Attributes represent the natural endowments of characters--for example, how strong, fast, or smart they are. They do not indicate skill at any particular task, but rather the general ability to perform a general type of task.
Attribute scores generally have a lower bound of zero and no strict upper bound--that is, there is no specific limit to how high they can become, but it becomes increasingly hard to raise them (either during character generation or during gameplay) the higher they are. A score of zero represents no ability whatsoever, and a score of one hundred is typical of a professional (for example, professional soldiers would typically have a strength of about 100, but would usually have lower scores on attributes not related to their profession). There are a few exceptions to this (such as vitality).
Additionally, not all characters possess all attributes, because most attributes are tied to a specific dimension of the game. Completely nonphysical characters will not have physical attributes, for example. There is also a set of general attributes, however, which are independent of any particular dimension and are possessed by all characters.
Alphabetical Listing of All Primary Attributes:
Aegis (metaphysical)
Agility (physical)
Awareness (psionic)
Charisma (psychological)
Cohesion (metaphysical)
Concentration (psionic)
Confidence (psychological)
Constitution (general)
Creativity (psionic)
Dexterity (physical)
Discipline (raveling)
Discordance (dracological)
Endurance (general)
Energy (magical)
Essence (dracological)
Faith (metaphysical)
Force (metaphysical)
Gift (magical)
Insight (raveling)
Intelligence (general)
Integrity (dracological)
Ixtiryn (see Discordance)
Judgment (raveling)
Kuoq (see Integrity)Learn (general)
Logic (psychological)
Luck (general)
Memory (raveling)
Might (dracological)
Permeativity (alchemical)
Permutability (metaphysical)
Persistence (magical)
Purity (alchemical)
Reflexes (general)
Resilience (physical)
Spirit (metaphysical)
Stamina (physical)
Strength (physical)
Tolerance (alchemical)
Transmutability (metaphysical)
Veltah (see Might)
Vigor (necromantic)
Vim (dracological)
Vitality (necromantic)
Willpower (psionic)
Zeal (psychological)
Ziy (see Essence)
Constitution ~
Constitution is a general measure of the character's health and resistance to all kinds of damage. Constitution comes into play whenever the character is hurt or pushing his body beyond its normal range of operation.
Note that other attributes help perform similar functions within specific game dimensions:
Dimension Physical Metaphysical Psychological Alchemical Necromantic Magical Health Attribute(s) Resilience Cohesion
& FaithConfidence Tolerance Vitality Persistence Endurance ~
Endurance is a general measure of the character's level of energy and ability to perform at a high level for an extended period. High endurance allows someone to run, fight, or engage in any demanding activity for a long time.
Note that other attributes help perform similar functions within specific game dimensions:
Dimension Physical Metaphysical Psychological Dracology Necromantic Magical Endurance Attribute Stamina Spirit Zeal Vim Vigor Energy Reflexes ~
Reflexes allow a character to react quickly to his surroundings. Reflexes are important for parrying blows, taking advantage of sudden opportunities, and recovering from mistakes.
Intelligence ~
Intelligence is a general measure of intellectual prowess. Intelligence is used for solving puzzles and considering things in the abstract. Tasks that involve direct manipulation of information, such as mathematics, typically rely on intelligence.
Learn ~
Learn is a measure of the character's ability to adapt to new situations and learn new skills. The higher the character's learn attribute, the faster he can learn or refine skills, memorize information, etc.
Luck ~
Luck is a measure of how fortunate the character is. Very few tasks rely primarily on luck (although a few do), but luck has a subtle influence on almost everything the character does.
For additional information, see the section on Luck.
Resilience ~
Resilience is a measure of the character's general physical sturdiness and ability to recover from injury. A character with high resilience can sustain more physical damage before being rendered unconscious and heals more quickly.
See also: Constitution
Stamina ~
Stamina is the ability to perform physically strenuous actions over a sustained interval. High stamina equates roughly to high physical energy; characters with high stamina can run long distances, hold heavy objects for a long time, and do other things requiring ongoing physical performance.
See also: Endurance
Strength ~
Strength is a measure of the character's ability to exert great force. Characters with high strength can life heavy objects, push hard, and perform demanding physical labor.
Dexterity ~
Dexterity equates to fine motor control and hand-eye coordination. Dexterous characters can perform delicate operations with their hands, from aiming a bow to sculpting to picking pockets.
Agility ~
Agile characters have good control over the motions of their bodies as a whole, and are good at things like leaping and dodging. High agility is useful for any activity requiring fast and precise movements, from dancing to fighting.
