GW’s Guide to Classpect: Aspects (Part 2)
(Continued from Part 1 of this infodump)
Life and Doom are the Aspects embodying the dual concept of limitations and affectations. This pair deals with things like beginnings and endings, optimism and pessimism, and preservation and sacrifice. This dichotomy represents the other half of the order/chaos dynamic, with Doom representative of the destructive side of Order, and Life as the creative side of Chaos.
LIFE is the Aspect of potential. Life encompasses all that could be, symbolizing beginnings, energy, and possibilities. Life players are notoriously resistant of restrictions and limitations, and prefer to blaze their own path. It is the power of renewal, of breaking rules, and of prosperity.
=> Energy Healing: The staple ability of nearly all Life players. Life is the primary healer Aspect, and for good reason. While Blood can increase fortitude and remove pain, Life is the only Aspect capable of actually regenerating damage done. I’ve seen Life players regenerate entire limbs before like a very peppy Wolverine, they just keep fighting like nothing happened. Support oriented Heroes of Life are capable of healing and buffing their teammates even from a distance and setting up webs of regenerative energy.
=> Chlorokinesis: Life just wouldn’t be complete without the ability to make flowers and trees sprout out of the ground. This ability can be really helpful both in combat and performing quests, especially ones that involve repairing your Land. It’s another one of those really versatile abilities that can be used for everything from trapping enemies in brambles and vines to providing beautiful landscaping for your dwelling spire. Hey, you never know when spontaneously growing tulips will be useful.
=> Psychic Optimism: Life players are some of the hardest people to turn Grimdark, period. Because of their mental protections against Sburb mental diseases, and generally optimistic attitude, it takes a prodigious amount of outside effort to make a Life player go darkside. I’ve only heard of it happening once, and it’s apparently not pretty.
=> Earth Magic: Another one of the symbolic connections to Life relates to the concept of the Earth itself. Life players are basically the Sbrub equivalent of a D&D Druid class; they’re focused primarily on healing and nature magic. Earth Magic can be used to hurl enemies backwards, encase allies in stone, or create stone golem-like creatures that absolutely trash certain kinds of underlings.
DOOM is the Aspect of inevitability. Doom encompasses all that must be, symbolizing the ultimate end of everything, sacrifice, rules and restrictions. Doom is one of the darker Aspects, but again, it is not inherently bad. Doom places needed restrictions on the universe to keep it from getting out of hand. It is the power of enforced order and rules, paying the price for one’s actions, and doing what needs to be done.
=> Fate Empowerment: One of the biggest parts of the Doom powerset involves the consumption of Fate energy. Doom players can mark enemies as fated to Doom, and if they deal the killing blow on a doomed enemy, the player will receive a boost in energy. The freakiest thing is, this doesn’t just work with enemies. In sessions where an immediate Hail Mary play is needed, it is a common practice to send the Doom player to clean up any doomed timelines that may be dragging the Alpha down. The Doom player’s job in this scenario is basically to mark and kill everything possible in that timeline to gain the energy and stop any further damage. It’s a very dark solution, but sometimes it’s just what needs to be done.
=> Law Binding: Some Doom players end up focused less on the Grim Reaper side of things, and instead lean more towards the Judge Dredd approach. Many Doom players have the ability to place laws upon enemies, other players, or even themselves, that when observed, give bonuses, but when broken, allow for the Doom player to enact a Judgement upon the law breaker. Without giving too many gory details, this usually entails a swift execution.
=> Pure Destruction: Doom is the most immediately destructive Aspect in the game, with the possible exception of Rage. While Time is the inevitable destruction of everything, and Rage enables great destruction, Doom is that cold, unfeeling force that implements destruction. Doom players have access to a wide variety of destructive abilities, including touch that turns enemies to ash, razor sharp vectors capable of splitting cars, and punches that splinter trees. Our Prince of Doom got so good at using his Doom destruction he could actually chop rocks in half just by willing them to break.
=> Fire: When you think of elemental powers, fire is usually the first one everyone thinks about. However, fire powers in Sburb are restricted to high level Heroes of Doom. And also anyone who can rap decently due to some really weird bug, but that’s beside the point. Fire wielded by Doom players usually comes in two varieties; Red Fire, which is a sticky, napalm like substance sometimes called “Dragon Fire,” and Black Fire, which is nigh impossible to put out and even burns underwater. This stuff is almost always reserved for final bosses like the Black King or your Denizen, simply due to just how fucking deadly it is.
Breath and Blood are the Aspects embodying the concept of shared direction. This pair represents many things, including individuality versus collectivism, freedom versus bonds, and independence versus cooperation. Breath and Blood are the forces that inspire change and give direction to both the Hero and the people around them. Breath and Blood players are both usually good candidates for group leader.
