

Requirements: Novice, Notice d6+

Your pupils are strange, reflective, or over-large, and you see far better in darkness than other men.

Ignore up to 2 points of penalties from Dim or Dark Illumination.

Redundant Vigor

Requirements: Novice, Vigor d8+

Your flesh is oddly resilient, your organs displaced, doubled, or simply harder to fail.

Gain a +2 bonus to rolls to resist disease and poison.

Spring-Heeled

Requirements: Novice, Agility d8+

Your joints and musculature are subtly unnatural.

Gain a +2 bonus to Athletics rolls for leaping, climbing, and keeping balance.

Mutation Hindrances

Bestial Appearance (Minor or Major)

You are visibly altered in ways that ordinary folk find unsettling: fur, tusks, elongated ears, strange skin, mismatched eyes, a muzzle-like face, or other obvious traits.

Minor: –1 to Persuasion rolls with those unsettled by mutation. Major: –2 to Persuasion rolls, and the reaction penalty applies almost everywhere outside mutant-tolerant regions.

Fragile Frame (Minor)

Your mutation brought distortion rather than strength. Your bones, joints, or flesh are unreliable.

Reduce your Pace by 1 or suffer a –1 penalty to Athletics rolls, chosen when this Hindrance is taken.

Light-Sick (Minor)

Your altered eyes or skin react poorly to bright glare, open sunlight, or certain strange radiances.

You suffer a –1 penalty to Notice and ranged attack rolls in bright sunlight or harsh reflected glare.

Monstrous Build (Minor or Major)

You are too large, too broad, too oddly proportioned, or too physically irregular for ordinary spaces, armor, and mounts.

Minor: Clothing, armor, saddles, and equipment cost double for you. Major: As Minor, and you suffer a –1 penalty on Stealth rolls in cramped or civilized environments.

Relic-Tainted (Minor)

Your mutation is clearly the result of forbidden science or ancient contamination.

Those who recognize such signs react with fear or disgust. You suffer a –1 penalty to Persuasion rolls with clergy, healers, scholars, and commoners who fear relic corruption.

Unstable Mutation (Major)

Your altered body is not wholly stable. It swells, aches, spasms, sheds, discolors, or reacts to stress.

At the start of any session in which you are Exhausted, irradiated, poisoned, or wounded, make a Vigor roll. On a failure, you suffer Fatigue from the strain. This Fatigue may be recovered normally.

Mixed Mutations

Some mutations may be taken either as Edges or Hindrances depending on emphasis.

Fur, giant blood, strange eyes, claws, unusual skin, heightened senses, or heavy bones might be mostly useful in one character and mostly burdensome in another.

For example:

• a giant-blooded archer like Oladahn might take Giant Blood as an Edge
• the same character might also take Bestial Appearance as a Hindrance
• a relic-scarred experiment might take Night Eyes' but also Light-Sick

Final Note

Mutation in Hawkmoon should feel old, eerie, and half-normalized. It is not a carnival of random powers. It is part of the tragic strangeness of the world.

Some mutants are feared. Some are merely uncommon. Some are the work of tyrants. Some are the living remnants of ancient ages no one remembers clearly.

Hawkmoon Codex Home • Character Creation • Edges • Hindrances • Marks of the Ancients • Granbretan • Tragic Millenium Europe • Science and Sorcery • Arms and Equipment