7. Characters

7.1 Drives#

Each Character has two Drives drawn from the following set of eight:

Liberation: Wishes to break free of mental, social, or physical constructs.
Greed: Wishes to amass fortune.
Power: Desires control over politics and other people.
Connection: Longs for connection with others or society.
Justice: Has been wronged and seeks retribution.
Redemption: Has done wrong in the past and seeks redress.
Destruction: Wishes to see it all burn.
Knowledge: Explorer; needs to understand ideas larger than themself.

7.2 Morality#

Each Character has one Morality:

Virtuous: Acts with integrity and honor, striving to do what is best for all around them.
Expedient: Does what they must to achieve their goals; does not actively wish harm.
Ruthless: Has no concern for others as long as they achieve their goals.
Iniquitous: Amoral; often opts for pain and suffering, especially gratuitously.

7.3 Character Points (CP)#

Character points represent the ability for Characters to take actions as well as their "health." When a Character's CP reaches zero or less, that card is destroyed and placed into its owner's Depleted Pile, whichever face it is showing.

Reaching zero CP does not flip a Character — with one exception. Damage, Liberation and CP costs remove a Character from the Map; they do not transform one. A Character reaches their Fallen face only by the routes listed in §7.7, one of which is Morality Penalties taking a Prime Character to 0 CP (§7.4). This is a change from previous revisions, in which the first fall from any cause flipped a Character to Fallen and only the second destroyed them.

CP movement is fully card-driven. There is no global tag system or universal alignment table. Specifically:

The Penalties block on each Character lists CP losses for executing Character Action Maneuvers whose Morality differs from the Character's. Penalties are calibrated per-Character — two Ruthless Characters may have different Penalty profiles based on personal history.
Aligned-action bonuses are printed as triggered abilities on the Character card (e.g., 'Gain +1 CP whenever this card liberates another card').
Activated abilities define how the Character spends and gains CP through play. There are two types of activated abilities, Character Abilities and Activated Character Abilities. Character Abilities are indicated by +/-X CP: Action. When this ability is activated, remove a number of Character points from the Character equal to X, then perform the specified action. If a Character has less CP than X, the Character Action may not be used. Character Actions can only be played once per turn and are played as a Slow Maneuver. The second type of Character abilities is the Activated Character Ability. This ability will be noted by A, Cost: Action. Where A is the activate symbol, Cost is some sort of cost (if any) and Action is the action. Activated Character Abilities activate the Character when used, may be played as a Fast Maneuver, and can be played more than once per turn (assuming the player finds a way to ready the Character again).

CP only moves when a printed trigger fires — there is no neutral-action erosion. A Character may exist on the board without losing CP for inactivity. There is no maximum CP.

7.4 Penalties Block#

Every Character has a Penalties block listing CP penalties for executing Character Action Maneuvers of mismatched Morality. A Morality not listed in a Penalties block confers no CP penalty for actions of that Morality.

Example: a Ruthless Character with Penalties listed as '-1 CP Expedient, -4 CP Virtuous' takes 1 CP loss when executing Expedient Maneuvers, 4 CP loss when executing Virtuous Maneuvers, and 0 CP loss when executing Iniquitous Maneuvers (Iniquitous is omitted; no penalty).

A penalty is never a gate. A Character may execute a Character Action Maneuver even when the Morality penalty exceeds its current CP. Resolve the action first, then apply the penalty. A Character is always free to act against its own nature; the cost is paid afterwards, and may be more than it can bear.

A Character brought to 0 CP by a Morality Penalty Falls instead of being destroyed. A Prime Character flips to its Fallen face, and its CP resets to that face's printed starting CP (§18.38). A Fallen Character brought to 0 CP by a Penalty has nowhere further to fall and is destroyed. Either way, the action still resolved.

This is the one route to the Fallen face that is not a Storyline, and it is deliberate: a Character who does terrible things often enough becomes someone else. A Bound Character who Falls this way flips their Storyline to its Reversal like any other Fall (§8.11). A Fall you cause this way awards the next opponent in turn order 1 Story Point (§8.12).

This applies to Penalties only. It does not apply to a printed activated cost in the form '-X CP: <ability text>'. Those are costs, not penalties, and a Character with less than X CP may not use the ability at all (§7.3).

