Advantages
These are details of your character that either do not define them, or are perhaps partially defined by an aspect that acts as a permission. For instance, one would have to be a student of the arcane in order for a dusty tome of spells to be of any use. Otherwise it's just a book and, moreover, one that's probably indecipherable to you.
Advantages cost stunt points. Advantages that might prove beneficial to your whole team are likely to be very expensive for any single character to purchase alone and are intended as a group expenditure.
Lastly, almost any advantage listed here might make for a fine stunt or aspect, just talk it over with the Narrator.
Adept
You did all the extra credit in mage school. Whether you have a natural talent, were a diligent student, or have some form of supernatural assistance, you are just better at magic than everyone around you. This is generally referred to with the school prefacing the advantage, such "Mortuum Adept". Choose a path (the Art or the Way) and a school. You gain +2 to rolls involving that combination of path and school.
Alien Contactee
Let us, for a moment, assume they mean you no harm. You have been contacted by a species from another planet or another dimension. You may even have proof of this. While you might take it to the authorities, there is no telling how they will react. In the interest of preventing an interstellar incident you should probably keep it to yourself. Once per session you can make contact with your friend or friends from out of town. You can ask them for favors, sure, but they can do the same to you.
Ageless
You'll never grow old and you'll never die (unless you're killed). Once you reach the age of maturity for your species, your aging effectively stops and "natural causes" will not be listed as your cause of death, if and when that ever happens. You are not immortal, do not regenerate wounds at an accelerated pace or anything of the sort. All of that is covered by the super power Regeneration.
Ally
It's nice to have someone you can count on. The downside is they'll call you to help move furniture. An ally is an individual at least as powerful/influential as you are. Maybe they're influential while you're powerful or vice versa. In any case, you can call your ally for help but they can (and will) do the same to you. Be nice to your friends or you won't have them for very long.
Artifact
It belongs in a museum! You have something maybe you shouldn't have and it might be tied to Things Humanity Was Not Meant To Know, but you have yourself a genuine artifact of powerful properties. Otherworldly -- a relic of a forgotten age, or an alien gizmo from beyond the stars -- this thing is a thing that definitely does a thing. What all those things are is up to you and the narrator. Get +2 in the sorts of situations in which such a thing would be useful.
Artist
Picked first to paint the backdrop for the school play. You might sculpt, paint or play guitar. Whatever your art is, you have both the innate talent and drive combined with the years (and years and years) of practice necessary to be officially "good" at it. You can unironically call yourself an artist and get +2 for any roll involved in creating something with your skill or examining something from your preferred medium. In other words, painters tend to know a lot about paintings and painting styles even if they never attended Art History class.
Attractive
Ssssssmokin'! You are considered to be really very good looking by the majority of your species. Rivals for romantic partners are likely to be jealous even to the point of becoming enraged by your beauty. Potential romantic partners, on the other hand, are likely inflamed by the very thought of you. You are generally considered more trustworthy than an average person and gain +2 to any attempts to seduce, persuade, or otherwise influence anyone who would be sexually attracted to your gender expression. You must overcome a minimum of Great (+4) difficulty to influence sexual rivals. Members of other species may or may not find you as attractive as members of your own do. You must overcome Mediocre (+0) difficulty the first time you meet an individual of a different species. The results determine the default stance for members of that species.
- Fail: Members of the other species may be put off by your appearance, you will have to overcome Fair(+2) difficulty upon meeting them to find out.
- Tie: Members of the other species find your appearance neither pleasing nor displeasing, you are mundane.
- Succeed: Members of the other species generally find you to be as attractive as the average member of their own species.
- Succeed with Style: Members of the other species find your specific appearance to be mesmerizingly beautiful.
