Posted February 09, 2024 by Ben K Rosenbloom
NEW BLOOD has been updated with four new Callings! Callings are a really interesting piece of design - they sort of prescribe a character arc, by gating new abilities behind "beats", but I think it's just as correct to think of them as inspirations. A really interesting and enticing beat can help color what you think of the world and your place in it, or make you excited for your character to get stabbed, or otherwise encounter the various tragedies and dangers of the Heart.
I've also seen it said that Callings are the hardest piece of Heart's design to crack - the core 5 cover a lot of ground, and the fictional space for "reasons you would venture into the world's most horrible dungeon" is not huge. So, why would you venture into the world's most horrible dungeon?
The four answers I came up with:
I think they turned out neat! I had a lot of fun writing new lists of beats.
With this update, NEW BLOOD creeps closer to completion! The new ancestry won't be far behind, and the new adventure is still cooking, although it's in much earlier development.