Requirements: all players and storyteller present, imaginative energy, a willingness to experiment, some kind of white board or notebook, a few Hours
In cases where the table wants to play a long-form campaign or if they just want to have more character cohesion among the party, this option would be advisable. It is informed by Cortex Prime’s Life Path System, so be aware this will require time, energy, and note-taking.
It is not recommended to try and do this the same session as the town creation. One session for each is strongly advised.
Once all players are present, the table will then decide first the life path of the youth characters. Each step in a life path is a row on the table (pictured below). Players can choose one of the four dominant themes of that time in their life.
(Click or tap the image of the table to download a higher resolution image. A textual description of the table contents, and what they mean, will be available below on this page.)
These are dominant themes, not purities. A life is a complex thing and involves multitude. Just because someone had a complicated birth, for example, doesn’t mean it didn’t involve wonder. It just means that the complication was the most dominant feature of that part of the narrative.
The dominant themes are the following: Curiosity, Mystery, Stability, and Friction.
Curiosity governs themes of excitement, play, wonder, and a general fascination with what is happening in that life stage.
Mystery governs themes of the supernatural, the magical, the strange, and a sense of destiny or fate at that life stage.
Stability governs themes of predictability, safety, support, and a confidence that there is a ground to stand on at that life stage.
Friction governs themes of challenge, conflict, survival, and the resilience to weather whatever harm comes at that life stage.
In addition to themes on this table, there are also Types of life events and their Title.
There are three Types of life events: Turning Point, Continuation, and Impact.
Turning Point is a life-defining event that informs the character going forward in a strong way. This is usually an event that is thought of as a major measure of time—there is a before this event and an after, and the two times are deeply different.
Continuation is the maintenance of the life after the Turning Point. It is the inertia and flow that occur when a life meets the external circumstances that result from the Turning Point. If the Turning Point is a dam breaking, the Continuation is the water flowing into the wood.
Impact is the ultimate internal takeaway your character takes from both the Turning Point and the Continuation. It is the way these events have shaped your knowledge making and ethical character, which then informs your actions and beliefs moving forward.
If you are starting as youths, or just playing through the youth playbooks, you will only use Stages 1-5 on the Life Path. If you are starting as adults, you will only use Stages 1-9 on the Life Path. If you are starting as a Coven Member of the Time Wastes, you will use the entire Life Path.
How to Build a Life Path:
1. The last player to arrive to the session consults the table and looks at Stage 1. That player then chooses ONE of the themes.
2. The player then looks up the theme below and uses that as a prompt to develop that stage of their biography.
3. A player can choose, during the session, once per each other player at the table, to connect their prompt to another character's life event, building an interpersonal narrative connection with that character. This does not need to be complex. A few sentences go a long way.
While I do recommend coordinative connections, rivalry-generating connections are also permissible. In any case, please build these connections consensually. If a player refuses that direction with their character, honor that please. Storytellers, please be watchful of dynamics at the table and be willing to enforce as necessary.
4. After the player is done with that stage's prompt, the next player chooses their theme on the same stage until all players have chosen a theme in that stage. This continues until all relevant stages are completed by all players.
Stage 1: Birth (Turning Point)
Wonder: The circumstances of your birth were somehow extraordinary or unlikely.
What was the wildness of your entrance to the world?
Initiation: Your birth was part of an elaborate ritual of some kind, meant to bring about a goal or initiate you into a mystery.
What goal casts its shadow over your emergence?
Easy: Your birth went all according to plan, with adequate support at every turn.
What plan or preparation made all the difference for your entrance?
Complication: Your birth involved a tragedy or serious setback of some kind during the process.
What was lost and then given for your life to begin?
Stage 2: Family (Continuation)
Experiment: Your family raised you according to an experimental model of care or training, which may have had unforeseen consequences.
What method of care was used to support your navigation of body and mind?
Unknown: You did not know your birth family at all, and instead were raised by completely separate forces.
Who or what gave you the primer for existing in the material world and why?
Supportive: You had a deeply supportive family structure that ensured that you had everything you needed in your early years.
Who gave you a sense of unshakeable stability in care?
Harmful: Your family was not ready to be supportive, and as a result, you suffered persistent and obvious harm in your early years.
What helped you survive those moments of dreadful intensity?