Base
Probably in a cave. Bats are likely involved. You have a secret base of operations that you can design. Make sure that when doing so you keep the theme and genre of your world in mind. A four-color Longhouse of Justice would be incongruous with a dark urban fantasy setting. The big difference between investing in your own base and using something that already exists in setting would be a matter of control. If you use something that already exists, it's also likely controlled by someone else. The base gained from this advantage, on the other hand, is yours (or your team's). The more points you put into your base, the better it gets. Any number of players may contribute stunt points to the base. Use the following chart as a guide:
| Stunt Points | Base example |
|---|---|
| 1 | It's an apartment. Probably in a bad part of town. The reason it remains secret is because no sane person would enter that place. Looks can be deceiving, however. On the inside it's perfectly serviceable and has all the modern amenities including a working toilet and power that mostly meets your needs. |
| 3 | Dedicated paranoia has allowed the creation of a burn room out of a two bedroom apartment, or the equivalent. Technology is at least modern for your age and generally better than off the shelf consumer solutions. Some kind of secret entrance is available to you for regular use. |
| 5 | Now we're talking! This is a serious lair. There is no consumer level technology in this place. Everything is either custom made or "liberated" experimental tech. Any self respecting playboy billionaire/vigilante detective would feel quite at home. There are several entrances, all hidden, and a solid (and probably not precisely legal) network connection with enough bandwidth to rival a modest university. |
| 10 | Almost certainly officially sanctioned, this is Association for Ultimate Fairness level. Transportation is assured and a full staff to handle mundane details like payroll and research is in the employ if the organization. This may be but one chapter of a larger group, with AUF East and West; or AUF Europe, AUF Africa etc. At this level something like a modest flying airbase becomes a possibility. |
| 20 | It doesn't get much better than this. A secret star base that exists outside of spacetime with reality warping technology for travel throughout the Known Paradigms is within the realm of possibility, as is a flying superfortress. Staff numbers in the dozens, easily, if not the hundreds. Your incredible digs marks your group as not only a superpower on Earth, but also a bastion against threats to the entire galaxy. |
Beast Kin
Choose an animal species. Be it weird science or weirder romances, somehow you are related by blood to an animal species. Members of that species will generally consider you one of their own for better or worse. Highly competitive species will consider you a rival whereas more social creatures will tend to cooperate with you if they could just understand what it is that you want.
Beast Whisperer
Choose an animal type (insects, fish, land mammals, and so on). Animals of the chosen type have an innate grasp of the basic ideas you are trying to communicate and you are better at reading the wants and needs of animals of the chosen type than anyone else. You gain +2 to any attempts to gain the cooperation of animals of the chosen type or to understand what that animal desires.
Beneficial Mutation
Maybe you drank the ooze you found in the sewer. Maybe your parents live next to the nuclear power plant. Whatever the reason, you are just not like the others. Patagia, extra limbs, nictitating membranes… you gain a mundane (as opposed to a super power), but no less useful, physical boon. You get +2 to the sorts of things your gift might be good for like covering extra jumping distance with patagia or seeing things underwater through your extra eyelids.
Big
They grow 'em big down on the farm! While not a giant, you are generally larger than other members of your species. You are at least 10% taller and heavier than average for your world. Not quite Huge (below), you tend to be easy to find in a crowd. You gain +1 on all strength related rolls but it is more difficult for you to hide. All difficulty to hide or move unseen is increased by +1. You can also reach the high shelf in the grocery store. Unfortunately every common work surface in the world is intended for smaller people and without special considerations you're going to get a backache doing dishes. Additionally, Big people have a harder time remaining unseen and you suffer a -1 penalty to any stealth related rolls.
Blessed
Somebody up there still likes you. Or maybe it's down there? Whether you befriended a great mage, sold your soul or happen to be the chosen of the gods, things just seem to always go your way. Whenever you roll the Fate dice, roll twice and keep the higher of the two rolls. This includes rerolls upon spending a Fate point. This is an inordinately powerful Advantage and not only does it cost two stunts instead of one, any narrator would be wise to think twice before allowing it as it may have a drastic effect on the Fate point economy.
Boon
Somebody powerful owes you a favor. Who this person is and what exactly you are owed is up to you and the narrator to figure out, but whatever you decide should be a very powerful favor, indeed. Even if it won't change the whole world, it should definitely change your world or your position within it. As powerful as this advantage is, it's a one-time-only situation. Not once per session—once ever. After using it, remove this from your character sheet.
Combat Veteran
You are born again hard. A firefight is a scary situation even for professional tough guys, but you've seen it all before and probably have a whole stack of t-shirts. You can remain cool under fire and do not suffer the usual penalties for performing actions during combat or other highly stressful (and often violent) situations.
Business
Contact
You know people who know people. You're wired in and have contacts everywhere. This advantage may be taken multiple times giving you an additional aspect of society in which you can call on the names you know to get the skinny on many situations. Use the form Contact: Police to express what profession or facet of society your networking has infiltrated. Some examples include: Corporate, Local Government, Local Media, National Security, and Black Market. You may overcome Fair (+2) difficulty to leverage your contacts for information or favors. You may convince the narrator to let you overcome Great (+4) difficulty to use contacts you have to reach related contacts you do not. For instance, you may be able to reach the Black Market via the Police who investigate it. Careful this doesn't end up with you in a jail cell for the trouble.
