THE EXECUTIONER
Your executioner is someone who has been born with a high concentration of grace, a mysterious phenomena that allows humans to manifest psychic powers, drawing primarily from the well of dark, subconscious thoughts and emotions buried deep in the human psyche.
All humans innately have a small amount of grace, but in your body, it suffuses your flesh like a potent toxin. Your high levels of grace have given you the ability to both see anomalies and manifest defiance, powerful psychic phenomena.
Untrained, you have the potential for these powers to run wild and develop into an anomaly. Therefore, perhaps unwillingly, you have come to the attention of the intelligence and boarding services of CAIN, who have determined your potential as a weapon offsets the risk of keeping you alive and has offered you employment, of a sort.
This is your story.
GETTING STARTED
Here’s a quick overview of what’s on the executioner sheet. You can find a link to the printable version of the character sheet here (NEEDS LINK), so grab it and follow along - it will help when going through the next section.
Agendas and Defiance are kept on their own separate pages. You can find them in the Agenda and Defiance folders in Game Mechanics.
You can print and use this sheet during play and mark it with pencil, or alternately use note cards or post-its to track your powers, afflictions, etc.
(INSERT PHOTO OF CHARACTER SHEET WITH NUMBERS HERE) ← Currently a WIP
- Executioner ID and Personal Details
- Execution Tag
- Skills
- Health Tracker (Injuries, Hooks, Afflictions)
- Skill Assessment Card
- Extreme Agony/Pathos
- Advancement Tracker
- Category Tracker
- MENTAL skill
- Kit and Kit Points
- Mental Burst
- Strain and Strain Overflow
- Strain Marks
PART BY PART
Your executioner is made up of three parts:
- Your Skills
- Your Agenda
- Your Defiance
Your general capabilities are rated by category and tightly monitored by CAIN. You also have the things you bring with you on a mission - your tools, your flesh, and your psyche.
- Your body has stress, injuries, and mental burst.
- You might also have hooks or afflictions that you pick up during a hunt
- You also may gain strain. Do not let it build up.
Finally, you have a standard kit of things you can bring with you on missions that you can tweak or modify.
That’s all you get. Let’s discuss each in detail.
Scene
This game is about tracking ‘scenes’ for the purpose of some rolls and abilities. A scene is a continuous sequence of action or activity when we focus on something in particular. When we ‘cut away’ to a new location or activity, the scene ends. The Admin adjudicates when a new scene ends or begins.
SKILLS
Your skills give you dice when taking actions that fall under their purview. Skills are rated from 0-3. Characters will have at most two skills at level 3.
- There are ten basic skills: Force, Conditioning, Coordination, Covert, Interfacing, Surveillance, Investigation, Authority, Negotiation, and Connection.
- There is one special skill, MENTAL. This skill goes up on its own, and governs the use of your psychic powers. You only roll it when using these powers.
A player can decide which skill to use when taking an action. However, the Admin is free to tell them if using that skill would be risky or hard, or not effective given the circumstances.
You can apply only one skill at a time to an action, but you probably have the choice of multiple skills for the same situation. For example:
- You could open a door by forcing it open or using your coordination to shoot the lock off, using covert to pick it, or interfacing if the lock is electronic.
- Getting through a dangerous area could be conditioning (it’s on fire) or covert (it’s occupied) depending on your approach.
- Looking up information on someone could be investigation using town records , but could also be connection if you are looking by knocking on doors.
Using different skills or approaches slightly changes the context, consequences, and outcome of the action and may change whether something is risky, hard, or even requires rolling.
SKILL DESCRIPTIONS
Here’s a brief, further description of each skill. Think about each as a flexible category describing your executioners’ general capabilities rather than a series of proscribed activities.
FORCE
Apply direct and close force or violence.
Smash, fight, cut, grapple.
