Arbiters practice the "deep magic" of souls. While others might conceive of souls as invisible abstractions, Arbiters use a magical ability called ✪ Soulgaze to see souls as clear as day. Their magic is further empowered by the specific ideals they hold.
Against the background laminar flow of the undifferentiated Rephaim, souls appear as collections of distinct whorls and eddies superimposed over the bodies of conscious beings.
A soul’s whorls and eddies are connected in a way that resembles the polyps of some colonial organism from the depths. Some whirl-polyps distend to form long tendrils and antennae—the soul’s intentions— probing the space in front of their bodies before causing those bodies to act. Others form more complex structures within the colony—the soul’s memories and ideals.
Arbiters can do more than just see souls. With careful thoughts and willful pronouncements, Arbiters can project tendrils of their own souls outward—inspiring the souls of allies, or grasping and dominating the souls of their enemies.
Many Arbiters trace their calling back to the Code of the Clay King. This lore tradition records the laws and magical techniques of the Shinarian king Amurah. The term Arbiter itself comes from the title given to Amurah’s magisters who settled disputes in his name.
No matter their background, Arbiters are deeply attuned to their ideals. All Arbiters intuitively “see” ideals as the dynamos of souls.
What does this person seem to want or need?
What’s the overall vibe of the souls in this room?
(with Soulgaze) Does this character’s soul look damaged or otherwise not right?
(with Soulgaze) Is this character in harmony with their ideal(s)?
You start with the ✪ Soulgaze ability and its four spells: 𐎺Penetrating Gaze, 𐎺Abjuring Gaze, 𐎺Withering Gaze, and 𐎺Commune.
You also start with one additional code ability based on an ideal you hold, which grants two additional spells. The ideal code abilities are described in the next sections.
𐎺 Abjuring Gaze | SOULSIGHT 1
As a reaction, inflict compel disadvantage on the character's attack, brace, or maneuver against you. You can always cast this spell after Soulgazing a character, even reactively.𐎺 Penetrating Gaze | SOULSIGHT 1
Gain compel advantage on an attack, brace, or maneuver against the character, which you can take as part of casting this spell.𐎺 Withering Gaze | SOULSIGHT 2
Roll Compel to magically mesmerize, beguile, or dominate the character into dropping their guard. ✦ Success: Inflict -2 guard.⬖ Struggle: Inflict -1 guard.ⓧ Failure: The character rebuffs your magic.𐎺 Commune | SOULSIGHT 4
Roll Compel to magically send a statement, question, belief, or brief memory directly into the character’s soul. If a character shares your combination of ideal(s), you automatically succeed. ✦ Success: The character unambiguously understands or experiences whatever you send them, even if they don’t share a language with you. If they choose, they can respond by magically sending a similar statement, question, belief, or memory into your soul.⬖ Struggle: The character can take -1 spirit to rebuff you.ⓧ Failure: The character rebuffs your magic. A nonhostile character may allow you to succeed—though few would wish to have thoughts and experiences inserted into their own mind without a good reason. As long as you don’t have the Truth ideal, you can use this spell to send a character a false belief or memory. Roll Deceive as a free action after casting the spell to determine if they believe your deception is genuine.When you start the game as an Arbiter, choose one Arbiter code, detailed in the subpages. This code must match one of your ideals.
Each code includes a starting ability, which in turn includes two spells. You cast these spells by expending soulsight generated from Soulgaze.
There are other abilities associated with each ideal you can learn with XP, but you must know the code ability before learning them. If you have a second ideal, you can learn its corresponding code and starting ability with XP—but you only start with one code.
Normally, you can’t learn a code if you don’t have its ideal. But certain abilities offer a path to unlock the code from another ideal, enabling you to learn a broader array of magic without changing your own ideals. Alternatively, all Arbiters can gain one additional ideal by learning the ✪ Idealist ability.
𐎺 Drink Soul | SOULSIGHT 8
Roll Compel to absorb a character’s soul. You can only use this ability if:𐎺 Osmosis | SOULSIGHT 4
Roll Compel to absorb a character’s spirit. The character must not share any of your ideals. Your magic works by pulling spirit from where it’s concentrated in an ideal toward where it’s lacking. If you use this technique on a character who shares one of your ideals, it fails. The magic also fails if the character has no spirit.✦ Success: The character suffers -1 spirit and -2 awareness. You recover +1 spirit. ⬖ Struggle: The foe can take -1 spirit to rebuff your magic.ⓧ Failure: No effect.