Leveling Up
You get an experience point whenever your roll totals six or less, or when a move tells you to. Mark your next experience box.
Whenever you mark the fifth experience box on your playbook, you level up. Erase all five marks and choose an improvement from the list in your playbook. Mark the improvements off as you take them: each can only be selected once.
Then you start collecting experience marks again, until you level up again when you get another five experience points.
When you have leveled up five times, you can start choosing from the advanced improvements list as well (page 120).
End Of Session Experience
At the end of each session, the Keeper will ask the following questions:
- Did we conclude the current mystery?
- Did we save someone from certain death (or worse)?
- Did we learn something new and important about the world?
- Did we learn something new and important about one of the hunters?
If you get one or two “Yes” answers, each hunter marks one experience. If you get three or four, each hunter marks two.
Improvements
There are ten types of improvement. Here are the details:
Get +1 To A Rating (Max +X)
Permanently raise the specified rating. The maximum is a limit: you can only raise the rating to the listed maximum, and no further. If your rating is already at (or above) the listed maximum, then don't select this improvement.
For example, your hunter has Tough+0 and you select an improvement: “+1 Tough (maximum +3).” Increase your Tough rating to Tough +1.
Take Another Move From Your Playbook
Select another one of the moves from your playbook.
Take A Move From Another Playbook
Select a move from any other playbook that's available in your game (whether it's currently in use or not).
This improvement requires a little care. It won't always make sense to take certain moves (especially supernatural ones). Make sure that the new move makes sense for your hunter.
Gain an Ally/Gain a Team
You gain a new ally or a friendly team of people to help you out. You might already know the ally/team, or they might be new to the story.
Allies and teams are defined the same way, even though an ally is individual and a team is several people (usually 2-6). The main difference is that for a team, the motivation describes how they act /as a team/, but the individual members can have their own, different, motivation when they do their own thing.
Pick one of the following types (the “motivation” is the guideline for the Keeper about how they act):
- Ally: subordinate (motivation: to follow your exact instructions)
- Ally: lieutenant (motivation: to execute the spirit of your instructions)
- Ally: friend (motivation: to provide emotional support)
- Ally: bodyguard (motivation: to intercept danger)
- Ally: confidante (motivation: to give you advice and perspective)
- Ally: backup (motivation: to stand with you)
If the ally/team members don't have names yet, pick them now. Decide what their background is too, how they look, and any special skills they bring.
Gain A Haven Like The Expert Has
You get a haven. When you take this, it will tell you how many options you can pick from the list in the Expert playbook.
Decide how you got the haven, and where it is.
Add An Option To Your Haven
Select a new haven option from the list in the Expert playbook. You have added this facility to your haven.
Don't bother taking this improvement if you don't have a haven!
Crooked: Recover a Stash of Money
Like it says, you get a big pile of cash to spend. It's a lot, but not unlimited.
Initiate: Gain Command Of Your Chapter Of The Sect
The Initiate can take this. It means they get promoted to be head of their local chapter. This gives the Initiate access to all the Sect's local facilities and command of the chapter's members.
It doesn't mean you can constantly bring people along to help you on your mysteries — you need to take a team under your command for that.
You can still call on resources from the Sect on a case by case basis, using your usual start-of-the-mystery move, but you can ask for bigger things now. Of course, your new superiors also expect more from you.
Mundane: Erase a Luck Mark
Erase a used Luck mark from your sheet. You have bought some time before Fate comes for you.
Professional: Add Resource Tag / Change Red Tape Tag
If you want to add a new resource tag, pick one from the list in the Agency section of your playbook.
If you want to change a red tape tag, erase the one you don't want and put a new one from the list in its place.
Either of these changes may imply the Agency is altering tactics or objectives, so there might be further consequences because of this.
Spell-Slinger: Take another combat magic pick
Pick a new combat magic option, either a new base or a new extra.
Spooky: Change Some Or All Of Your Dark Side Tags
Erase the old tags and substitute new ones that you want to change to.