Force is used when deploying strength, not only melee combat, but also when breaking or smashing something, like a door or someone’s skull. It can describe both trained, controlled approaches, and wild or violent approaches. If your Executioner is notable for their strength or skill in hand-to-hand combat, they probably have good Force. It’s typically direct and to the point.
You might use it when:
- Tipping over a burning car.
- Expertly wielding a sword.
- Tackling a fleeing creature to the ground.
- Violently intimidating someone (but authority might be a better fit).
CONDITIONING
Get around on foot.
Sprint, climb, swim, balance.
Conditioning is used with movement on foot, when your Executioner is showing off their athleticism or training. If your Executioner is fast, athletic, or agile, they probably have good conditioning.
You might use it when:
- Jumping over an electric fence.
- Climbing the side of a building.
- Outrunning the police.
- Carrying a body while sprinting (but force could also apply here).
COORDINATION
Use your hand-eye coordination.
Shoot, throw, catch.
Coordination is for performing tasks of manual skill and accuracy. Its primary use is for firearms, but could also be used for throwing and catching. If your Executioner is a good shot or is good with their hands, they probably have good coordination.
You might use it when:
- Shooting a gun or a bow.
- Catching or throwing a vial of forbidden substance.
- Flicking a cigarette.
- Playing sports (but conditioning might also work).
COVERT
Move with stealth and act with sleight of hand.
Sneak, lock pick, steal.
Covert is used when doing something silently or unseen, or undertaking activities usually associated with covert action, like pick pocketing or breaking locks. It’s not particularly fast and can’t be done in a hurry. If your Executioner is quiet, stealthy, or light on their feet, they probably have good covert.
You might use it when:
- Avoiding the attention of a flesh eating monster.
- Lifting the keys off a security guard.
- Carefully avoiding alerting the web of fibrous nerve matter on the floor.
- Hacking into a computer (but interfacing is probably better).
INTERFACING
Use, understand, build, or fix technology, vehicles, or devices.
Drive, hack, repair.
Interfacing is used when using technology or vehicles. You use it when driving a car or when fixing or hot-wiring electronics. If your Executioner has an affinity with machines or computers, they probably have good interfacing.
You might use it when:
- Turning off an execution chair and releasing the electronic clamps on its occupant.
- Not flipping a car while performing a u-turn at 50 mph.
- Modifying a firearm to shoot phosphorous bursts.
- Searching for information on a computer subnet (but investigation might also work).
INVESTIGATION
Examine something in detail, or uncover information about it.
Research, study, sleuth.
Investigation is the counterpart to surveillance, but rather than a broad sweep, it concerns itself with detail, research, and decoding the information present. If your Executioner is erudite, knowledgeable, or well educated, you probably have good Investigation.
You might use it when:
- Decoding mysterious engraved symbols on a wall.
- Determine the origins and properties of a mysterious slimy substance.
- Calculating the trajectory of a bullet fired as a murder weapon based on blood spatters and skull fragments.
- Figuring out the speed and direction of a fleeing vehicle based on its tire tracks (surveillance might also be a good fit).
SURVEILLANCE
Use your power of observation.
Survey, track, spot.
Surveillance is the skill used when taking stock of a situation, tracking or tailing a target, or looking for hidden clues. It doesn’t necessarily provide additional information about its target - for example you could find a file in a cluttered office with Surveillance, but would likely need to use another skill to decode it. If your Executioner is observant, sharp, or artistic, you probably have good Surveillance.
You might use it when:
- Tracking an anomaly host through the freezing cold forest.
- Looking for safe exits from a burning building.
- Finding the location of a buried femur bone in the rain-wet earth.
- Tailing a man with a suspicious briefcase through midday traffic (though covert might also apply).
NEGOTIATION
Rely on your words to influence others.
Sway, lie, bargain.
Negotiation is your ability to sway others based on your force of personality and charm alone, by making appeals to someone receptive. It’s never forceful and not always applicable if someone isn’t already at least partly on your side. If your Executioner is charming, sociable, or diplomatic, they probably have good negotiation.