Cohesion ~
Unlike physical bodies, spirits tend to be more or less uniform, with no critical points to be defended or attacked. However, spirits can be dispelled if they are dispersed too thinly. Cohesion is the ability of a spirit to "stay in one piece," as it were. High cohesion allows the spirit to remain in tact when undergoing stresses that might otherwise tear it apart.
See also: Constitution
Faith ~
Metaphysical laws are not as rigid as physical laws, and spirits are not as distinct from one another as bodies. Because of this, what is presently part of one spirit can become part of another. Faith is the confidence of the component parts of a spirit in their common unity of being, intent, and purpose. High faith helps ensure that that the spirit is not assimilated by a stronger, more purposeful spirit.
See also: Constitution
Spirit ~
Spirit is a measure of a character's metaphysical endurance. High spirit allows a character to perform metaphysically demanding actions over a longer period of time.
See also: Endurance
Force ~
High force allows a character to put more power behind his metaphysical actions. Force makes all the metaphysical impulses of a character more difficult to resist. Analogous to strength.
Permutability ~
Permutability is the ability to diffuse one's spirit over a large area. This is useful for observing or occupying larger areas. This technique can also be used for concealment, because by making the spirit more diffuse, it more easily blends in to background objects. Creatures with both physical and metaphysical components can make themselves physically harder to see by diffuse their spirits as well.
However, such diffusion is somewhat dangerous, and makes the spirit more susceptible to being broken or dispelled. In addition to having high permutability, having high cohesion is very useful when diffusing oneself.
Transmutability ~
Transmutability is the ability to modify metaphysical form quickly and efficiently. High transmutability enables a sort of metaphysical "shape shifting," and also a greater degree of metaphysical agility.
Aegis ~
Aegis is a form of protection and reinforcement that comes from aligning oneself with other spirits. Through cooperative efforts, spirits can enhance their strong points and make their weaknesses less accessible. Characters with high aegis can take advantage of this type of protection more extensively than others.
Confidence ~
Confidence is a measure of a character's conviction that his own beliefs about the world are accurate. Confidence allows him to maintain his beliefs in the face of adversity, and to continue to have faith in a minimal level of order and predictability in the universe. Someone with no confidence at all loses the ability to act, because he has no idea what effect his actions will have.
One of the primary functions of high confidence is to overcome fear. In this way, confidence is very similar to courage.
See also: Constitution
Zeal ~
Zeal is the excitement or striving that a character can put into his actions. High zeal helps to prevent emotional exhaustion, and allows someone to infuse more emotion into the actions they take over a longer period of time.
See also: Endurance
Charisma ~
Charisma indicates a character's attractiveness and ability to be convincing. High charisma is important in leaders, and gives more control over the emotions one invokes in others.
Logic ~
Logic represents a character's tendency to see through the slant put on a topic in a presentation and see things from a more neutral point of view. Characters with high logic tend to be more realistic. They are easier to convince of things firmly grounded in reality and reason, and much harder to convince of unlikely or irrational beliefs.
Logic is a much more effective defense against emotional attacks ungrounded in reason than confidence, but has the down side that high logic prevents a character from becoming excited and enthusiastic when the situation does not warrant it, even if these emotions are in his own best interests.
Willpower ~
Willpower indicates the force a character can put behind psionic actions. High willpower makes it easier to control memes which might otherwise escape your will. It is also sometimes possible to override memes through sheer force of will, destroying them or converting them to other thoughts.
Awareness ~
Awareness represents the link between a character's conscious and subconscious that allows him to draw on information of which he is not consciously aware. High intuition helps detect psionic intrusions into your mind, and also aids in the analysis of the abilities, consciousness, and probable actions of memes.
Creativity ~
Creativity is a measure of a character's mental versatility. High creativity enables a character to quickly develop solutions for unforeseen problems, and aids in the construction of more complex, unusual, and often counter-intuitive memes.
Concentration ~
Concentration is a measure of a character's mental discipline. High concentration enables a character to focus more intently on a single activity for a longer time, and thus devote more energy to it. High concentration also allows a character greater control over the use of his mental energy, so that he can direct it more precisely to constructing memes, controlling memes, launching direct psionic bursts of willpower, etc.
Tolerance ~
Tolerance is the ability of a character to withstand more sudden or drastic changes in his alchemical makeup. High tolerance allows a character to endure more extreme alchemical conditions, as well as more general mixing of elements.
See also: Constitution
Permeativity ~
Permeativity is a measure of a character's ability to permeate his elements into the surrounding environment. High permeativity allows a projection of a character's own elements onto other objects and beings, and generally a greater use of elemental energy outside his own body.
