Prestige

Prestige measures how a character is seen by the world, shaped by their actions, decisions, achievements, and failures throughout their journey. It influences their identity, reputation, and ultimately their legacy, affecting how NPCs, creatures, and even other Players respond to them.

Developing Prestige

Prestige begins with a character's appearance, background, and reputation, and evolves through feats, downfalls, choices, and interactions.

Standing & Mission Statement

A character's relationship with factions and NPCs is measured through Standing. A character's Mission Statement ties them to specific factions and NPCs who have a stake in whether it succeeds or fails. How a character pursues (or neglects) their Mission Statement directly affects their Standing with the factions and NPCs connected to it. A character's accumulated Boasted and Exposed Titles also influence how factions perceive them and adjust Standing accordingly. Standing is the primary measure of a character's reputation and faction relationships in the game world, and it can shift with every significant action, achievement, or failure. Standing is tracked separately for each faction and NPC (see Standing Tiers, below).

Titles

Characters earn titles for notable actions, achievements, or infamous deeds. Heroic and Villainous titles are tracked, each with a value that impacts how the world reacts to them. Only one Hero and one Villain title can be highlighted at a time, affecting their recognition and appearance.

Boasted Titles: Boasted titles are prestigious honors earned through Heroic deeds, like achievements and feats, or distinguished actions, which Players may display in their Hero slot to showcase their character's valor and reputation to others.

Shamed Titles: Shamed titles are given to the characters at the GM's will and creation, or by a series of titles the GM may choose from. Shamed titles are always Exposed in the Shamed slot, but they can dissipate over time as the Character performs good deeds. On the other hand, these titles become more difficult to remove if the Character continues bad deeds. There is no unlocking Shamed titles, and the Shamed Title Exposed, is replaced by other Shamed titles that are of a lower negative integer value. Not all NPCs will forget a character's bad deeds, and depending on the LVL of these deeds, they'll have to constantly watch their back.

Titles by Rule Set. Titles do not exist at Bare Bones. At Modular, whether the GM tells a Character their Shamed Title is the table's choice, decided before the campaign begins. At Complex, the GM does not tell them. The Title is Exposed to the world, not to the Character; they learn it the way anyone learns what is said about them, from how the world treats them.

Titles are integrated tools to help campaigns remember their deeds, both good and bad. There are archives, journals and other places where this information is kept.

Reputation

A character's ongoing actions build their reputation, leading to bonuses, penalties, and unique interactions. Both good and bad reputations matter, and unwitnessed deeds may become rumors. Reputation is directly tied to a character's standing with factions and NPCs, boasted titles recognized by a faction can raise standing over time, while shamed or exposed titles can lower it. Depending on the severity of a deed, standing may drop to Disliked or Hated regardless of prior history. Factions talk, and a standing drop with one may ripple into others.

Affiliation

Affiliation is formal membership in a faction that a character joins. This comes with deeper access, obligations, and consequences. Affiliation is a choice and a commitment, benefits come with expectations, and betrayal has weight. Standing with an affiliated faction is still tracked separately, so a member can still fall from Respected to Disliked if their actions warrant it.

Non-Player Character Disposition

NPCs interact with characters based on their Standing relative to the Character, their race, and their faction. Some Standings are set by default: Orcus and Dwarves are enemies by nature, Dwarves and Elves carry a long-standing dislike, and Blood Draco and Humans share a natural affinity. These defaults can shift through Player actions, quests, and story events, but they are the baseline. Disposition is tracked on NPC Encounter Cards and noted by the GM.

Standing Tiers

Each tier carries a value, used wherever a rule needs Standing as a number: Exalted +4, Cherished +3, Adored +2, Respected +1, Neutral 0, Tolerable −1, Disliked −2, Hated −3. A Character's Standing LVL with any faction or NPC is that value.

Exalted: The deepest trust an NPC or faction can have in a character. Reached only through a Bond Quest, available once Cherished standing is achieved. Through the Bond Quest, the NPC's history, loyalties, and secrets unfold as the relationship deepens. At Exalted, the NPC acts in the Character's interest even at personal cost, beyond what faction loyalty or standing would normally allow.

Cherished and Adored, Gifting: Characters at Cherished or Adored standing may receive unsolicited gifts from factions and NPCs, items, resources, information, or safe passage, rolled daily with a cap of 1d4 per day depending on standing LVL. Cherished characters roll at the highest frequency and quality, Adored at a reduced frequency and quality. At Cherished, a Bond Quest becomes available, completing it opens the path to Exalted. Boasted titles recognized by the faction increase gift quality by one tier. Gifting works both ways, characters may gift factions and NPCs, contributing to standing over time. See Gifting Chart.

Respected: Factions and NPCs at this standing are cooperative, offer fair trade, and will provide aid when asked. No automatic gifts but access to faction resources and quests is open.

Neutral: Standard interaction. No bonuses, no penalties. The faction or NPC is indifferent to the Character.

Tolerable: The faction or NPC deals with the Character but offers no favors. Access to some resources may be restricted. Prices may increase at vendors aligned with this faction.

Disliked, Sabotage: Characters at Disliked standing are actively worked against, and factions and NPCs at Disliked standing with the Character may be sabotaged in return. Shamed or exposed titles known to the faction accelerate sabotage frequency and severity. The faction or NPC will feed false information, block access to resources, vendors, or locations they control, tip off enemies to the Character's whereabouts, plans, or exposed titles, refuse quests, services, or aid, and spread reputation damage to neutral factions. Characters may respond in kind using the same methods available to them.

