The Marked / Ten ways to begin
You still bring it with you.
Choose your starting point
Your archetype shapes your starting skills, equipment, and first Marked Ability. As you play, you can develop new skills and abilities beyond that beginning.
Give the darkness a voice
You turn memories, pain, and unsettling truths into something others can feel. Your work can challenge a comforting lie or give frightened people the strength to continue.
Musician · illustrator · actor · tattoo artist
Your first Marked Ability
Help nearby allies recover from confusion, distraction, or spiritual disruption through an expressive performance.
Key attributes Charisma & Intelligence
Every closed door has a price
You understand the people behind an institution, the promises that bind them, and what they want. You secure access, negotiate agreements, and find help when official channels fail.
Lawyer · organizer · executive · intermediary
Your first Marked Ability
Call on a useful temporary connection or strengthen an existing one for a request. The help may leave you owing a favour.
Key attributes Charisma & Intelligence
Move before fear catches up
Discipline and endurance have taught you to keep going when your body wants to stop. You cross dangerous ground, reach people in trouble, and hold your own when a chase becomes a fight.
Boxer · climber · athlete · wilderness guide
Your first Marked Ability
Gain favour when you sprint, leap, or climb—an edge when a few metres make all the difference.
Key attributes Strength & Constitution
Follow the story they buried
You find witnesses, question convenient explanations, and preserve evidence others want destroyed. Uncovering the truth is only the beginning. You still have to decide whom to tell.
Reporter · documentarian · podcaster · investigator
Your first Marked Ability
Gain favour when you question someone to uncover a specific piece of information.
Key attributes Wisdom & Charisma
Keep someone alive to see dawn
You recognize suffering and act when a life depends on your judgment. Beyond the Veil, a familiar symptom can hide an unfamiliar cause. Your care buys the group time to understand it.
Paramedic · nurse · physician · caregiver
Your first Marked Ability
Identify the true nature of an affliction, including signs of possession or corruption, and gain favour on the next Medicine roll to treat it.
Key attributes Intelligence & Wisdom
Call upon what answers
Through faith, ritual, or a carefully learned discipline, you approach the forces beneath ordinary life. You recognize their presence, protect others from spiritual danger, and invoke powers through the Veil.
Clergy · medium · ritualist · keeper of ancestral rites
Your first Marked Ability
Begin with three power paths and three Whispered powers. Your beliefs shape how those powers take form.
Key attributes Attunement & Wisdom
Find a way in. Leave a way out.
You navigate places and arrangements designed to keep you out. Routines, blind spots, false identities, and underworld contacts are familiar tools. You always prepare an exit.
Burglar · smuggler · forger · undercover operative
Your first Marked Ability
Use crowds, alleys, and urban cover to disappear, evade pursuit, or move unseen.
Key attributes Dexterity & Charisma
Recognize the impossible pattern
You connect evidence with forgotten knowledge. A damaged manuscript, a ritual diagram, or a detail at a crime scene can reveal the question everyone else has missed.
Historian · scientist · archivist · folklore researcher
Your first Marked Ability
Study a clue or supernatural trace and ask the gamemaster a question that yields a truthful, useful lead.
Key attributes Intelligence & Wisdom
Stand where the danger falls
You notice threats and intervene before they reach the people in your care. Training gives you the judgment to assess a tense situation—and the resolve to act when it turns violent.
Detective · soldier · bodyguard · neighbourhood protector
Your first Marked Ability
React when a nearby ally is about to be hit and take the blow in their place.
Key attributes Strength & Dexterity
Hold it together a little longer
You know how things are built, how they fail, and what can still be made useful. In a broken place, your hands can restore the lights, force an escape route, or get everyone home.
Mechanic · electrician · carpenter · maintenance worker
Your first Marked Ability
Restore a broken tool, vehicle, or system for one scene, encounter, or meaningful use. A lasting repair can wait until you survive.
Key attributes Intelligence & Constitution
More than a profession
A childhood that shaped you. A belief that may be tested. A weakness that gets you into trouble. A small object you cannot leave behind.
Build a group with reasons to work together. Your companions’ strengths may be all that keep you alive.
Bring them to the table