You might use it when:
- Talking down a hostage situation.
- Bribing the chief of police with the smallest bribe possible.
- Convincingly posing as private security at a secret society gala event.
- Talking up a club host to get some juicy information (though connection works too).
AUTHORITY
Wield your leadership and force of will.
Lead, organize, order, intimidate.
Authority is the ability to both lead and enforce your will on others. This could be through professional demeanor, rank or force of will. If your Executioner is professional, composed, or intimidating, they probably have good authority.
You might use it when:
- Leading a squad of cleanup troopers to clean out a tunnel of anomaly remnants.
- Ordering humans to avert their gaze.
- Intimidating a fleeing suspect into turning around.
- Talking someone down with a gun barrel pressed to your forehead (though negotiation might also apply).
CONNECTION
Connect to others, and draw on those connections.
Intuit, empathize, network.
Connection is the understanding and use of the ties that bring people together. It is used both when calling on your own connections to other people to call in favors and information, and when understanding the connections and emotions of others. If your Executioner is empathetic, well connected, or good at figuring people out, they probably have good connection.
You might it use when:
- Intuiting someone’s, schedule, sleeping habits, or emotional state from just a glance.
- Calling on someone to bail you out of jail.
- Figuring out how someone feels about a topic or person.
- Looking up or locating someone’s contacts or family (but investigation might also be a good fit).
MENTAL
Wield your superhuman powers.
Mental is a special skill that only increases with your executioner’s CAT (1/2 CAT, rounded up).
You use it when called for by your defiance, or for any creative use of your powers not covered by the rules.
You can always use mental for minor effects such as:
- Producing a faint light or aura around something or someone.
- Producing minor force at a distance (like a gust of wind).
- Making electrical lights or appliances flicker.
- Warm or cool the surface of your body.
AGENDA
Your agenda describes your character’s motivations, role in the group, and way they approach the world. It has a couple roles:
- Your agenda allows you to gain experience. At the end of a session, you will check if you followed the regular agenda items or any bolded agenda items, which are harder to fulfill, then gain experience based on the answer.
- Your agenda gives you a suite of abilities. You can gain more abilities from your agenda by spending experience.
- Your agenda may give you a few ways to regain resources.
Between missions you can actually swap agendas if you feel like a new agenda would fit your character. This could be due an experience within the mission, another character moment, or just because you feel like your current agenda isn’t fitting your character.
- You can carry over abilities or bolded agenda items from your old agenda to your new agenda.
- If you swap agendas again, you can keep carrying over abilities gained from any source, though you can’t have more than five agenda abilities at any given time, and must choose which to keep and which to discard.
Your agenda can also be modified mid hunt, depending on mission parameters. The main way for this to happen is through fighting anomalies, which may add agenda items. The Admin is also free to write new agenda elements and offer them as rewards or for completing certain story beats.
Any modified or bolded part of your agenda travels with you, even if you swap agendas in the future.
DEFIANCE
Your defiance are the psychic phenomena that you have been blessed with (or cursed with, depending on your point of view).
Defiance manifestation is spontaneous and follows no real pattern other than tending to appear in late adolescence, but the phenomena that manifest can be broadly classified into a number of types. They are extremely powerful superhuman abilities that allow their users to surpass human limits.
These powers are created by a high concentration of grace, an unknown force that causes a grace seed, a tiny tumor like growth in the shape of a grub-like figure to manifest in the brain (or rarely, the heart), theorized to be the source of these powers.
MENTAL
An executioner’s general skill with their psychic powers is rated by the special MENTAL skill. This is a special skill equal to half your total category, rounded up (so a CAT 3 executioner would have 2 MENTAL). It does not increase any other way, though you can still gain advantage dice on it through aid, setup, etc.