Purity ~
Purity indicates the tendency of the elements in a character's makeup to remain separate and self-contained rather than mixing. This is particularly important for beings who have combinations of opposing elements in their makeup. Higher purity tends to relieve stress on a character's tolerance, allow elemental activities with purer elemental alignments, and help maintain resistances against influxes of new elements. However, high purity makes it more difficult to make use of bizarre combinations of opposing elements, which is occasionally (though rarely) useful.
See also: Secondary Attributes: Elemental Makeup
Judgment ~
Characters with high judgment are more likely to try to draw conclusions and inferences from what they perceive around them, rather than simply ignoring it. High judgment increases a character's tendency to form ravels connecting himself to others.
Insight ~
Insight indicates a character's ability to see what lies beneath appearances and gain a deeper understanding of what is around him. High insight causes a character to form more complex and unusual ravels connecting himself to others, and also increases awareness and understanding of ravels.
Memory ~
Memory is a measure of a character's ability to hold information in his mind for a long time, especially when not actively using it. High memory causes a character's ravels to remain strong and firmly connected for a longer stretch of time when the person to whom they connect is not present.
Discipline ~
Discipline is a character's ability to control his own reactions to his surroundings, and to control his appearance to others around him. High discipline grants greater control over the ravels a character encounters, especially the ones which he is directly connected to.
Vim ~
Vim is a measure of the dracological energy that a character possesses. High vim allows a character to continue dracologically strenuous activities for a long period of time.
See also: Endurance
Might ~
"Veltah" in the Dragons' Tongue Might is a measure of the force a character can add to his actions through the use of dracological reinforcement. Dragoons make use of might to increase their effective strength in battle.
Integrity ~
"Kuoq" in the Dragons' Tongue Integrity represents the character's ability to emphasize the separation between self and other, increasing the solidarity of self and blocking out intrusion. High integrity can increase the effective "hardness" of armor, and is also useful for general types of protection, isolation, and secrecy.
Discordance ~
"Ixtiryn" in the Dragons' Tongue Discordance is a measure of a character's natural dissonance and opposition to the natural order. High discordance allows a character to weaken the hold of natural laws on himself, drawing himself further into the dracological dimension and further out of the others. This can be used, for example, to weaken the pull of gravity, and it is through this ability that dragons can fly.
Essence ~
"Ziy" in the Dragons' Tongue Essence is the internal dracological energy of a character. Dragons are known for exhaling this energy in the form of fire (or something like it). Essence can be used for a variety of purposes, but can only leave the body through a natural opening or a wound.
See also: Secondary Attributes: Dracological Alignment
Vitality ~
Vitality is a measure of a character's lifeblood. Normal, live characters have 100 vitality (which is a maximum), indicating that they are entirely alive. This also means that they are immune to the direct effects of necromancy, and unable to use necromancy themselves. Vitality can decrease when a character sustains serious injury or illness, or when certain other things happen to him. As vitality decreases, the character becomes more susceptible to undead and necromantic influences, and also gains a greater ability to use necromancy. When (and only when) the character passes through the ninth gate of death does vitality ever reach zero, but as vitality decreases, their foothold in life slips.
Note that vitality, unlike other attributes, is capped at 100.
See also: Constitution
Vigor ~
Vigor is a measure of the potency of a character's vitality, and represents how firmly that vitality is tied to the character. Characters with low vigor are more susceptible to the currents that run through Death, and will find it more difficult to move from Death into life, and more difficult to remain in life once there.
Vigor and vitality tend to seek each other. Having high vitality for a prolonged period tends to raise your vigor, while having low vitality for a long period tends to lower your vigor. Similarly, having high vigor for a time tends to raise your vitality, and having low vigor for a time tends to lower your vitality.
Undead creatures tend to have permanently low vigor, and so need to prey on the living, consuming their vitality to keep themselves out of Death. Living necromancers tend to have low vitality, so that they can maintain their powers, but high vigor, so that they can move more easily through Death.
See also: Endurance
Persistence ~
Persistence is the tendency of a character to "stick" in the ether. High persistence gives a greater control over ethereal movements, and makes it more difficult for others to expel you from the ether, force your movements through control of the ether, or blot you out of the ether. High persistence also leaves an impression in the ether of the character's movements (and especially their magical/wizardous actions) that can be detected by others.
See also: Constitution
Energy ~
Energy is a measure of the character's ability to take actions in the ether without tiring. Characters with high energy can perform more magic or wizardry without tiring, and can also travel farther and faster through the ether.
See also: Endurance
Gift ~
Gift is the amount of ethereal force a character can put behind their wishes, and corresponds to the amount of force they can exert through the ether. Characters with high Gift are called Magi. Characters with less Gift who try to manipulate the ether through careful planning and calculation without using much force are called wizards.