Destiny
Destiny is the luck you were born with — the favor of the gods, the blood of your house, or simply the way the world bends around some men. Your age group set its starting size at creation: a Youth begins with 7, an Adult with 4, a Venerable man with none (Character Creation). This chapter is how that luck moves: what spends it, what earns it, what locks it away, and what burns it forever.
The Pool
The pool is a running ledger, and your sheet keeps it for you:
Destiny = age base − burned − spent + earned
- Spent points are used and recovered by earning more.
- Burned points are spent forever and never return.
- Earned points grow the pool without limit — there is no ceiling on how much luck a man can gather, only on what he was born with.
- The pool never drops below 0. You cannot owe destiny.
Spending Destiny
A destiny point is spent to reroll any single test after the dice fall — yours, an ally's, or an enemy's. The second roll stands, for good or ill. When the tourney knight's lance is a hair off, when the lie is one word from being believed, when the guard's eyes sweep your hiding place — that is the moment a point is worth its weight in gold.
A spent point can also buy fortune — a coincidental ally in the crowd, a door left unlocked, a loose board in the wall. The Narrator decides what fortune can be bought; the point buys the chance, never the certainty.
Every point spent is marked on your sheet and taken from the pool. Spent points are not gone forever — they are returned by earning.
Earning Destiny
The Narrator awards destiny points when a character earns them in the story:
- Courage at cost — holding a line, telling a truth that hurts, choosing the hard road.
- Keeping a vow — honoring your word, your house, or your gods when breaking it would be easy.
- Great roleplay — a moment so true to the character that the table goes quiet.
- Goals achieved — the completion of a background event, a sworn quest, a season's ambition.
A good session earns at least one point; a great one earns more. Destiny is a reward for the story, not a wage — the Narrator gives it when the table earns it, and the pool grows without limit.
Investing Destiny
The qualities you were born with — your benefits — are bought with invested destiny, and investing is recorded separately from your spendable pool. When you take a benefit, you mark one box of your sheet's invested track as Invested. The point is not subtracted from your pool; it is a different kind of fortune — the shape your birth took, recorded where nothing can erase it.
The invested track is ten boxes. Each box ever invested — whether it still holds an Invested point or was later Pulled — permanently raises your Max Benefits by one, on top of the age base:
| Age Group | Max Benefits base |
|---|---|
| Youth through Middle Age | 3 |
| Old | 2 |
| Very Old | 1 |
| Venerable | 0 |
Max Benefits = age base + every box ever invested. You can never hold more benefits than your Max Benefits, and the number never shrinks — pulling a point back does not lower it. A man who once invested in being Beautiful is never quite the same afterward, even after the beauty is gone.
Pulling a point back surrenders the benefit it bought: the wealth is lost, the marriage annulled, the title stripped. Story removes benefits, so the story pulls the point — click the box to Pulled, and your capacity stays. A box once invested is never unspent.
In play you may gain new benefits by investing new points — and every benefit you take still demands a drawback to balance it (Character Creation). The ledger grows, and it must stay in balance.
Burning Destiny
Some deeds cost more than a moment's luck — they cost a piece of the fortune you were born with, spent so deep it can never be earned back. Burning a point is permanent; burned points are marked on your sheet and subtracted from your pool forever.
Burning destiny buys the extraordinary:
- Growth without experience — raise one ability or one specialty by a single rank, without spending experience points, as the story rewards a man changed by what he has endured. The usual ceilings still hold: no ability above rank 7, no specialty above its ability (The Abilities).
- Buying off a doom — cancel a drawback forever, escape a fate the Narrator has decreed, or survive a death that was already written.
The Narrator is the arbiter of what may be burned for; burning is never a casual transaction. It is the act of a character who stakes their luck on something that will outlast them.
A Short Ledger
| Action | Pool | Track | Returns? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spend | −1 | — | Earned back |
| Earn | +1 | — | — |
| Invest | — | box → Invested; +1 Max Benefits | Only by pulling (capacity stays) |
| Pull | — | box → Pulled | No — the box counts forever |
| Burn | −1 forever | — | Never |
Spend your luck, but do not squander it; burn it only for what you cannot buy. The next chapter turns to the gifts and burdens you were born with: qualities, benefits, and drawbacks.