Level Up! pt 2

In Destined, there are many planes of existence, but all of them overlap in a central bubble, which is the Destiny Plane. All other planes are limited by their nature in potential and change, but the Destiny Plane represents all of their possibilities. Within the Destiny bubble, there are universes upon universes flowing in a constant stream of actions and consequences and events. The strongest of these streams within a stream is the Destiny Prime, which represents the campaign world. Whether or not it is one single world among many, or several universes in itself isn't important for this discussion. What is important here is that destiny flows strongest through the Prime.

Destiny here is not a passive force. It isn't a foreordained doom or prophecy that comes to pass automatically. Destiny in this cosmology is fluid, and uncertain. However, it does obey certain laws. We'll examine these laws in the context of levels.

Levels, in the Destined setting, are interpreted as accumulations of destiny (not that any character has any notion of this). The more levels one has, the more significant one's destiny has become, be it through personal decisions or mere circumstance. When a character goes from level 1 to level 5, they are forcing their will for change upon the cosmos, and though destiny is grudging, it will move once enough momentum is generated.

As the character continues to advance in levels, they face greater difficulties, because destiny naturally seeks equilibrium. This is one reason why higher level encounters, before apparently unnoticed or simply not there, abruptly crop up when characters reach a higher level. Destiny pushes back, when it gets pushed... to the point of suddenly throwing momentum into a local ogre, say, who the characters might remember as being a lowly warlord. This local ogre suddenly finds things happening in his favor, and behold, he becomes a monstrous emperor with a great army. When one carries great destiny, others of similar weight are drawn to you. This works both ways; a standard fantasy trope is that a mighty evil overlord appears, only to be overthrown by an unlikely group of heroes... who level up very quickly, don't they?

Just as destiny can pool against the dam of a high level character, it can also drain from a place when equilibrium is met. Though it is difficult to simulate mechanically, I judge that accumulated destiny fades if the possessor does nothing with it, or has achieved his goals, or otherwise ceased to carry momentum. In a good many legends, great heroes eventually die from some small, minor thing after they've done with being great heroes, and I use that as a proof. Hercules is slain by a poisoned shirt, for example. Sure, it was assumed it was a very nasty poison, but maybe he just didn't have the saving throw he used to.

In my campaign, I restrict this increase/decrease effect to NPCs only. I'm continually toying with a mechanical representation of this, inspired by the excellent Spiritual Attributes mechanic of Riddle of Steel (fantastic game, play it if you get the chance). In sum, the SA mechanic means that your character only 'levels up' when they are pursuing certain aspects of their life which are tremendously important to them, and further, those SA's provide mechanical benefit. A peasant who believes in his cause can be a surprisingly strong adversary to a well-trained knight who doesn't have a cause at all. I see destiny as working in the same way. Sometimes it is thrust upon someone, usually to counterbalance the actions of another. Sometimes it is gathered unconsciously by those who have something to prove to the world.

The notion of the Destiny Prime spawned some other ideas, also. If there is a Prime, then there are alternate realities within the Destiny Plane that have branched off from decisions made in the Prime. These decisions are significant enough to create a different stream, but most of these end up flowing back into the Prime. Some, however, do not, and form bubbles of their own. Perhaps one day, their events, histories and contents will be seamlessly integrated into the Prime if they grow close enough, but until then, they rest apart. Some fundamental decision, somewhere back in the chain of causality, made these bubbles very different sorts of places. The inhabitants of the Prime are utterly unaware of these destiny bubbles, and would probably be disturbed at some of them.

My submission to the Wizards of the Coast setting search competition was one such bubble, a world called Rhoa. In Rhoa, conflict is hard-coded into the flow of destiny; there will never really be peace there. The divergence from the Prime ensures that conflict will continue. This makes it a brutal, visceral sort of place where beauty is precious and fleeting. The setting has gone through several stages of refinement and expansion since its creation for the competition, and I'll be sharing some facets of it in later posts.

Final note for today: My players are all awesome. I'm a happy man.