Aspirations
All heroes aspire to greatness, seeking to achieve their highest potential and leave a lasting impact on the world. Aspirations are a mechanic that allows PCs to exceed their normal limits in pursuit of a worthy objective.
At character creation, you select 3 Archetypes (or, with the GM's permission, create your own), which grant Aspirations. Thereafter, when you find yourself in a situation where the Aspiration applies, you can attempt to "tap" the Aspiration, making an argument that it applies in your current circumstance; if the GM agrees, you gain mechanical advantages.
Minor Aspirations are fairly common occurrences, and tapping them grants Inspiration, which can be used for:
- A single re-roll of any die roll
- An immediate action
- Automatically passing a death save or any save for which failure would result in your death
Major Aspirations are more rare, and tapping them grants Heroism:
- Gain advantage to all rolls
- Cannot fail a save that would result in death, loss of control, or total debilitation
- Once per round, if reduced to 0 HP, immediately reset to 1 HP instead
Epic Aspirations might not come up once in an entire campaign. When they do:
- TBD
Archetypes
Protector
You strive to defend and safeguard others, putting their well-being above your own.
Minor Aspirations
- I will protect the weak and the innocent from harm.
- I will safeguard those who I love and care for.
- I will never let someone take harm in my place.
Major Aspirations
- If I can save a life, even at the cost of my own, I will.
- I will stand against evil, even if the cause is hopeless.
Epic Aspirations
- I will throw myself between an entire people and their destruction, and hold.
- I will make myself an undying bulwark, so that those I guard need never know fear again.
Explorer
You seek to learn and discover, uncovering the mysteries of the world and pushing the boundaries of knowledge.
Minor Aspirations
- I will find and unearth treasures of magic and lost history.
- I will preserve knowledge and artifacts for future generations.
- I will look past obstacles and concealment to discover what may lie behind.
Major Aspirations
- I will go where no living soul has gone and return to tell of it.
- I will risk everything I have to lay eyes on a wonder no one else has seen.
Epic Aspirations
- I will chart the edge of the known world and take one step beyond it.
- I will uncover a truth so vast it remakes what mortals believe about their world.
Avenger
A wrong was done to you that must be answered. Vengeance is the fire that drives you forward.
Minor Aspirations
- I will not let an insult or injury against me pass unanswered.
- I will hunt down those who have wronged me or the ones I love.
- I will remember every debt of blood, and one day I will collect it.
Major Aspirations
- I will strike down the one who took everything from me, whatever it costs.
- I will pursue my quarry to the ends of the earth and never relent.
Epic Aspirations
- I will bring low the empire, cult, or power that destroyed all I once loved.
Champion
You live for honor and glory, seeking to prove yourself the greatest and etch your name into legend.
Minor Aspirations
- I will accept any worthy challenge, and back down from no rival.
- I will fight with honor, even when it would be easier not to.
- I will seek out a deed worthy of a song at every opportunity.
Major Aspirations
- I will face the mightiest foe on the field alone, that all may witness it.
- I will keep my word and my honor even when it means my ruin.
Epic Aspirations
- I will win a victory so great that my name outlives every kingdom of my age.
Trickster
You delight in wit, mischief, and turning the powerful into fools. The clever survive; the cleverer thrive.
Minor Aspirations
- I will talk, trick, or slip my way out of trouble rather than fight.
- I will deflate the proud and puncture the pompous.
- I will never pass up a clever scheme or a well-laid con.
Major Aspirations
- I will pull off the impossible heist, the con no one believes can be done.
- I will humble a tyrant not with steel, but by making the world laugh at them.
Epic Aspirations
- I will orchestrate a deception that topples a throne without a single blade drawn.
Zealot
You are bound to a faith, a cause, or a creed greater than yourself, and you serve it without question.
Minor Aspirations
- I will act in accordance with my creed, even when it is inconvenient.
- I will carry the word of my faith or cause to those who have not heard it.
- I will give no quarter to the sworn enemies of my faith.
Major Aspirations
- I will carry out the will of my god or cause even if it damns me in others' eyes.
- I will face down heresy and corruption wherever it festers, whatever the odds.
Epic Aspirations
- I will become the instrument by which my faith remakes the world in its image.
Leader
Others look to you. You were born—or forged—to guide, command, and inspire those who follow.
Minor Aspirations
- I will put the good of those under my command before my own.
- I will inspire courage in others when their hearts fail.