BREATH is the Aspect of freedom. Breath represents the ability to go places and do things without a care in the world, as well as ideas like spirit, individuality, and direction. Breath players will many times start off directionless and flighty, but when they are fully realized, they are able to become powerful forces of leadership and motivation.
=> The Windy Thing: So, our session had a Witch of Breath. She ended up getting a lot of wind powers, including this one absolutely devastating ability. It’s actual name was some complicated Latin phrase, so for the sake of convenience we always called it “Zeus on the Loose.” This power was nuts. Whenever things got hairy, she would cast this ability and just start flinging tornadoes left and right like it was some kind of storm god convention. The Windy Thing, as it’s colloquially referred to, is one of the more forward elemental categories in the game. It works rather simply; if you huff, and you puff, eventually even the brick house is going to fall over.
=> Emotional Immunity: Part of Breath is the concept of detachment, and nowhere is this principle greater illustrated than with the emotional detachment ability. Breath players often have an ability known as “Eye of the Storm,” which allows them to stay completely unaffected by emotional damage as long as it remains active. This might seem kind of horrible at first glance, but in a game that involves everything and everyone you know and love being brutally destroyed before your eyes, being emotionally disengaged is actually a blessing. Of course, as soon as you deactivate the ability, all of the turmoil begins to kick in, but it’s a handy ability to keep from getting overwhelmed at a bad time.
=> Determination: Breath players are like trains. When you get them started towards a goal, stopping their momentum gets harder and harder the longer you wait. These players are like guided missiles. They have the wind at their back, (kill me for making that pun) and it takes a lot of effort to stop them. This determination can be a good thing or a bad thing depending how it’s used, so make sure your Hero of Breath stays pointed at the real enemies.
=> Telekinesis: Among the numerous powers Breath grants, telekinesis somehow also got thrown in there. The game tries to excuse it by having wind-like effects, like you’re picking up a weapon and pulling it to you with a gust of wind, but in practice it’s an entirely different powerset than the Windy Thing, which is less focused on picking things up and flinging them around and more on nuking things with hurricanes. A fair warning; it’s not very delicate or fine-tuned telekinesis, so you will need to get a feel for it before trying to pick up anything big, or you might end up flinging it into the Veil.
BLOOD is the Aspect of unity. Breath represents the connection between friends, family, allies, and significant others that keeps us tied together. Blood represents ideas like duty, relationships, unity, and bonds. Blood players are often very hard on everything around them, and the hardest on themselves. Blood is the anchor that keeps people from purposeless drifting. It’s also the best Aspect of all. (Full disclosure, I am a Blood player, so I’m probably biased.)
=> Exsanguination: This is a complicated phrase that basically amounts to “Bloodbending.” It’s really the only elemental combat ability Blood has, but boy howdy is it intense. It’s one of the more gross ability categories in the game, but it’s also very efficient. One technique I’ve found effective is to make small spikes out of hardened liquid blood and then just shoot them through everything, like that guy from Guardians of the Galaxy with the arrow. You can just keep punching through enemies and gathering more blood as you go, until you’ve got waves of the stuff flying around the battlefield. Or you can just rip their heart out from a distance. That works too. Ok, I’m going to stop being gross now.
=> Empathy Healing: A number of Blood players end up acting as secondary healers due to this ability set. While Life players are the only ones capable of repairing damage and undoing major injuries, Blood can perform a number of other healing tasks, like boosting maximum health to keep you from dying outright or closing deadly wounds to be healed later. The application I most often used was the ability to absorb and share pain. I have a naturally high threshold for pain, and Blood players have higher than usual stats, so I would often absorb painful injuries so that the more combat ready players could jump back into the fight.
=> Leadership Boosts: Both Blood and Breath players tend to excel in leadership roles, but Blood players are especially good at uniting teams in a common goal. After learning of the leadership bonus this Aspect pair provides, our session’s Witch of Breath and I ended up splitting leadership duties, with her acting as the face of the group and keeping our asses in line, and me as the team support guy who helps you deal with the feels. It was a good system for the most part.
=> Physical Might: Heroes of Blood have some of the highest base stats out of all the Aspects. Some of the more offensive classes and aggressive players end up focusing almost exclusively upon this aspect, and as such end up being ridiculously tough. Like, The Thing level tough. These are the guys that eat bricks, punch walls, and can get hit with Dersite siege engine cannons and survive with minimal damage. It’s like Wil E. Coyote, they can take just so much punishment.
Hope and Rage are the Aspects that involve perspective and vision. This pair involves how people see the world, and one’s emotional reaction to it, whether one sees multiple paths or only one. Hope and Rage represent concepts like patience versus passion, encouragement versus domnation, peace versus strife, and positive emotion versus negative emotion. Both Hope and Rage have a strong connection to religious beliefs.
