Thoughts on Ka distribution

The Ka characteristic was… complicated. While the US version adapted the rules from the French 1e, the French version continued to revise in subsequent editions.

There was a single Ka characteristic, equivalent to the POW characteristic in standard BRP. However, it had 5 derived characteristics named Ka-elements arranged in a “Pentacle” with specific distributions: Dominant Ka (=Ka), Major Neutral (=Ka×0.8), Minor Neutral (=Ka×0.6), Minor Opposed (=Ka×0.4), and Major Opposed (=Ka×0.2). The French version named this distribution the “Cardinal Balance”.

In the US version the Ka-elements were basically only ever used for Ka vs Ka contests. If the character suffered Ka loss (due to sacrifice, orichalka, ghost wyrm attack, etc), then it was always applied to their Ka stat. In the French version, damage could be applied to individual Ka-elements. For example, damage could be inflicted by traumatic magical experiences and several elemental creatures could drain individual Ka-elements.

The French version also allowed individual Ka-elements to increase under certain circumstances, such as magical augmentation. Typically, the Ka-elements returned to their standard value at a rate of 1 point per week. However, sometimes persistent adjustments could occur as a result of magical augmentation or trauma. These adjustments, temporary or persistent, could have dangerous side effects. This condition was called “dragonization” (draconisation in French); the reason for this seemingly random jargon is that Ka damage was typically inflicted by elemental creatures, which were called “dragon effects” in the French version because they were explicitly linked to the “DraKaOn” (see the Strength chapter in Major Arcana for an approximate explanation). Side effects of dragonization included Ka points splintering off into elemental creatures and even the pentacle’s dissolution! Naturally, Strength distrusted anyone experiencing dragonization while Devil saw it as desirable.

For comparison: the most recent standard BRP rules don’t have effects that drain POW. Instead, some monsters may drain power points.

French 3e simplified and standardized the rules for dragonization. It was taken at character creation as a flaw (blessure “injury” in French). There were three types with three degrees of severity each. The first was “Deformed Pentacle”, which increased major opposed Ka-element, decreased dominant Ka-element, and increased Khaiba total. The second was “Unstable Pentacle”, which inflicted Khaiba points for using Ka-elements so deformed. The third was “Dangerous Pentacle”, which caused Ka to detach from the character’s Pentacle and spawn elemental creatures.

The French 5e discarded simulacrum characteristics and had nephilim use their appropriate Ka-element instead. The Cardinal Balance is retained, too, despite now applying to mundane actions. Likewise, that edition heavily simplified the skills and past lives mechanics into “Epochs of Incarnation” and “Experiences” that served as skills and such. However, there don’t seem to be rules for dragonization anywhere.

The Ex Oculis rules developed independently in the late 2000s, without influence from the French version. It intended to simplify the clunky rules for past lives by giving each past life a set of several skills, as well as perks and flaws. This is similar but not identical to how the French revised it. Unlike the French version, the Cardinal Balance was dropped: the Ka values were still broadly hierarchical (dominant ka > neutral ka > opposed) but there wasn’t a fixed distribution and ka-elements could increase or decrease independently of each other. Trying to adapt dragonization to those rules would require additional effort, I think.

I intend to do something similar with my own system, emphasizing reducing bookkeeping as much as possible. But I also want to adapt dragonization, since I think it’s cool.