- I will make the hard decision when no one else will.
Major Aspirations
- I will hold my people together through a disaster that should have shattered them.
- I will not abandon a single one of my followers, even in a losing cause.
Epic Aspirations
- I will forge a scattered and broken people into a nation that endures for ages.
Survivor
You have clawed your way through hardships that broke others. Whatever comes, you endure.
Minor Aspirations
- I will do whatever it takes to live to see tomorrow.
- I will not give in to despair, no matter how dire things become.
- I will help others find the will to keep going.
Major Aspirations
- I will walk out alive from a place that kills all who enter it.
- I will endure a torment meant to break me, and emerge unbroken.
Epic Aspirations
- I will outlast a doom that consumes the world around me, and carry its last survivors through.
Seeker
You hunger to understand. Not gold or glory, but the hidden truths beneath the surface of things.
Minor Aspirations
- I will seek the true explanation behind any mystery I encounter.
- I will study a rare phenomenon, creature, or artifact rather than flee it or destroy it.
- I will never accept "it cannot be known" as an answer.
Major Aspirations
- I will pursue forbidden knowledge even when the wise warn me away from it.
- I will risk my life and my sanity to witness a secret no mortal was meant to see.
Epic Aspirations
- I will grasp a truth about the nature of reality itself, and be forever changed by it.
Free Spirit
No chain, wall, or master can hold you. You answer to the horizon and to no one else.
Minor Aspirations
- I will not be bound, caged, or made to serve against my will.
- I will follow my own path, even when others urge me to conform.
- I will chase the open road and the next horizon whenever they call.
Major Aspirations
- I will break free of any prison or bond, no matter how it is forged.
- I will defy anyone who would make a slave or a servant of me or mine.
Epic Aspirations
- I will shatter the chains of a whole people and set them loose upon the world, free.
Redeemer
You carry the weight of a past you are not proud of. Every deed now is a step toward atonement.
Minor Aspirations
- I will do good where once I did harm, even in small ways.
- I will resist the temptations that once led me astray.
- I will help others avoid the mistakes I have made.
Major Aspirations
- I will make right a great wrong I once committed, whatever the price.
- I will show mercy to an enemy who does not deserve it, because I once did not deserve it either.
Epic Aspirations
- I will undo the ruin I once wrought upon the world, and be remembered for the mending, not the breaking.
Outlaw
You stand against unjust power. Where others bow to crown and law, you refuse.
Minor Aspirations
- I will defy an unjust order, law, or authority.
- I will take from the corrupt and the cruel to give to those they oppress.
- I will not bow to a tyrant, whatever they threaten.
Major Aspirations
- I will strike a blow against oppression even when it makes me a hunted criminal.
- I will free the wrongly imprisoned or condemned, whatever the cost to myself.
Epic Aspirations
- I will bring down a tyranny that has ruled for generations, and count its fall worth my own.
Caretaker
You mend, nurture, and guide. Your strength is measured by those you help to heal and grow.
Minor Aspirations
- I will tend to the sick, the wounded, and the weary.
- I will guide and teach those with less experience than myself.
- I will offer comfort to those in grief or despair.
Major Aspirations
- I will heal a wound or sickness that all others have called hopeless.
- I will sacrifice my own comfort, safety, or future for the sake of those in my care.
Epic Aspirations
- I will nurse a dying land, people, or bloodline back from the very brink of extinction.
Conqueror
Ambition burns in you. You will carve out power, dominion, and a legacy that cannot be ignored.
Minor Aspirations
- I will seize any opportunity to increase my power or standing.
- I will never accept a position of weakness or subservience.
- I will bend my rivals to my will rather than destroy them, when I can.
Major Aspirations
- I will claim a domain, title, or prize that others swear is beyond my reach.
- I will break the power of a rival who stands in the way of my ambition.
Epic Aspirations
- I will forge an empire—or a legend—that reshapes the age and bears my name.
Peacemaker
Where others see enemies, you see a conflict waiting to be ended. You bind the wounds between peoples, not just bodies.
Minor Aspirations
- I will seek a peaceful resolution before resorting to violence.
- I will mediate a dispute between those at odds.
- I will extend trust or mercy to an enemy willing to lay down arms.
Major Aspirations
- I will end a bitter feud or war that others believe can never be ended.
- I will place myself, unarmed, between two forces bent on slaughter.
Epic Aspirations
- I will broker a lasting peace between peoples who have hated one another for generations.