Cool
Just like Fonzie. Not quite Cold, you tend not to lose control even in the face of impossible odds or dedicated efforts to rattle or provoke you. You gain +2 to defend against any attempt to manipulate your emotional state as well as efforts to overcome the ill effects of fear or exhaustion.
Empath
Do you feel what I feel? It certainly seems like you do. People who develop deeply emotional connections even with people they have never met can be almost uncanny, but this isn't really a supernatural ability. Empathic people wear their hearts on their sleeves and aren't afraid to show emotion when the situation calls for it. The ability to correctly detect and mirror the emotional state of others is highly developed in you and you get +2 to any attempts to gain another's trust. You may also overcome Fair (+2) opposition to determine the broad details of the emotional state of another being.
Famous
Everywhere you go is the place where everybody knows your name. Confounding paparazzi is your favorite pastime. Just buying a loaf of bread can end with a crowd. From locally famous to the internationally well-known, you are a hot commodity and (almost) everyone loves you. You gain all of the many positives and genuine negatives of being easily recognized. Your celebrity may be from your own heroic deeds or you might just have a really good publicist.
Gear
You have some sort of gizmo a level beyond the mundane miraculous of the modern age that sets you apart from the rest. This could be a suit of powered armor or a sword made of light. Whatever it is, it is a defining piece of your character's schtick that, unlike an aspect, isn't really part of who you are and, unlike a power, can be taken away. Generally speaking, this thingamabob is going to be good at one thing and you'll get +2 to that thing it does. It may act as permission for other effects but there won't be any bonus. An example would be power armor that gives you Armor: 2 and also allows you to shoot energy bolts that can hit a distant target (two zones away or so) but doesn't confer any bonus to an attack roll.
House
It's where you hang your hat. This could take the form of anything from a stately manor to a steady flophouse on the waterfront. Whatever it is you call home is, in fact, your home. You have a place to return to after the adventure, a place of permanent residence where you can do things like receive mail and pay the electric bill.
Huge
Bigger than Big (above), you are head and shoulders above all the rest, a real giant. Doorways and low ceilings are the bane of your existence and you live in a world made for people much smaller than you. Perhaps your species is extra-extra-large and you are at home in your homeland, but everywhere else you simply do not fit. You are at least 25% taller and heavier than average for your species (or your world) and by virtue of your greater mass and general physique gain +2 to any strength related rolls. Being so very large, it's just hard to find a hiding place and floors tend to groan under your weight. You get -2 to any stealth related rolls.
Iron Gut
Just like is says on the tin of the very questionable stuff you just ate, you can stomach just about anything. You get +2 to defend against the effects of any kind of poison you might ingest. This is equally effective at resisting the effects of alcohol, even if you don't want to, as it is actual poison or that pizza you left on the kitchen counter for a week.
Lucky
Once per scene you can choose to reroll any result without invoking any other aspect or spending a Fate point. You may even make the narrator roll again one time using this advantage. You may then continue to modify your roll as normal, including spending a Fate point for yet another reroll.
Minion
Whether you call them Renfield or Igor, you have a faithful servant who will do just about anything you command short of inflicting harm upon themselves (though they tend to put up with any harm you inflict upon them). They are not mindless slaves, however, and you could conceivably drive them away with enough cruel treatment. Your morals are otherwise not important to them no matter how ambiguous they might be. Grave robbing? No problem. Fetching brains from the university? Check. Disposing of this pile of corpses? Absolutely! What they will not do is combat of any form and will attempt to flee from any violence perpetrated upon their person or likely to involve them.
Paycheck
Whether or not it's legitimate or a living wage is up for discussion with the narrator, but in any case you bring home the bacon in whatever form the local currency takes. This isn't personal wealth or a trust fund and it can be lost if you fail to perform whatever duties are required to earn it.
Perfect Pitch
Pet
Almost a minion, nearly an Ally. A pet is usually literally a domesticated animal (to your species) that is a faithful familiar that may even be willing to risk life and limb to help you out of a tight spot. On the other hand, pets should be of lower intellect than their keeper to the point that it makes direct communication difficult if not impossible unless your character is gifted with supernormal powers.