7.5 Combat Damage and CP#

Characters function as Ground Units in combat. When a Character takes damage in combat, the amount of damage they receive is subtracted from their current CP. Example: a Character with CP 6 takes 5 damage they would remove 5 CP. A Character whose CP reaches 0 from damage is destroyed, whichever face it is showing (§7.3).

DEF and RK bonuses on a Character. A Character prints DEF X and Rank X (§7.9). It has no numeric Defense or Rank to raise, because combat damage and Liberation both come off its CP. A bonus to either is therefore read as protection:

+N DEF prevents N combat damage to the Character in each combat.
+N RK cancels N of the Liberation counters that would be placed on it in each Liberation, after the defending Vox has cancelled its share (§12.6). On a Character, counters placed = liberating Vox − defending Vox − RK bonuses.

On an ordinary Character each counter becomes 1 CP loss, so +N RK spares N CP. The difference matters when a card takes the counters before they become CP loss — The Show Trial turns them into Story counters (§18.37) — because the bonus has already reduced them.

Bonuses from several sources add together: +1 DEF and +2 DEF prevent 3 damage in each combat. The DEF prevention is counted against everything the Character takes in that combat, not per attack, and the RK reduction is applied once per Liberation. The two channels stay separate (§12.8): a DEF bonus never reduces Liberation, and an RK bonus never reduces combat damage. X counts as a printed value, so §19.6 does not void these bonuses.

Penalties work the same way in reverse. A DEF or RK penalty on a Character adds to what it loses:

−N DEF adds N to the combat damage the Character takes in each combat in which it takes any.
−N RK adds N Liberation counters to each Liberation in which at least one liberating counter survives the defence.

Bonuses and penalties from different sources are netted before they apply: +2 DEF and −3 DEF together add 1 damage in each combat. A Character is never destroyed for its DEF or Rank reaching 0, because it has no number there to reduce; it is destroyed when its CP reaches 0 (§7.3). Numeric DEF and Rank on other units are covered by §19.8.

Characters only. A non-Character with a numeric Rank uses an RK bonus as a higher destruction threshold (§12.8). Subtracting from the counters as well would count the bonus twice, so it does not.

Ruled 2026-10-18; the RK rule revised 2026-10-20. The first version had +N RK prevent N CP loss after the counters landed, which did nothing on a card that redirects the counters first. Before 2026-10-18 a DEF or RK bonus on a Character did nothing at all, which left printed Storyline statics such as "The Bound gains +2 DEF" dead.

7.7 Fallen Faces#

Fallen is a general state label, not exclusive to Characters. A face whose type line is labeled 'Fallen' represents a corrupted, awakened, or degraded state of the permanent.

Only a story changes a person. A Character Falls — flips to their Fallen face — in exactly four ways:

1. A Storyline's text Falls them — most often "Fall the Bound" (§8.11). 2. Morality Penalties take them to 0 CP on their Prime face (§7.4). 3. The Storyline they are Bound to leaves play (§8.8). 4. Their own printed Twist fires, optional or mandatory (§18, Twist on Characters).

Nothing else makes a Character Fall. An effect from any other source that would flip a Character to its Fallen face does nothing. No amount of damage or Liberation will do it: those destroy a Character outright (§7.3). A Character who is killed is gone; a Character who is broken is still at the table, and is someone else.

Earlier revisions also let the Partner keyword's un-partnered penalty (§18.15) and other cards' abilities flip a Character. Both are retired.

Non-Character permanents may flip to Fallen faces when specified by card text (e.g. a Device with a Fallen Weapon Tech state); that is unchanged.

Fall is also used as a verb on cards. "Fall the Bound" means flip the bound Character to its Fallen face (§8.11).

Label a face 'Fallen' only where it is genuinely a corrupted, awakened or degraded state. An upgrade, an iteration or a neutral alternate form should not carry the label. (Fallen faces no longer count toward any Lose condition; the five-permanent condition is retired, §16.)

A Character's Fallen face is the other side of their story, not a uniform 'controller-unfavorable' state. Some Fallen faces are darker and mechanically stronger (corruption arcs); others are weaker and more sympathetic (humility or redemption arcs). Each Fallen face has its own printed Drives, Morality, Penalties block, abilities, starting CP, Rank, and combat stats.