You don't get to have any fewer, just change them around.
This implies that you have changed your relationship with your powers in some way.
Advanced Improvements
After a hunter has leveled up five times, they unlock the advanced improvements. That's a list of new improvements you can choose from in addition to the basic improvements. From now on, when you level up choose from either the basic or advanced improvement lists.
Some of the playbooks have special advanced improvements of their own. These are unlocked at the same time (after five level-ups).
+1 to Any Rating (Max +3)
Just like the normal +1 to a specific rating advance, except you can choose whichever you want. +3 is the maximum for any rating — once you're there, you can't improve any further.
Change Your Hunter To A New Type
When you change your type, pick another playbook you wish to change to.
Your ratings and history stay the same.
You may change your name or look, if you want.
For your old moves, check each one and decide (with the Keeper) if it is intrinsic to who you are, or just something you did for a while. If it's intrinsic, keep that move. If not, erase it.
Then add new moves from your new playbook, as if you were creating a new hunter. Finally, you may or may not get the new gear, or keep your old gear, depending what makes sense given the circumstances of your change.
Make A Second Hunter
Create a new hunter to join the team. You can play both hunters at once, or maybe take turns, deciding which of them will come along on a mystery on a case-by-case basis.
Make up the new hunter as normal, except for history. Only pick history for the hunters played by different people — don't tie your own hunters together with history picks.
Retire To Safety
Your hunter retires to a safe place. They no longer actively hunt monsters, and have found a place to live that's safe from old enemies.
Give your hunter to the Keeper to look after from now on. They are safe from the Keeper's threats, and never count as a threat themselves. Your retired hunter might, at your and the Keeper's discretion, count as an ally for the other hunters.
Erase One Used Luck Mark
Erase a used Luck mark from your sheet. You have bought some time before Fate comes for you.
Mark Two Of Your Basic Moves As Advanced
This means you get better at the basic moves.
There's a new result for each advanced move, that applies when you roll a 12 or higher. These 12+ results represent the extraordinary levels of success you can now achieve. See below for details.
Advanced Moves
If you have advanced a basic move, you gain access to an even better result when you roll a 12 or more for the move.
For act under pressure, on a 12+ you rise above the pressure completely. You may choose to either do what you wanted and something extra, or to do what you wanted to absolute perfection (so that people will talk about it for years to come).
For help out, on a 12+ you make the difference. The person you are helping acts as if they just rolled a 12 on their move, regardless of what they actually got.
For kick some ass, on a 12+ you devastate and overawe your enemy. You inflict and suffer harm as normal, and pick one of these enhanced effects:
* You completely hold the advantage. All hunters involved in the fight get +1 forward.
* You suffer no harm at all.
* Your attack inflicts double the normal harm.
* Your attack drives the enemy away in a rout.
For protect someone, on a 12+ you defend them perfectly. Both you and the character you are protecting are unharmed and out of danger. If you were protecting a bystander, they also become your ally (pick a type for them as if you had taken the “gain an ally” improvement on leveling up, see page 119).
For manipulate someone, on a 12+ you absolutely convince them. They do what you want /right now/. For a hunter, they must act under pressure to resist your request. If they do what you ask, they mark one experience and take +1 ongoing while doing what you asked. For a bystander, not only do they do what you want right now, they also become your ally (pick a type for them as if you had taken the “gain an ally” improvement on leveling up, see page 119) for the rest of the mystery (or, if you do enough for them, permanently). Note that allies can be lost, too! If they discover you've manipulated them into acting against their best interests, your new ally may become a threat to you.
For investigate a mystery, on a 12+ you may ask the Keeper any question you want about the mystery, not just the listed ones.
For read a bad situation, on a 12+ you may ask the Keeper any question you want about the situation, not just the listed ones.
For use magic, on a 12+ you are infused with magical power. What you wanted to do happens and the Keeper will offer you some extra benefit on top of that.