Archetypes — A Quest of Queens — Advanced Old School Revival

The Defiled

What forbidden prize did you pilfer from the coffin of a gilded saint? A guilty pleasure found in tomb dirt, a little bauble on a sternum, a jewel plucked off a bent finger... under the new darkness of the Long Night, you wander cursed along the River Soma, in search of solace from your acts of desecration. But to what end? Surfeit of innocence? An escape from sin? The stink of the dead blackens your fingernails, and the coffin lid lies open. Can it ever be shut?

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Intrusive Thoughts

The spirits you have stolen from haunt you. Take 1 stress: When you touch a dead body with your bare hands, you receive a vision of the last seconds of its mortal life. While stressed, you are immune to attribute damage caused by Astral or Undead monsters.

The Dispossessed

They thought they had taken everything from you, just like the Empire picks clean the hovels of Idania, leaving behind a carcass of society. The bones are bare and white; a vulture caws in the distance. But what is the sound of a man deprived of the thing he loves most? A clatter of hooves and greaves. The dull rasp of a sword unsheathed.

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Sound of Mind

The memory of your loss defies death. Take 1 stress: If you would be knocked unconscious, you regain consciousness until the end of your next turn. (You may invoke this ability as a reaction, even if you’ve already acted in the round.) While stressed and unarmored, you soak 1 point from any single source of damage. Damage absorbed in this way stacks with your other source(s) of soak.

The Auspicious

Over and over again, fortune finds you among the Bleak Sisters, that wooded holt of myth and mystery. You are three years old: a mother-matron traces a decrepit finger across your forehead, marking archaisms in blood. You are sixteen years old: the Antlered One invites your naked sacrifice in dreams. You are one hundred and one years old: all time bends, like the crook of Horologos, without meaning. When is a gift a curse and when is a curse a gift? Somewhere in the wood, a dead thrush sings your song.

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Blood Augury

We carry the truth in our bones, in our blood. Take 1 stress: When you perform a ritual of prophecy, you may ask the elder gods a single yes or no question about a target, and they will answer truthfully. The ritual takes 10 minutes and requires a drop of blood from the target. While stressed, you cannot be scried upon or forced by magic to reveal your innermost secrets.

The Sacrosanct

Who shall deliver you from evil when the Long Night comes? The pyres of the One God consume your brethren-turned-heretics, seeking to burn away the truth forever. You press the hierogram of your faith to your breast, but it is silent and cool. What divine power fuels your miracles in the absence of the gods? And who will act against despair as the Night grows longer? It was said: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” You hear a sacred voice, calling to you from the perpetual dark. The day has come.

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Show Me a Sign

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Take 1 stress: Your hierogram becomes warm to the touch and you benefit from the effects of the spell True Seeing. While stressed, magic that recovers your HP, MP, or wounds recovers double the dice rolled or the amount conferred.

The Monstrous

You blanket the palace of your memory in cerements, hoping your memory will become a grave. But three bells toll faintly in the Abandoned Rectory; and three slaves march barefoot through Marion Ridge; and three eyes open upon a sudden and permanent Night. The Seer says: Behold! For these portents are a sign of things to come. How long has the monster been inside you? How long has it slept there, aggrieved? In your dreams, you yearn to pull off your face, but there is nothing underneath, nothing, nothing, nothing...

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Living Effigy

If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. Take 1 stress: When you look into a mirror, you may adopt the face and mien of anyone you have personally met. This transformation lasts 1 hour. While stressed, you are immune to any effects, mundane or magical, that would transform your body or change your appearance against your will.

The Forsaken

The long road out of Strata glows with burning citadels, the ambitions of paper men toppling into ash. You follow this road, like an ember borne by the Long Night, carrying with you the burden of your exile. Who else besides the gods have forsaken you? What do you owe them, and what do they owe you? The fire in your heart smolders with the possibility of your return. And so you walk among the dead and dying until the day that all of you will burn.

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The Sunken Place

For you, the destitute are a sea of belonging. Take 1 stress: When you call upon underworld contacts, you may create a forsaken tag for the duration of your investigation. You may invoke a forsaken tag to reveal a clue or create narrative advantage in the context of your investigation. While stressed, you gain advantage on stealth checks when hiding in crowds, slums, or blighted places.