Stage 3: Purpose (Impact)
Discovery: You have found that what feeds your spirit is a sense of exploration and discovery, a wonder at what has revealed itself.
Which details of life enchant you the most?
Paranormal: You have found that what spurs you on is the mysterious and the strange, a drive to know what lies beyond.
What was your first experience that defied rational explanation?
Improvement: You have found that what drives you is a sense of improvement and growth, a progression to be more than what you are.
Who has inspired you to pursue excellence?
Revenge: You have found that what compels you is a need for revenge and a drive to right a wrong, a lust for something that might be Justice.
What is it about the wrong done to you that has changed you?
Stage 4: Approach (Continuation)
Inquisitive: Your baseline approach to life is one of investigation and curiosity, constantly asking questions or developing theories.
What sort of detective gets to the whole truth for you?
Intuitive: Your baseline approach to existence is based on the ephemeral vibe of a situation, the unspoken affect that permeates space.
When you know things you shouldn’t, how do you explain it?
Careful: Your baseline approach to getting along is through being careful and mindful of others and places, observing etiquette when possible.
What harm does your mindfulness prevent?
Risk-Taking: Your baseline approach to surviving is through being decisive and courageous, even if it means you’re a little reckless.
What makes you certain that you’re going to make it through the risk?
Stage 5: Friendship (Turning Point)
Outgoing: You make friends due to your willingness to start conversations, meet new people, and explore new situations.
What keeps your joy steady when it comes to the experience of other people?
Magnetism: You meet colleagues due to an ineffable quality of attraction, where people simply start talking to you and tell you their life story.
What about you gets commented on the most, in a favorable way?
Confidence: You develop friendships due to your steady faith in yourself and the people around you, encouraging others to be the best version of themselves.
What is it that you see in others that most inspires you?
Tragedy: You form bonds with others due to your knowledge of hard lessons and the resilience that comes with it, helping yourself through helping others through similar harms.
What part of your past are you always trying to change?
Stage 6: Transition (Continuation)
Travel: You decide to travel beyond your usual stomping grounds to find meaning, seeking to extend the boundaries of your knowledge.
What kind of place is calling to you?
How do you get there?
Transformation: You have come to a turning point where you are no longer what you were; you are now something new, seeking meaning in that newness.
What process did your transformation entail?
What freshness does the world now have for you?
Advancement: You have proven yourself to those who have limited your progress, and now you have new meaning in this new role and authority.
What did you have to do to get here?
What have you left behind to do so?
Rebellion: You decide that the order you were in is not worth dying within, and you have rejected it in a profound fashion, finding your own meaning.
Who enabled your resistance to the order?
What does this meaning enable you to do?
Stage 7: Lesson (Impact)
Mentorship: Your experience has led you to the power of education, that the best way for you to serve others is to teach them from your experience and wisdom.
Where did you realize that you were meant to instruct?
Who are you saving?
Control: Your experience has led you to the certainty of control, that the best way for you to serve others is to organize against the countless factors which stand against them.
What is outside of your scope of control?
What determines what you can and cannot influence?
Respect: Your experience has led you to the responsibility of respect, that the best way for you to serve others is to lead by example and model behaviors that they should embrace in themselves.
Who are you emulating when you model these behaviors?
How does this respect change your own sense of accountability?
Resilience: Your experience has led you to the tenacity of resilience, that the best way for you to serve others is to do what no else can or should do, in order to secure a better future for everyone.
How do you navigate the judgment of others when the necessary actions are finished?
What enables you to see the hard solutions?
Stage 8: Career (Continuation)
Playful: You treasure the sense of play within your career, as play allows you to explore different solutions, avenues of thought, and collaboration.
Which problems bring you joy to solve?
Patronage: You are talented at developing unconventional income streams through the patronage of mysterious clients, which allows you to become a known quantity among certain circles.
What risks do you have to navigate in order to secure funding?
Predictable: You are a stable rock when it comes to your work, focusing your efforts via breaking down the complex into steady step-by-step factors that can be easily solved.
Are there any costs to this stability for you?
Striving: When it comes to career, you are not satisfied until you achieve success against the logic and order that was already flawed to begin with at the workplace.
Who stands in your way as you work to undo their flawed logic of work?
Stage 9: Love (Turning Point)
Lucky: Through some kind of lucky accident, you have managed to find platonic or romantic love that has changed the way you live. A chance meeting has managed to change everything.