Whenever you would do something that requires rolling with your defiance, you roll MENTAL. This includes any creative use of your powers that are not included in the rules text. The Admin is free to adjudicate these uses as normal (deeming them hard, risky, impossible, effective or ineffective, etc).
MENTAL BURST
Using defiance builds up residual energy in your internal psychic sea, built of raw and powerful emotion. Without outlets, this energy will overflow and cause your power to grow wild. Fortunately, you are a trained executioner and can control this power into a form called Mental Burst.
Using any defiance power requires a mental burst. Some can spend multiple for extra benefit.
- You can always spend a mental burst to add +1 advantage die to any roll (yours or an ally’s) by using your defiance in a creative way.
- You always start a mission with three mental bursts.
- You can recover them by resting during a hunt or through the uses of abilities.
All executioners have the following basic defiance:
★ BLAST
Spend a mental burst and roll MENTAL to produce a weaponized form of concentrated psychic energy in melee or short range. The specific look and feel of this basic executioner skill varies between executioner. The strength of this blast scales with CAT.
When your executioner produces a blast, they might:
- Imbue a slash of a blade or a shot with a ranged weapon with psychic energy.
- Shoot an invisible ball of force from their fingers.
- Fire scathing lightning.
- Shoot a bead of frigid fire.
Unlike your mundane service weapons, blast is a superhuman weapon and therefore scales with CAT and doesn’t become hard by default when used against anomalies.
THE TWELVE DEFIANCES
When you create an executioner, you’ll pick from one of the twelve defiance available, pick two powers from that defiance and decide how you first manifested your powers.
- Defiance all grant a passive ability and a number of other abilities that can be trained with experience.
- When using your defiance to take action, you usually spend a mental burst, then immediately gain the defiance’s effects. Sometimes you will roll and only spend a mental burst on success, and sometimes you can spend multiple at once.
- Defiance often grant you advantage dice.
Unlike your regular, human abilities, your defiance’s abilities also scale up with your executioner’s category, allowing you to perform unbelievable feats of superhuman force. The specific way they scale up is listed in each defiance.
TAKING ADDITIONAL DEFIANCES
You start with one primary defiance, but can acquire extra defiance through training. Doing so is extremely stressful and manifests additional grace seeds, so it is closely monitored by CAIN.
You can spend an advance to gain a new defiance instead of gaining a new defiance power. You gain that defiance’s passive ability, gain one power from it and can gain additional powers in that defiance moving forward. However:
- reduce your cap for strain overflow by 1 per extra defiance taken. You do this by crossing out a strain box on your sheet.
- Your XP cap for advances increases by +1 per extra defiance taken.
CATEGORY AND DEFIANCE
Your executioner is rated by category (1-5) and will improve in category rating by simply surviving missions.
Category broadly represents your skill in both dealing and avoiding harm as well as increasing the speed, reach, and scale of your defiance. When comparing an executioner to an opponent, use their category when generally measuring the strength of their powers.
STRAIN
An executioner is a limited being. The targets of their hunts are not. An executioner’s reserves of power are limited unless they take time to recover their strength - a luxury they may not have.
There are ways to push beyond your limits. Doing so is not sanctioned by CAIN but is sometimes necessary during the course of a mission.
Instead of spending a mental burst, you can gain 1d3 strain. This includes any use of mental burst, such as spending mental burst for +1D on rolls or using a mental blast. If you’d spend multiple mental bursts, roll all these d3s at the same time.
Exceeding 10 strain at any point during a mission will put you into strain overflow - but only at the end of a scene. This means an executioner can gain limitless strain and tap an incredible source of power if they are already over 10.
Strain is not reset per hunt, but is instead halved, rounding up, after a mission is over (providing you survived).
STRAIN OVERFLOW
If an executioner would meet their strain capacity, they go into strain overflow at the end of the scene. They lose control of the psychic energies in their body, which start to run wild and begin their transformation into a new anomaly. A character in Strain Overflow has two choices: give up or resist.