Photographic Memory
You remember everything! Really, there is no such thing as photographic memory and eidetic memory, rare in children, is virtually nonexistent in adults. What you have is "really good memory" by virtue of mnemonics and other methods that allow you to recall even obscure information for a long time after first encountering it. In game terms you may overcome a variable resistance to recall any information you have previously encountered. Passage of time and peculiarity of the bit of trivia makes this task more difficult from Mediocre (+0) for a common name heard within the past week to Fantastic (+6) for an unusual concept heard a decade or more ago, or even higher for especially weird or distant memories.
Resistance
You will be eventually defeated, but you'll put up a real good fight first! This ability allows you limited immunity to a damage type of your choice from the following list:
- Disease
- Energy
- Physical
- A prime element (earth, air, water fire)
- Psychic
- Magic
Retainer
What's better than friends? Friends that are paid to be there! A retainer is a constant companion that may engage in combat and in combat acts as a second character you control. A retainer is not a player character and therefore does not benefit from the same bonuses as the protagonists of the story. In other words: they are relatively weak and expendable. While you might swear vengeance on the killer of the loyal Patsy even to the point of taking that goal as an aspect if you have space, keep in mind that you are buying the loyalty of any retainer. They are not an ally. While they will basically never ask you for a favor, they will likewise just leave if you stop paying. Retainers have the following attributes:
- Aspects: 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0
- Refresh: 1
- Stunts: 2
Small
Not just smaller than average, you are quite diminutive compared to the average size of the people of your world. This could be a species trait or maybe you're a small person, in any case you are at least 10% shorter and lighter than the others. You also have a penalty of -1 on any strength related rolls. On the other hand, you can get yourself into places the others can't and you gain +1 to any stealth related rolls such as when hiding or moving quietly.
Teacher
Get a leg up climbing the ladder. You have someone—a mentor, friendly manager or personal trainer—that is invested in your success in some way. When it comes time to change up your skillset or grow in power (whatever that means for you), you will have an easier time of doing so. You never need to search for a trainer as yours is merely a phone call or homing rat away.
Tiny
Even Small (above) people look down at you. You are itty bitty. People often have pets larger than you. You are at least 25% shorter and lighter than average for your species. If this is a species trait, you are at least that much smaller than the baseline for your world. You just don't have the mass or leverage to enforce your will upon objects and suffer a -2 penalty to any roll involving brute strength. On the other hand, nobody else around can slip into the crevices into which you fit and, being so short, are overlooked constantly. You gain +2 to any roll involving stealth, including becoming hidden or remaining unseen.
Tome
You got it, but do you know what to do with it? One way or another you have come into possession of an authentic grimoire, a repository of archaic knowledge of high magery that, in the right hands, could help one unlock ever higher levels of mastery over one of the primal forces of the universe: mana. You have it, but whether or not you can read it and, if so, truly understand it is a matter for an aspect and a discussion with the narrator, as is the actual content of your priceless possession.
[Vehicle
Like House, above, this is simply a statement of ownership of reliable transportation. This may be anything from a decent car to a personal starship depending on your world and genre, but consider it to be the transportation version of a baseline Human. It is not a vehicle with special powers, probably not even defensive weapons unless that's the standard in your story, and is just a reliable way to get from here to there in your world in the most common means. On Earth in the modern era, that's an automobile, for instance. Discuss the details with the narrator.
Wealth
Trust fund baby or self made millionaire inventor of the better mousepad, whatever the source of all that cash, you are rich. Wealth alone can act as a proxy for things like House and Vehicle (both above) as rich people do not worry about where they will sleep or how they will get from place to place. Wealth can potentially mean different things depending on the details of your story, but assume you have an inexhaustible supply of whatever passes for currency in your world. If you travel between worlds often, you are likely only wealthy in one of them unless we are talking about a galactic empire in which case planets take the role of cities when it comes to locations and wealth would be relative to the imperial currency. Because wealth is such a potentially powerful and flexible extra, it costs two stunts.
Zeroed
Your name is Nobody and your hometown is Nowhere Atoll. Where you come from may be as much a mystery to you as it is to others (see the disadvantage Amnesia), but there are no records that you exist anywhere. How you achieved such official invisibility is up to you and the narrator, but no matter the details there are no records, photographs, or recordings of any kind that can be used to identify you. If you end up in official trouble, records will soon start piling up unless you have a way to maintain the paperwork version of non-existence, but if you can keep a low profile you might remain a mystery even to the grave when you are interred in a pauper's grave under the name "J. Doe".
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