What was the goal that was interrupted by this meeting?
Destined: As though guided by invisible forces, you have found yourself in a platonic or romantic relationship that is a satisfaction of a destiny. This meeting has caused hidden gears to turn.
What did it feel like when you met the missing part of a prophecy?
Collaborative: Through careful work and coordination, you have built a platonic or romantic relationship with another, such that you both are now made better than you were apart. This productive meeting has unlocked new potential in you both.
What was the moment where you knew that this person was the right fit?
Conflictual: Through the clashing magnetism of opposition, you have landed in a platonic or romantic relationship that is continually a site of conflict and adversity. Through opposition, you both have changed the direction of each of your lives.
What keeps you going back to the relationship, despite all the conflict?
Stage 10: Equilibrium (Continuation)
Exploration: Throughout your life, you have found rejuvenation through exploration, whether physical or cognitive. You are deeply curious and it’s through that curiosity that you find respite.
What cage is being refuted through your curiosity?
Mastery: Throughout your life, you have found reassurance through mastery. In attaining a new skill or perfecting a skill you already have, you have found respite through being able to practice a competency earned.
What shortfall are you trying to make up for through mastery?
Safety: Throughout your life, you have found re-centering through safety. You fight uncertainty through planning and have a separate space that is demarcated just for your own quiet. You seek respite through a controlled environment.
What chaos are you keeping at bay with such a space?
Entropy: Throughout your life, you have found something resembling peace through entropy. You know that all things are ephemeral and through reminding yourself of the finite nature of things, you can find persistence and silence. Your respite comes through a reminder of ending.
What ending do you wish for, beyond all others?
Stage 11: Regret (Impact)
Opportunity: The regret closest to your heart is one of opportunity. You missed out on something that was within reach, or you managed to squander something that was precious and never again attainable.
Do you believe the opportunity was a result of work or luck?
Limitation: The regret closest to your heart is one of limitation. There is some way in which you, as a person, are not able to achieve a goal, due to circumstances outside of your choices.
Do you blame yourself for this limitation or do you blame the world?
Caution: The regret closest to your heart is one of caution. You have played it too safe in crucial circumstances that required risk, and as a result, you have lost something. Nothing you do seems to make it come back.
Was it fear that held you back or was it protecting something else?
Error: The regret closest to your heart is one of error. You thought you already knew the answer and you acted on it. It turns out that it was a deeply wrong decision, however, and now that decision follows you everywhere.
Was it a lie that looked like the truth that led you to that decision or was it something else?
Stage 12: Recovery (Continuation)
Optimism: What buoys you through complexity is a sense of optimism. You have an intuitive or instinctual sense that you’re going to make it through things (even imperfectly) and that the arc of the things will bend toward goodness.
What is this optimism rooted in?
Development: What gets you through rough times lately is a sense of development. You know that with each difficulty, you will learn something important and once you are on the other side of it, you will be able to handle it better.
How do you approach finding the lesson within difficult circumstances?
Certainty: What gets you through the storms of life is a sense of certainty. You know that you have the skills, grit, and acumen to get through whatever life throws at you. You believe in the basic power of “I can do this” in order to navigate life.
What event cemented the belief that you can handle anything that life throws at you?
Audacity: What gets you through hard times is an audacity to act. Where other people feel too afraid or cowed by power, you don’t need justification to act—you simply do what is necessary anyway, regardless of qualifications.
Who gave you the power to simply act, despite all limitations?
Stage 13: Apocalypse (Turning Point)
Shock: When the marrow of your seconds responded to Time Victorious, you felt it as a complete surprise, a bone-deep shock that resonated like a terrible bell.
As you felt Our will wash over you, did you scream?
Despair: When you saw the sparrow-heads emerge from the mouths of strangers in the Time Victorious, you felt it as a tremendous despair. It was a sadness that had been incubating inside of you for years.
When the True Form of Our will revealed, what faith failed first?
Calm: When the Thirteenth Hour struck, and frayed threads of decayed continuums tangled into our Time Victorious, you felt a calm. You seemingly expected this to happen.
What makes you so Sure that you can withstand A Labyrinth Manifest?
Fury: When your petty Coven rallied and created the Sunset Zones beyond our Time Victorious, you felt a fury in your breast. It was pure rage at the true nature of all things.
What within you believes that your rage could match Our triumph?