the EXEMPLAR (name pending) is one of the. hang on lemme count this.
the EXEMPLAR is one of sunblack's eight classes. its core abilites are as follows:
SWORN IN SHADE
Your power is a gift, made in exchange for a promise. It cannot be taken from you once given, but it will desert you if you betray the promise you made to receive it. Choose a promise from the list below, and fill in the blank appropriately.
- I will always protect ________. (my childhood home, those who remind me of my loved ones, etc.)
- I will always chase ________. (justice, the secrets of the Solum, etc.)
- I will always uphold ________. (my political ideology, my faith, the philosophy of that one really hot mutual of mine, etc.)
- I will always combat ________. (gentrification, the state, threats to me and mine, etc.)
- (list continues...)
The first time you act to fulfill your promise in a situation, take mastery on your roll.
BLESSED BY SILT
A mysterious power has been implanted within you, a gift from the dark beyond. Choose one:
- The Panoculi: All-seeing eyes. Learn the Decode skill; your vision pierces solid matter according to your will, and you can see beyond the spectrum of visible light.
- The Dust Cannon: A personal firearm (Close & near, d6-harm, piercing.) Doesn’t seem to require ammunition.
- (list continues...)
If you ever act in a way that betrays your promise, your silted gift leaves you immediately. It returns after the first time you take strain trying to live up to the promise once again.
i think this design impulse is quite clever. exemplars were originally called "elects" (even exemplar is a temporary name), because the basic premise of the exemplar was of the kind of chosen-hero archetype. this may surprise you, given sunblack's ostensible aesthetic, but two of its biggest touchstones are Control and Blood Blockade Battlefront, both of which feature protagonists who are just kind of handed an immensely powerful artifact and told to go to town. i wanted to channel that type of character!
my first idea was to come up with some kind of patron, akin to a dnd warlock, where it would make demands of you and maybe hold your gifts hostage to those demands. then, advances could be based on claiming and internalizing these powers for yourself!
then i came back to that several months later and thought, man, it would suck to be the One Playbook whose powers are conditional on some shit you can't predict or understand, right?
so i brought this up in a design chat and @keftiu pointed out that the thing Leo Watch from BBB and Control Lady from Control have in common isn't necessarily that they have to make their benefactors happy but that they have deep personal oaths to themselves: in these characters' cases it's to their little siblings, but i think the idea of a self-mandated oath is really flexible! the "I will always ________." structure — and the potential consequences for not living up to it — came together pretty quickly after that. i think the move's a lot stronger this way, too; your ability to live up to the demands made of you becomes that much more poignant (or maybe just ironic) if the one making the demands is you.
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