War Patterns & Casting Styles

Each bear has been around the block by now. Over the course of months, years, decades, or centuries they have learned how to survive their environment. This is represented through their abilities from the material world, known as their War Pattern, and their abilities from their arcane origins, known as their Casting Style. The descriptions of War Patterns and Casting Styles are meant to be suggestions or purposefully vague in style, as bears have all learned their own spins and styles on common abilities.

Creating a Character

When making a new character, they start with any one of the three War Patterns and any one of the three Casting Styles. Each will give access to unique abilities. When taking a War Pattern or Casting Style, note down their stat (STR, SKL, or DEX for War Patterns, and BRV, SAN, or ABS for Casting Styles) for later. Additionally, your character will immediately gain the first ability, marked with a level 0 requirement. After that, they gain one of the three level 1 abilities. Your character gets a level 1 from both their Casting Style and their War Pattern.

Leveling Up a Character

When your character levels up, they can choose to take one new ability from their War Pattern and Casting Style. They must meet the level requirement, and have the required other abilities, but other than that there are no restrictions. A character may take abilities lower than their level, for instance. Alternatively, they may choose to not gain an ability in their War Pattern or Casting Style to Multi-Pattern or Multi-Style instead.

Multi-Patterns & Multi-Styles

During a level up, a character may take the level 0 ability of a new War Pattern or Casting Style. If they gain a new level 0 War Pattern ability, they cannot get any other War Pattern ability until they level up again. During their future level ups, they will have access to both War Pattern or Casting Style tables, and a new table unique for each combination of 2 Casting Styles or 2 War Patterns. These hybrid tables will list which War Patterns or Casting Styles are required to use them. When leveling up, your character can gain one ability, but may choose from all 3 respective tables. This may only be done once. You cannot have both a Multi-Pattern and a Multi-Style.

Reading War Patterns & Casting Styles

Each of the War Patterns and Casting Styles are represented in their chapters as large tables of abilities. Each row represents a single ability one can take when creating or leveling up their bear. These can have some nuances to how they read, so reference this section if you're confused.

Prereq

All abilities require the character be at, or above, a specific level in order to take it. Some abilities will also list another ability that has appeared above it in the table. This means that taking that ability requires the ability higher up.

Type

This is the style of usage the ability has. Actions are things the character can do, reactions are things your character can do in specific situations, and passives are things that your character is always doing.

Cost

The cost that the ability has in time-stressed events, either in Stamina Points (SP) or Arcane Points (AP). Casting Styles may also show a negative cost for passive spells. This means those passives subtract that much AP from your characters max AP. Passives with an AP cost like this can be deactivated at will whenever the caster wishes to gain their max AP back, but passives can only be activated again when resting near a source of Arcana (usually an Outpost or Campfire Kits).