Atlas Adventures

As you build your character, you will assign character points to build up your attributes and your skills. You have five attributes which determine your capabilities and limitations, and your skills measure the knowledge you have amassed that affects the play of the game. You will gain more character points as you play the game. For more information on ways to earn CP, see Earning Character Points in the Logistics section.

Attributes Each character has five attributes. These attributes are not meant to measure the capabilities of you as the player, nor will they limit your natural abilities. These are only a limit to the game skills you can use. If you do not purchase a high Water, which represents your mobility, it in no way decreases your chance to actually jump out of the way of an attack, but it does limit how many game skills you could use before that resource was exhausted.

The five attributes are Air, which represents your mind and cognizance; Earth, which represents your physique and stamina; Fire, which represents the strength of your passion; Water, which represents your mobility; and Void, which is your ability to focus your inner resources. Each attribute begins at 2, and each can be raised by spending character points. To use skills you will expend attribute points. Each skill has an attribute cost associated with it, and when you use that skill, you temporarily expend the indicated amount of that attribute. These points are refreshed at each event you attend.

Void is a unique attribute in that you can exhaust a Void point to refresh your Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. This makes Void most important for maintaining a high level of power over the course of an event. Using Void to refresh your attributes does not refresh your Vitality.

Refreshing your attributes with Void takes 5 minutes of roleplaying. You cannot use game skills or leave the general area during this time. If this procedure is interrupted, the Void remains unspent, the attributes are not refreshed, and you must start again. Each character should have their own personal way of refreshing their attributes with Void. You might meditate, stretch, practice katas or maneuvers, pray or chant, or a variety of other activities. You might do a combination of these things.

Spending Void to use skills, use abilities, or cast spells does not take 5 minutes and does not refresh your other attributes.

Attributes can be raised by spending character points. You must spend a number of character points equal to the new attribute value to raise it one point. If an attribute is 3, you can raise it to 4 by spending 4 character points. If an attribute is 4, it would cost 5 character points to raise it to 5 and another 6 character points to raise it by another point to 6.

Skills & Headers
The measure of your knowledge and training are defined by skills. To simulate various levels of skills, there are certain activities that the game does not allow you to attempt if you do not have the skill for it. If a skill exists for a certain type of activity or to manipulate a certain type of prop, then you may not attempt that action unless you have that skill or a specific ability that allows you to do so.

Skills are divided under headers. These headers represent basic training necessary to use the skills that fall under that header, and they have no game effect other than that. You cannot purchase a skill under a header unless you have purchased the header first. Open skills are all the skills which do not have a header. Anyone may purchase open skills. Some skills have additional requirements which must be met before the skill is purchased, and these are described in the description of the skill.

Some skills can be purchased multiple times, with each additional purchase increasing the effectiveness of the skill. These skills are marked with an asterisk. You must pay the cost of the skill each time you purchase it. Some skills will limit the number of times you may purchase them. This limit will be in the description.

Once you have begun to play a character, you will accumulate more character points and may attempt to gain additional skills. You can purchase any skill from this book, but skills that are not listed in this book are called hidden skills. You cannot purchase hidden skills unless you have received training in that skill by someone who has already purchased the skill. Your teacher must also have the in-game skill Teaching, which is not usually available to players. If you are purchasing another level of a hidden skill you already know you still need a teacher and that teacher must have purchased the hidden skill a number of times no less than the level you are trying to obtain.

To use skills, you exhaust attribute points. Although many skills will exhaust a single point from one of your attributes, certain skills may exhaust more than one point or even exhaust points from more than one attribute. These points are removed temporarily from the attribute in question, until you refresh your attributes by expending a point of Void and roleplaying for 5 minutes. You may not use a skill if it would exhaust an attribute point that you do not have.