Hated, Killed on Sight: No interaction. Any member of that faction or NPC attacks immediately on sight, no negotiation, no exceptions, unless the GM rules otherwise for story purposes. Boasted titles carry no weight at this standing. Exposed titles may be announced publicly upon the Character's death. This applies both ways, a character who has reached Hated standing with a faction is also free to treat that faction accordingly.

Standing

Standing is not earned alone. Past the tiers above, a Character holds Standing across seven separate categories, and each carries its own Standing and its own Contributions, tracked apart. A Character may stand Exalted in one and Hated in another.

Family: The Character's own kin. Each member carries their own Character Sheet and stats. A Family member who passes or is lost remains part of the record. Family is recorded separately from Home: a Home is a place, a Family is people, and Wanderers with no Home at all still keep a Family.

Affiliations: Formal faction membership, carrying its own access, obligations, and consequences. A Family can be held to account for what one of its members does.

Companions: Pets, Guardians, mounts, pack animals, and Fellowships bound to the Character. A Companion's Standing with its Character is recorded as Mood.

Campaign: The people the Character has partied with. Standing won at one table follows the Character to the next.

Fellows: The Character's Fellows, the friends on their list and the parties they ride with regularly. Standing earned together, by Fellows who party often and by neighbours who share a plot, is tracked here.

Neighbours: Those whose plot or Home shares, or borders, the Character's own coordinates. Neighbours accrue Standing through proximity and shared sessions whether or not the Character seeks it.

Wellness: The Character's Standing with themselves. Wellness is the one category whose Contributions are self-directed, rest, diet, activity, and Practitioner care, and it is the only one a Character can neglect without another party noticing first. It runs on its own scale described under Wellness, pg. 2, and feeds the rest: a Character too far gone to look after themselves rarely holds Standing well anywhere else.

Contributions are what the Character has given to a category, time, Coin, labour, and their own reputation. Standing and Contributions move together but are recorded apart: a Character may contribute heavily and still hold poor Standing, or hold high Standing on a name earned long ago.

Refer to your Journal booklet, or the Online Journal in your Space, for the full record. Standing and Contributions are displayed under the Standing tab of a Character's Space, and may be shown or hidden by category at the Player's discretion. The Home itself, its rooms, land, and Trophy Room, is displayed separately.

Praise & Blowback

Standing does not stop at the person who holds it. Every NPC and faction has friends and enemies of their own, and a Character's Standing with one ripples outward into both.

Praise is what a Character receives from the friends and allies of those they hold good Standing with. It arrives unasked. A Character who has never met a faction may find themselves already welcome there because of who speaks well of them.

Blowback is what a Character receives from the enemies of those they hold Standing with. It also arrives unasked, and it does not care whether the Character wanted the association. Rising with one faction is, by itself, a way of falling with its rivals.

The ripple: when a Character's Standing with a target moves, every party the GM has marked as that target's ally moves the same direction by half the tiers moved, rounded down, minimum 1. Every party marked as their enemy moves the opposite direction by the same amount. Parties marked neutral do not move. A Character who climbs two tiers with a faction therefore gains one tier with its allies and loses one with its rivals, without having met either.

Praise and Blowback are the reason Standing cannot be farmed in isolation. There is no neutral gain: every tier climbed with one party is a tier risked with another. The GM tracks which factions and NPCs regard each other as friend or enemy, and applies the ripple whenever Standing moves.

Contribution, Neglect & the Mark

Each Standing category carries two lines. The first is Standing itself, Exalted through Hated, which is how the other party regards the Character. The second is Contribution, what the Character puts in, with Neglect as its downward direction; Contribution and Neglect are not separate scores but one line read in opposite directions, ticking on its own the way Wellness does, see Wellness, pg. 2. The two lines move together but are recorded apart, and only the Standing line carries a Mark.

The Neglect floor. Neglect can only carry a Character toward Neutral. It cannot carry them past it. A Character cannot neglect their way to Hated, because absence makes people indifferent, not hostile. To fall below Neutral, into Tolerable, Disliked, or Hated, takes a deliberate act.

The Mark. Alongside a Character's current Standing with any party, record the highest Standing they have ever held with them. This is the Mark, and it never decays. It is not goodwill still owed. It is the measure of how far a Character has fallen, and it is what tells a drifting apart from a betrayal: two Characters may both sit at Neutral, but the one whose Mark reads Exalted was once trusted, and the one whose Mark reads Neutral never was.

Betrayal scales with the Mark. When a party commits a deliberate act against a Character, their Standing does not simply step down a tier, it falls as far below Neutral as their Mark stood above it. A party whose Mark is Adored (+2) lands at Disliked (−2). A party whose Mark is Exalted (+4) lands at Hated, the floor. No betrayal moves a party less than one tier below Neutral, however low their Mark. The higher a party stood, the further the same act carries them, because the wound is measured by the trust it broke and not by the deed alone.

Sealing a Mark. A Mark is never erased. A Bond Quest, the same rite that opens the path to Exalted, may instead be undertaken to seal a Mark: the record stands, but the parties agree it is closed, and the GM stops applying it. Twenty years and a sealed Mark later, a Character may hold Respected Standing with someone who once left them at Hated. Both facts remain true, and both remain on the record.

A Character's Mark, current Standing, and Contribution for each category are recorded in the Journal booklet and the Online Journal.

Legacy

Over time, a character's Prestige creates their lasting legacy, remembered well beyond their life. Become a †legend or die a †pauper, the choice is theirs. †See rank. More on Prestige (link pending). See Mortality, Immortality, and Retirement under Time, pg. 4, for how reaching Legend before retiring turns this legacy into monuments, statues, and songs in the world itself.