In the mythical primal world of Thaia, the ancestral spirits of the world can sometimes influence the fate of their descendants by interfering with the world and by lending these individuals their talents. Almost like how players do with their characters.
Thus, in Primal Quest, players also act in the role of Ancestors of their characters, watching over them, lending their strength, and granting them benefits from time to time. As their descendants go out into the world and face a myriad of challenges, they grow, change, and earn Ancestral Points (AP). Then, the players can spend these AP either to improve their descendants through Character Improvement or to grant them Ancestral Gifts.
Ancestral Points (AP)
Adventurers grow and change as they face challenges and impact the world around them. Their Ancestors guide them through their path and help them become who they are destined to be.
In the game, this is represented by Ancestral Points (AP), which are awarded to characters as they accomplish significant deeds, leave a mark on the world, and are marked by it as well.
A character earns 1 AP by fulfilling any of the following conditions:
- Surviving the game session (a particularly deadly session might confer 2 AP).
- Using a character’s Tag for the first time in the game session (each Tag can grant 1 AP per game session).
- Impacting the game world in a significant way (as in there will be consequences for good or bad because of what happened).
As the game session comes to an end, Daniel checks to see how many AP his character earned during the game. First, Kullak survived until the end, even though he was unconscious for a good portion of it because of the wound he suffered when the group faced the cultists of the Purple Frog tribe. So that’s 1 AP at least. He also used 3 of the character’s Tags during the session, earning him 3 additional AP. Unfortunately, Daniel didn’t have an opportunity to invoke the “Affinity for Lost Technology” nor his “Easily Distracted by Alien Wares”, which isn’t so bad. Finally, they did stop the Purple Frog tribe from summoning the avatar of their evil god, thus causing an impact in the world and possibly getting them a new enemy. That’s another AP, for a total of 5 AP for the session. Not bad at all.
What is Impactful Enough?
To be considered significant in order to confer 1 AP, the impact the characters have on the game should be able to change how things play out moving foraging. Did they make allies? Or maybe new enemies? Did they free a terrible beast from its prison even without intending to do so? Did they imprison the Khaos Beast terrorizing the hills of the Red Stone People? All of this and more could impact their future adventures and the world around them, so they deserve to be awarded with 1 AP.
Character Improvement
Hardened by their adventures and under the watchful eyes of their Ancestors, characters change and grow, becoming who they are destined to be.
Players can spend AP to improve their characters in different ways:
- To increase an Attribute by +1, spend AP equal to the new score multiplied by 5 (a minimum of 5 AP). No character can increase an Attribute higher than +5 this way.
- To acquire a new Tag, spend AP equal to the current number of Tags the character possesses multiplied by 3.
- To change a Tag or rewrite it, spend AP equal to the current number of Tags the character possesses.
After considering all that transpired during the game and what their character has been doing so far, Daniel sees Kullak’s connection to their ancestors grow stronger, and their confidence growing. He will use 5 AP to increase their Heart score from 0 to 1.
How Did I Learn This?
As characters change and learn new things, players should take the time to weave these developments into the narrative of the game. If they acquire a new Tag that says “Friend of the Pekik”, the character should have connections to the Pekik people and have become allies with them. If they increase their Heart Attribute, maybe the character spent a few nights meditating under the stars and listening to the Primal Spirits of the world and became more in sync with it.
It is up to the players to make sense of their characters’ story as they play the game. The game should be a reflection of the fiction and work side by side with it. By doing so, they help everyone else enjoy the story being created together.
Ancestral Gifts
Sometimes a descendant will need more immediate help, or a nudge at the right moment, if they are to fulfill their fate. As their Ancestors, players will do their best to ensure this happens, and they can spend AP to grant their characters the following benefits.
- Temporary Tag (1 AP): create a temporary Tag related to your ancestry. It will last for 1 turn.
- Narrative Detail (1 AP): add a small narrative detail that will help explain how your character obtains something like a piece of information, a mundane item, or something similar.
- Lend Power (1 AP): immediately recover 1d6 Vitality.
These can manifest in the game in many different ways depending on how they are used by players. A character may enter a quick trance and have a vision, or see a totemic animal in an auspicious place, or feel the hands of their grandfather pushing them forward when they most need. Let the players describe how those Ancestral Gifts appear to their characters.
After some well deserved rest Kullak goes on a sacred hunt. He seeks a legendary beast known as The Maw in the Jungle, a creature as ancient as the Mother Tree itself. It is rumored the creature has a seed of the tree stuck between its teeth until this day, and Kullak os going to get it. He visited all the Elders of the nearby villages, searched for signs in the cave paintings for clues, but failed to find any significant information. Desperate, the hunter wanders through the deepest parts of the Deep Green Jungle and calls his Ancestors to guide his way. He spends 1 AP adding the Narrative Detail to obtain information, and the Primal Master describes how Kullak stumbles upon an overgrown path he only noticed thanks to the upper part of a skeleton still clinging to a large broken obelisk.
Players as Just Players
Playing as an Ancestor is not only a cool mechanic that allows players to directly meddle with the game and setting, but a way to manifest one of the setting’s core elements in a collaborative and interactive way. This also allows the game to incorporate some of the sometimes inevitable metagaming aspects of play into play itself (who is to say the players discussing the weird discoveries their characters made aren’t their Ancestors doing the same in the Spirit World?).
Some groups, however, might prefer to play without acting as Ancestors, and just play as their characters without the power to interfere in the world directly. That is fine and the game won’t break because of that. It will work just fine, although an important element of gameplay and setting will be missing.When doing so, just use AP for Character Improvement and ignore the possibilities of the Ancestral Gifts. This will make characters grow over time but will minimize out of character interference in the game world.
ATTENTION: This is only a preview, and is just a draft text of the rules that are going to come eventually. This may change, be cut, etc. Use at your own risk, and hopefully we won’t upset any of our ancestors!