Self Empowerment: Divine Chronicle

The character has, as part of their history or background, discovered their own path to power and documented their journey. This relies on some deeply innate understanding and affinity to the related aptitude. Guided paths to power are usually more efficient and safe, but may not be available due to regional, cultural, or setting limitations. Self empowerment may afford unique opportunities to customize the features of the character, for it typically represents a very unorthodox learning experience. This may lead to interesting options the Player and Game Master can work out as part of the character history.

Requirements: Divine Aptitude; The chronicle should be detailed as part of the character story. The Chronicle itself is a literary work of the characters discovery and journey into their starting point, creating both a Primer, a personal Handbook, and a Treatise of work. It will note all the potential insights and tweaks that may provide benefits for the character to be able to reference and build on. All Chronicle stories, unless noted, increase the character’s starting age by 10% (note this may place them in the Hardened condition). If the GM allows, this may simply grant them the Hardened condition due to the nature of the process. A Chronicle may be a combination of literary and vision records. Vision records are in-depth visions and visualizations that are recalled with time spent in Meditation instead of time spent in study.

Benefits: The character may begin play with a few unique insights into the operations of features and powers of the related aptitude.

Divine practitioners most often use Adjuration (petitioning) for spells and Inscription (scrolls) Methodologies to make scribed magics. Scribed materials are accomplished in Celestine Script, and require literacy. Others are imprinted using a mix of art mediums, Runic symbols, and visual images (ornamental and abstract images, figures, shapes and colors). The latter are meant to be triggered upon glimpsing the entirety of the Inscription work and require no literacy.

D20 Divine Chronicle Mechanics

Test: At the time of character creation, the character recording their chronicle records all of their practical and theoretical tests they put their knowledge through. Some of them may lead to Personal Insights, in which a power related to that which they are studying becomes harder to resist. The character makes a DC 10 Wisdom (Insight) check a number of times equal to their Proficiency Bonus and either Intelligence or Sanity (whichever is higher) – to a maximum of their related aptitude if they are not a Natural Talent in it.

Benefit: For each success, the character chooses one of their starting powers and gains a +1 to their related class’s Spell Save DC when using that power. These powers must be in their list of actual starting powers.

It is generally assumed that the character spends a certain portion of their time in continued contemplation to keep these benefits. If a chronicle is lost somehow, it can be re-created assuming the character has the skills and at least average Intelligence and Sanity. They must work on it steadily for an entire Long Rest and a cost equal to the Cost Portion multiplied by the highest level of spell they could cast (they will tweak the insights from their experience).

Incarna Core Divine Chronicle Mechanics

Test: At the time of character creation, the character recording their chronicle records all of their practical and theoretical tests they put their knowledge through. Some of them may lead to Personal Insights, in which a power related to that which they are studying becomes harder to resist.

Benefit: