House Rule #12 – Beastforms
We use the game mostly RAW. Here are some of the changes we use at my table. Beastforms To get access to a Tier 3 beastform, you need a specialization…
Background and Connection questions are big part of the fun of session zero and character creation. What if we varied the fun and also wrote them for each subclass to make them more character specific? Assuming we’re creating level 1 characters, they only reference Foundation features. My players pick from class or subclass questions as they like!
• Your music has the power to move people in ways words alone cannot. Who was the first person you saw genuinely changed by a song you played?
• Not every performance goes the way you intend. What is the most important gig you ever ruined, and what did it cost you?
• Your songs carry something personal in them, whether listeners know it or not. What experience are you still trying to process through your music?
• What is the most unexpected moment you’ve seen my music affect someone, including an enemy?
• Have you ever asked me to play something specific? What was it, and why did you need it that night?
• Do you think I play for others or for myself? What makes you believe that?
• Words have gotten you out of serious trouble, or right into it. Describe a moment when something you said changed a room.
• You have a speech you’ve never finished writing. What is it for, and why can’t you complete it?
• Somewhere along the way, someone told you that your words were dangerous. Who was it, and were they right?
• Have you ever used something I taught you about words to get out of trouble?
• What’s something I said to you early on that you’re still thinking about?
• Have you ever wanted me to speak up for you in a moment I stayed silent? What happened?
• You didn’t choose your element, it chose you. What moment in your life made it clear which force of nature you were bound to?
• Channeling your element has caused unintended harm before. What happened, and who bore the consequences?
• What is the most creative way you have used your element to get out of trouble?
• What do you think my element says about who I am as a person?
• Have you ever asked me to channel my element for something small and personal, not for battle?
• What element do you think I should have been bound to, and why?
• Healing others comes naturally to you, but it hasn’t always been enough. Who couldn’t you save, and how do you carry that?
• The restorative magic you practice had to come from somewhere. Who taught you that nature could mend what was broken?
• What damage (physical, emotional, or otherwise) have you accepted you cannot undo?
• Have you ever refused my help when I tried to heal you? What made you turn me away?
• Have you ever stopped me from healing someone? What was the reason?
• Do you think my caring for others is strength or vulnerability? Has your answer changed since you met me?
• Who taught you how to take a hit, and what did that training cost you?
• Someone once told you that your endurance was inhuman. Who was it, and what had they just witnessed?
• What is the closest you have ever come to finally going down, and what stopped it from happening?
• Have you ever tried to pull me out of a fight I had no business still being in? Did I listen?
• What did you think the first time you saw me shrug off something that would have floored anyone else?
• What do you think goes through my head when something hits me and I just keep going?
• Someone hurt a person you cared about and got away with it. What did you do, and was it enough?
• When did you learn that a good offense is the best defense?
• What is the fastest you have ever ended a fight, and what provoked it?
• Was there a moment early on when I dropped someone an instant before they hit you? Did that change how you saw me?
• I’m still waiting to repay someone for something they did. Do you know about it, and do you think I should?
• Have you ever been glad I hit first and asked questions later?
• How did you and your companion find each other, and who needed the other more at the time?
• Your companion has been with you through something you haven’t told many people about. What was it?
• Not everyone has been comfortable around your companion. Who pushed back the hardest, and how did you handle it?
• My companion seems to react to you differently than to most people. What do you think that means?
• What is your honest first impression of my companion, and has it changed since you met us?
• Have you ever done something for my companion that you didn’t tell me about?
• What is the most dangerous quarry you’ve ever tracked, and what made you decide it was worth the risk?
• Your ability to find your way back to places you’ve been has saved you before. Where did you have to find your way back to, and what had happened while you were gone?
• Who trained you to be as relentless as you are, and what happened to them?
• Have you ever asked me to track something for you that you didn’t want the others to know about?
• You asked me to lead you somewhere dangerous and told me not to ask questions. Where was it, and have you ever explained why?
• If I asked you to be the bait, would you trust me enough to say yes?
• Shadows have always felt more like home than open spaces. When did you first realize you were more comfortable in the dark than the light?
• Do you talk to the shadows sometimes? Has anything ever answered back?
• You have used the shadows to witness something you were never meant to see. What was it, and what did you do with that knowledge?
• Is there information I’ve brought you that you wish you could unknow? Do you blame me for finding it?
• Have you ever wondered whether I was in the room during a conversation you thought was private?
• Have you ever asked me to follow someone without them knowing?
• Your network didn’t build itself. What is the most morally complicated favor you called in to get where you are today?
• Not every contact has stayed friendly. Who in your network turned on you, and how much do they know about you?
• You know people everywhere, but there is one place you’d rather your contacts didn’t know you were going. Where is it, and why?
• Have you ever run into someone who knew me before you did? What did they tell you?
• When we arrive somewhere new and I immediately seem to know someone, does that make you feel safer or more nervous?
• Have you ever wondered whether one of my contacts is keeping tabs on you too?
• Your weapon is more than a tool. It has a relationship with your god. When did you first realize it wasn’t just a weapon anymore, and what happened to make that clear?
• You have used your healing touch on someone who didn’t know what you were doing. Who were they, and why did you keep it from them?
• Your god chose you specifically to wield in their name. What do you think they saw in you that you don’t always see in yourself?
• Did you know me before I was chosen? What is the most striking thing that has changed?
• If I fell in battle, do you think you could pick up my weapon? Do you think it would let you?
• Do you think my devotion to my god makes me more dangerous or more merciful? Has your answer changed over time?
• The first time you took flight, something changed in how you understood yourself. What did you see from up there that you couldn’t unsee?
• Not everyone reacts to your wings the same way. What is the most unexpected reaction you have ever received, and what did it tell you about that person?
• Have you ever used your wings to run away from something rather than toward it, and do you regret it?
• Have you ever asked me to carry you somewhere, in the air, and trusted me completely to get you there?
• What did you think the first time you saw me take flight? What do you think now?
• Have you ever seen me hesitate before taking flight, and did you ask me why?
• Your element was part of you before you understood what that meant. What is the earliest memory you have of it making itself known?
• Someone in your family shares your element, or nobody does. Either way, what does that mean for your relationship with them?
• The Sorcerer’s element is innate, not learned. Who was the first person outside your family to recognise what you carried, and how did they react?
• Do you think my element has shaped my personality too much since you have known me, and does that worry you?
• If my element were yours for a day, what would you do with it, and would you give it back?
•Have you ever seen me lose control of my element, and why do you think it happened?
• Who was the first person who recognised that your relationship with magic was different, and what did they do about it?
• There is something you do when you channel your magic that you have never seen anyone else do. What is it?
• There is someone who uses magic conventionally who has never forgiven you for making it look effortless. Who are they, and what did you do that they could not?
• Have you ever asked me to do something with my magic that you weren’t sure I should be able to do?
• Is there someone we have fought who you think specifically feared me, and do you know why?
• Is there a moment when what I did with my magic made a direct difference to you, and have you ever brought it up?
• Every fighter has a ritual before a hard fight. What is yours, where did it come from, and have you ever had to do it alone?
• You have faced something that should have broken you and came out the other side. What was it, and how did you overcome it?
• Courage is not the absence of fear. What are you most afraid of, and how do you walk toward it anyway?
• Have you ever watched me perform my ritual before a fight and felt something shift in your own resolve?
• Do you think my courage is something I was born with or something I built, and what has made you think that?
• Have you ever needed me to go first into something terrifying, and did you ask or did I just do it?
• You have always been drawn to the most dangerous target in a fight. What was the first time you went after something that everyone else was running from, and what happened?
• Building toward something and releasing it all at once is how you fight. Where did you learn that kind of patience?
• There is a fight you have been in that you still measure everything else against. What happened in it, and why does it stay with you?
• Have you ever watched me hold back in a fight and wondered what I was waiting for?
• What moment in a fight do you think I enjoy the most?
• Have you ever seen me walk away from a fight unsatisfied, and do you know why?
• What forbidden knowledge did you acquire that your teachers warned you never to pursue, and what did it cost you to learn it?
• You have walked into situations vastly underprepared and situations where you had thought of everything. Which do you prefer, and what does that say about you?
• Your breadth of knowledge has always set you apart. What is the one subject you have studied longest, and what keeps drawing you back to it?
• Have I ever used my magic to play a trick on someone, including you, and did you find it as funny as I did?
• Is there something you have never asked me about because you were not sure you wanted to know what I would say?
• Have you ever seen me pretend not to know something, and worked out that I was lying? Why do you think I was?
• What made you turn your magical studies toward violence, toward becoming a weapon instead of a scholar?
• You have been in situations that should have broken your concentration entirely. What is the worst condition you have ever cast under, and did it work?
• Someone expected you to stay back and let others take the hits. What happened when you didn’t?
• Do you think I chose this path because I wanted to prove something, and have you ever asked me what?
• Is there a moment where I took a hit that was meant for you, and have you ever brought it up?
• Is there a fight you would have walked away from if I had not been there?