GIVE UP
A character that gives up effectively ceases to be a player character and may work with the Admin to determine the Anomaly they become. They become an antagonist and control is handed over to the Admin.
They make one final choice, which is to flee or fight. Fighting immediately forces a conflict scene with an Imago (see 13. IMAGO). The new Anomaly may become a target of a later hunt, or a greater antagonist.
If the group feels like it is a good time to break and reassess the situation, CAIN may also call the mission, ending it early. An emergence of a new Anomaly is a disaster that drastically changes the parameters of the mission.
Note: In CAIN cannon, nobody has ever recovered from becoming an Imago, but it might be possible.
RESIST
A character that makes this choice must make a resistance check.
- They must roll a d6, adding their number of strain marks (see below). If they have no strain marks, they automatically pass this test.
- If a character has no strain boxes left, they fail this test.
- On a total result of 6 or less, they pass and can keep control.
- On a total result of 7 or higher, they fail and must give up.
- A result of ‘1’ on the die always passes.
A character that keeps control clears all strain, permanently ticks off two strain boxes, and gains a strain mark.
STRAIN MARKS
A strain mark is a physical manifestation of wild power overflow on your body, evidence of your partial transformation into an anomaly. You can find a list of strain marks, their effects, and their table, in 9. STRAIN MARKS. A strain mark is a new, permanent part of your character. It grants new, beneficial power, and grants you new abilities.
Fact: Executioners with strain marks have limited lifespans. They are indelibly stained.
THE BODY
You have a few more things that are (very) important to track.
Fact: Taking care of your body is correlated with high levels of mission success. Therefore CASTLE encourages you to take advantage of facility health, recreation, and rehabilitation services.
STRESS
It is inevitable that executioners put themselves in harm’s way during a mission - not only physical injury, but also exhaustion, fatigue, illness, or mental strain. These kinds of challenges usually would massively impair or incapacitate a regular human.
Fortunately, you are an executioner and always take harm by taking stress. When you would take mental or physical harm, you slash your executioner’s execution tag with stress instead.
- 1 Slash: Pain, strain, tiredness, suffering, minor injury.
- 2/3 Slashes: Crippling or even fatal to most humans, injury, exhaustion, bleeding, deprivation, poison, etc.
- 4+ Slashes: Instantly and messily fatal to humans.
Executioners are not human. This was established under the Doctrine of Worms in 1720.
Your tag starts with capacity for 6 slashes. You always start every hunt without any slashes on the tag, fresh and ready to go.
If your tag fills up, clear all slashes and take an injury. Any remaining stress ‘rolls over’ and fills the tag again.
Some stress is nonlethal. Nonlethal stress can never fill your tag up (it always leaves 1 slash open, and you ignore any access).
Taking stress represents avoiding or mitigating incoming harm. Taking injuries does not.
INJURIES
Injuries represent direct physical or mental harm to your being, such as:
- A twisted ankle.
- A bleeding gunshot.
- Poison taking hold of your body.
- Deep mental distress.
- Exhaustion.
Executioners can fight and act normally through taking an injury. Taking an injury clears all stress, but then reduces your maximum stress by 1 while you have it. This stacks for each injury you have.
Injuries have the following additional rules:
- You heal all injuries after a mission is over, and always start missions with no injuries.
- You also heal one injury if you defy your fate instead of dying instantly (see below).
- If you gain 3 injuries, remaining stress does not roll over and you are on the brink of death. If you would mark any more stress, you will suffer instant death.
INSTANT DEATH
An executioner that marks any stress when on the brink of death is killed instantly and can describe in what manner to the Admin.
- Other abilities (from anomalies, etc.) may also inflict instant death.
- If an executioner would take 7 or more slashes on stress from a single event, after reductions, they also suffer instant death.
- An executioner that suffers instant death may defy their fate and suffer strain overflow instead of dying. Doing so heals one injury.