HOPE is the Aspect of belief. Hope is all about having an open mind and the broadening of one’s options and perspective through positivity. Hope deals with things like dreams, conviction, restoration, and reproduction. Very often, Hope players will have an inclination towards some form of spirituality, or at least something they believe in strongly.
=> Inventory Perks: For some reason no-one has been able to figure out as of yet, Hope players have access to a number of inventory related abilities. The theory is that it has something to do with breaking the rules of the game, but that’s more of Life’s forte. My personal belief is that Hope players get more options in their inventory because it’s one of the core starter components of the game, and Hope is all about more options. These abilities range from nearly infinite inventory space, to the power to eject items from your Modus at will, which, sidenote, is broken as hell.
=> Dream Constructs: A common Hope combat power is the ability to create transparent, glass-like constructs in the shape of anything the player can imagine. Think of them like Green Lantern’s powers, but they break or disappear after one use. It’s been discovered that the more variation you have in your arsenal of dream constructs, the more effective your attacks are. A good Hope player can wade through a battle conjuring and casting random object after random object in such a fluid manner that it looks like they’re dancing.
-Raw Positive Power: White magic. This is the opposite stuff to the kind of dark magic you’ll see Doom or Void players slinging around, but it’s no less useful than its negative counterpart. Hope energy is a versatile substance, except in the case of combat, in which it is only really effective in the hands of a destroyer class. It’s more useful for things like creating shields and barriers that neutralize negative energy attacks.
-Musical Bonuses: So, another thing that Hope gets we don’t completely understand is a connection to music. Music is already a big thing in Sburb, with Fraymotifs and Land Songs playing a pretty important part in certain sections of the game, but Hope players take that a step further. If a Hope player uses a musical instrument based Strife Specibus, they are able to actually weaponize the music they play. Our session had a Hope player who hooked up his Fetch Modus to his guitar, so each card was associated with a certain note progression. He would then write and play his own Fraymotifs in battle, which not only damaged enemies and buffed us, but also spat heavy/sharp things out of his inventory at high speed. There’s almost nothing cooler than watching an entire legion of Imps get buried in microwave ovens while someone shreds Pachelbel's Canon on the electric guitar.
RAGE is the Aspect of focus. Rage revolves around having a singular, narrowed perspective through negatively inspired tunnel vision. Rage deals with negative emotions like fear, anger, and hatred. It involves tearing down anything that would prevent one from reaching their goals. Rage players have a tendency towards becoming very dangerous people if they are not kept in check by themselves and their teammates.
=> Psychokinetic Combustion: This power, simply put, involves packing an inanimate object like a stone full of so much Rage energy that when it hits something, it explodes in a ball of purple plasma. This is the most common way of making things spontaneously combust. I’ve heard stories of Rage players that can make things blow up by yelling at them. I’ve never seen it done, but the idea of seeing someone screaming and cussing at a wall to make it blow up is both a humorous and also kind of disturbing image.
=> Will Domination: Ok, so I’m convinced that half of the Rage powers that exist are there for the sole purpose of the game being able to see just how sick some players are, because I can’t think of a single other reason why this power exists. Without getting too graphic, this powerset involves the Rage player exerting their will onto an enemy, effectively allowing for mind control. The Rage player can then force enemies to lie down and allow themselves to be massacred, or even to straight up kill themselves. I mean, I know the underlings are just game constructs, but it still doesn’t feel right. At all.
=> Berserker Power: So, you know how Blood players have incredibly high defensive stats? Well, Rage players are the opposite; they can deal out so much punishment it’s scary. Rage players are capable of entering a berserker-like state in which any physical damage they deal is massively increased and they radiate the purple rage-y stuff out of their eyes. That’s not even the most intense part though. While in this altered state, it’s been reported that some Rage players don’t even need to use their Strife Specibus. They can just pick up any weapon they want and use it with complete ease. Yeah. Rage is a freaky ass Aspect guys.
-Unkillability: This is one of the rarest powers in the game, but I feel like it deserves mention here. A few of the hundreds of sessions I’ve read about and studied report that in their analysis of their doomed timelines, they were unable to find any in which the Rage player had died. In these same sessions, it was reported that the same player was on numerous occasions, wounded to the point where any other person should be dead, but instead of, you know, dying, the Rage player would just laugh, pick up their arm or leg, dust the blood from the wound in their chest… and keep on fighting. One guy I talked to said their Rage player got cut in half, and they actually managed to put him back together after the fight. He was completely fine. I’m telling you, Rage is super fucked up.
Whew! That was a long one. Aspects are the more complicated half of the Classpect system, so hopefully my next entry on classes will be a little bit shorter. That should be coming pretty soon. In the meantime, if you want clarifications or have questions about anything, or want me to analyse your Title, my inbox is always open. Until then, I really should check up on rationalJungler’s planet. All this talk about Rage and how insane it is makes me occasionally worry for his subjects. Peace out Sburbans.
