Hands don’t come from nowhere – you had a life before all this. You existed in a complicated web of loved ones, antagonists, and acquaintances. BONDS are intended to reflect those relationships.
There are two types of Bonds: primary and secondary. The only thing that differentiates the two is that your Primary Bond will be roleplayed by another player in the group – they will take their place when it comes to conversations instead of the GM. This should be your most important Bond; one that you consider your deepest or most critical connection. This doesn’t have to be a friend; if you want your Primary Bond to be an enemy you can goad into doing something, go ahead.
Your Primary Bond is determined at character creation – your character will always have at least this Bond.
CREATING A PRIMARY BOND
When designing your Primary Bond in character creation, this should be a collaboration between yourself and the player who will be roleplaying as that Bond. It should be fun for both of you to interact, so while you will come up with the essentials about the Bond, the player representing them can help shape their personality and the nature of assistance they provide.
- WHAT IS THEIR NAME?
- HOW DO YOU KNOW THEM?
- WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIP DO YOU HAVE?
- WHAT DOES A TYPICAL INTERACTION WITH THEM LOOK LIKE?
- WHAT IS THEIR SKILL?
- WHO WILL ROLEPLAY THEM?
Every player should have one Primary Bond they’re roleplaying as. Ideally, it will be an even split.
USING BONDS
Once per Mission, you may call on an individual Bond – whether that’s in-person or remotely – and apply the number of dots you have in that Bond to a relevant Skill roll. Whether or not the roll succeeds, the Bond is used for that Mission.
You may use more than one Bond as a bonus to a roll as long as you have multiple Bonds with the same Skill bonus.
EXAMPLE
Nedyish is stuck; while they’ve successfully infiltrated the opponent’s camp, the guard roster changed and they don’t know how to get out. They send a quick request for help to their old mentor, Behnen, via linkstone. Nedyish’s player has invested four points into Behnen, so after some brief, tense roleplaying, Nedyish can add four dice to their next STEALTH skill roll.
TEMPORARY BONDS
Your GM may also give your team a TEMPORARY BOND: a one-time use Bond representing a favour or debt owed by an NPC. The GM will also tell you how many points this temporary Bond is worth. Please note: each team member can use the temporary Bond once; just because someone else used it first doesn’t mean your character would lose that Bond. Temporary Bonds cannot be leveled up, but if you wish, you may select a previous temporary Bond to develop into a permanent one – just note that this Bond would start at one point like any other.
LEVELING UP BONDS
Secondary Bonds are developed through gameplay and successfully completing MISSIONS. Every time your character LEVELS UP, you gain a point you can assign to an existing Bond or create a new one.
The Skill for your Bond cannot change, so you will have to create new Bonds if you want a different Skill bonus for your Bonds.