For non-Character permanents, the Fallen face has its own printed stats and abilities as appropriate to its type. The thematic naming on the type line ('Fallen Cosmic Event,' 'Fallen Weapon Tech,' 'Fallen Soldier') is flavor.

7.8 Redemption (Flip-Back)#

Every Fallen Character face prints exactly one exit clause, which says how that Character's arc can end:

Redeem (§18.20) — the person is still in there. They return to their Prime face.
Selfless Sacrifice (§18.20a) — the person is gone but their values are not. They go out well, and are destroyed.
Conviction (§18.20b) — they cannot go back and would not. They finish what the new self started, and remain Fallen.

All three resolve the same way: through the Reversal face of the Storyline the Character is bound to (§8.11). A Fallen Character outside a Storyline has no way to spend their clause.

Combat or Liberation on a Fallen permanent does NOT flip them back to Prime face, and nothing but the clause above returns a Fallen Character to Prime.

For non-Character permanents, a Fallen face may print a Redeem clause of its own with a cost rather than a Storyline condition; those are unaffected by the above.

7.9 Rank#

Rank is a card's resistance to Liberation — the number of Liberation counters needed to destroy it. It also represents standing/importance/scale and is referenced by Maneuver targeting, Acquisition, and card text.

Rank is NOT a measure of ability to conduct Liberation. Rank is a target value only.

Rank appears on: Homeworlds, Planetary Locations, Surface Locations, Spacecraft, Characters, Ground Units. Any permanent with printed Rank is a legal Liberation target unless an ability says otherwise (Indoctrinated, Fortified).

RANK X (CHARACTERS) Characters print "Rank: X", not a numeric Rank. X denotes that Liberation counters directed at a Character are NOT accumulated — they convert immediately to CP loss. One Liberation counter removes 1 CP. Counters never remain on a Character.

A Character is never destroyed by counter accumulation. It is destroyed when CP reaches zero, by the ordinary §7.3 rule — placed in the Depleted Pile, whichever face it is showing.

A bonus to a Character's Rank (+N RK) cancels N of the Liberation counters that would be placed on it in each Liberation, and a penalty (−N RK) adds N (§7.5, §12.6).

Thematically: Liberation wears a Character down until there is nothing left of them to argue with. It does not convert them. Conversion is what a Storyline does (§7.7), and it is the only thing that does.

RANK BANDS (guidance, not rules)

Character X (always) Ground Unit 1–3 Surface Location 2–4 Spacecraft 3–10 (own scale, per §4.5) Planetary Location 4–6 Homeworld 6

The former Character band (0–2) and Ground Unit cap (1) are RETIRED. Rank no longer carries Liberation offense, so Ground Unit Rank is set on durability grounds alone.

7.9a VOX

VOX is a permanent's capacity to project or resist ideas. It is the sole statistic used to conduct AND to contest Liberation.

Printed on CHARACTERS AND GROUND UNITS ONLY. Abbreviated VOX on cards.

There is no separate offensive and defensive value. A card's Vox is used identically whether liberating or defending. A Character's Vox is how loudly they can speak, in either direction.

Vox is not generated automatically. It enters the Resource Pool only when its bearer is Activated during a Liberation, and is lost at end of phase like any other Resource Pool contents.

VOX BANDS (guidance):

Ground Unit 0–1 Character 0–2, rarely 3–4 (great agitators, missionaries, envoys, demagogues)

VOX SCARCITY IS THE PRIMARY BALANCE DIAL. Attacker Vox minus defender Vox is throughput no allocation can stop. Vox 2 = strong Character. Vox 3 = rare. Vox 4 = signature card.

7.10 Other Stats#

Characters also have Attack values for combat. Some Characters have one or more Votes. Each Character has a Currency cost to deploy from hand.

7.11 Deployment and Movement#

When a Character is deployed from hand, they are placed at a Planetary Location or a Capital Ship the controller controls (§10.5). A Character deployed to a Capital Ship enters the Map activated. Characters reach Surface Locations and other permanents by movement (§14), not by deployment.