DEAD EXECUTIONERS
CAIN pays out for the cremation of dead executioners and allows for a grievance period. Recovering the (even partial) remains of a dead executioner grants everyone 1 xp and 1 scrip per recovery after the mission is over.
Fact: Instant death is quick and preferable to most other forms of expiration.
AFFLICTIONS
Fighting an anomaly is mentally and physically taxing, and often mentally corrupting. Many anomaly abilities, including those that inflict hooks (see below), inflict afflictions. An affliction is an ongoing, usually negative effect on your executioner, such as an infection or something more supernatural, such as psychic trauma, corruption, or influence. Afflictions are permanent for the duration of the hunt once acquired, but can be cleared after the mission is over.
Each anomaly has a list of unique afflictions it can inflict, or the admin can improvise based on simple parameters.
HOOKS
During your missions you will be forced to make hard choices or trade offs, or be exposed to situations or harm that will come back to bite you later (sometimes literally).
As complications or consequences of your actions, the Admin can choose to give you a hook instead of immediately applying consequences. A hook is a very simple 3 slash tag that starts empty. You track them on your sheet.
You slash a hook under the following situations:
- The tension tag fills out during a hunt.
- When you roll a ‘1’ on the risk die.
- If you would gain that hook again.
Whenever you would slash a hook a 3rd time and fill it up, the Admin may ‘cash it in’ at any time to erase it and apply its consequences, which are always worse than they would be up front.
When you create a hook, write it as its consequences, for example:
- An executioner is fighting an anomaly, and takes a nasty hit. The Admin decides to give them a hook instead of filling up their stress, giving them a ‘festering wound’ hook.
- An executioner decides to steal a key from a hotel owner, but rolls badly on the risk die. Rather than apply consequences right away, the Admin writes ‘wanted by police’ as a hook.
- An executioner decides to push themselves while chasing a suspect. The Admin writes ‘pass out from exhaustion’ as a hook.
Additionally:
- A character’s own abilities can also give them hooks.
- Hooks always inflict more severe consequences than the alternative.
To deal with hooks, abide by the following rules:
- Hooks reset after each mission, so a character should start a mission with no hooks.
- When an executioner rests during a hunt, they can remove slashes on a hook.
BARGAINING
Characters are always free to suggest hooks to the Admin as consequences for their own or another’s actions. They are even able to suggest hooks as a payment or tradeoff for the following:
- +1D advantage.
- Make an action less hard or risky.
- Use a free mental burst as part of the action.
- Slash a tag an extra time.
They can only try for these bargains when they or one of their allies is taking action, and it’s up to the Admin whether to take them or not, and whether to modify the consequences or severity of the hook. Either way, the terms of the bargain must be clear before rolling.
KIT
Executioners are equipped with a standard issue CAIN-issued kit to bring on a mission. You deploy with 5 kit points, which represent your capacity and inventory of items. This is an abstract and you don’t have to decide what you are bringing with you when you embark on a mission - you can pull something out from your listed kit items when it’s needed, as long as you have points left.
You can spend the listed number of points to pull out any of the following choices, at any time (each choice gives you all items listed).
- 0: Standard issue uniform, collar, shoes, button pin.
- 1: Notebook and pen.
- 1: Matchbook (20 matches). Clean handkerchief.
- 2: Your service weapons: A CAT 0 firearm, ammunition, and melee. This can be upgraded.
That’s all you get. However, you can expand what is available to you in your kit by spending scrip, which you get from completing missions. Scrip must be spent between missions, and you can see a list of items in 7. KIT EXPANSION. These items are always available for you. Many of them are useful during a mission. Many of them are not.
PICKING UP ITEMS
You can pick up anything you can find during a mission and use it with no issues (mark KP as usual). However, you cannot keep it between missions.
You can skip ahead and make an executioner right now, starting in section 6. MAKING AN EXECUTIONER. However, it might be worth first reading through the hunt rules in the following section so that you can have more context for your choices. The decision is up to you.