Optional paths beyond normal Advancement, available only when your GM allows them.
Advanced Advancements are optional ways for characters to develop beyond normal Advancement.
They are not automatically available in every game. A GM may allow one or two of these options, all of them, or none at all. Ask your GM which Advanced Advancements are available in your game.
The listed prices are suggestions based on the rest of Days of Gold. A GM may raise, lower, or remove a price entirely. They may also require something in the fiction before an advancement becomes available: training with a teacher, completing a story arc, reaching an important character moment, spending enough time pursuing it, or whatever else makes sense.
Advanced Advancements should feel significant. They are opportunities for the GM and player to decide how a character can grow beyond the normal limits of their Class.
You leave behind the life represented by your current Class and take up another.
Lose your old Class Signature, Free Perk, Regional Knowledge, and all Perks belonging to that Class. You then gain the normal starting features of your new Class and may rebuild your purchased Perks using options from the new Class.
Your existing character remains the same person. You keep things that do not come from your old Class, such as your Stats, possessions, Gold, Connections, Reputation, Transformations, and other character history unless the fiction says otherwise.
Changing Class should make sense within the story.
A Lord might abandon a life of comfort and responsibility to personally hunt the villain who destroyed their family, leaving behind their Household, House Account, Guards, and other privileges to take up the life of a Warrior.
Create another full player character.
Yes, this means one player may control two characters. The GM already portrays dozens of people throughout the world; there is nothing inherently wrong with a player having more than one character whose story matters.
Your characters do not have to travel together. In fact, it may be more interesting when they don't.
One character might be away pursuing an important goal while your other negotiates on their behalf. One might adventure alongside another player's character. Their stories may cross occasionally or remain largely separate.
Having additional characters should not give you additional screen time. The GM should divide your normal share of attention between the characters you control. There may be entire sessions where one of your characters never appears.
Gain access to one of the game's Transformations, assuming the fiction allows it.
Transformations are designed to support fantasies such as becoming a vampire, werewolf, lich, or something stranger without simply making that character better than everyone else.
A Transformation changes how you play the character, rather than replacing their Class or functioning as a straightforward power upgrade.
The GM may require the Transformation to actually be acquired through play rather than simply purchased.
Your character's story has reached a satisfying end. Retire them from player-character status and create someone new.
The retired character becomes an NPC controlled by the GM.
Before retirement, discuss what you imagine their new life looking like. Perhaps they settle into a quiet cottage, become mayor of the town they helped build, run a successful business, remain an important ally, or disappear somewhere far away.
Retirement does not make them invincible or freeze their story forever. They still exist in the living world and may change, struggle, succeed, or die like any other NPC. The GM should, however, respect the spirit of the ending you established together.
Your new character gains additional starting Gold equal to:
This allows retirement to function as a form of prestige: ending one character's story gives the next character a meaningful head start.
Limit: 2
You may replace one Perk you have unlocked with a normal Perk from another Class.
Pay the normal cost of the new Perk.
You may gain no more than 2 cross-class Perks this way.
You cannot take another Class's Signature, Free Perk, Regional Knowledge, or other Class-specific starting features through Cross-Training unless something explicitly says otherwise.
This limit exists to preserve Class identity. A character can pick up a few tricks from another way of life without slowly becoming every Class at once.
A character should still never have more than 12 advancement Perks:
1 Class Free Perk + 9 normal Perks + 2 Train a Stat Perks.
Cross-class Perks and optional Transformation Perks occupy normal Perk slots; they do not add slots. A Transformation's automatic Free Perk is an innate feature outside this limit and does not replace your Class Free Perk.
Learn the Regional Knowledge of another Class.
You may learn a number of additional Regional Knowledges equal to the number of player characters in the game minus 2, to a minimum of 0.
Your starting Regional Knowledge does not count against these additional choices.
For example:
In games with two or more player characters, this means a character can ultimately know Regional Knowledges equal to one fewer than the number of player characters in the game.
Regional Knowledge is designed to encourage players to rely on one another. No matter how experienced your character becomes, there should always be at least one area where another character knows the world better than you do.
The GM may require appropriate experience, travel, study, or a teacher before a new Regional Knowledge can be learned.
Each Transformation fundamentally changes what your character is without replacing their Class. Transformations are optional Advanced Advancements and require your GM's approval.
You may have one active Transformation at a time.
When you gain a Transformation:
Moves still apply. Using a Transformation against someone who resists can trigger the normal Moves. A power does not automatically give you an unopposed opportunity to make contact, attack, or feed. Add bonuses and penalties normally; the final roll modifier still cannot exceed +4 unless a rule explicitly says otherwise.
Weakened: A Weakened player character takes −1 ongoing for the stated duration. For NPCs, use the effects described by the ability that Weakens them. Multiple applications of Weakened do not stack. Being Weakened again for 1 day renews that duration. If different sources apply, each ends according to its own condition, and you take only one Weakened penalty while any remains.
You are undead, not a living creature.
When you drink deeply from a living person who is not already Weakened by your feeding, heal 1 Wound. If they survive, they become Weakened for 1 day.
A Weakened player character takes −1 ongoing. A Weakened NPC deals −1 Harm and is physically drained, limiting what they can reasonably accomplish until they recover.
You cannot heal from someone already Weakened.
When you feed, you may also choose to deal 2 Harm ignoring Armor.
You may transform into a cloud of bats, mist, or another fitting vampiric form.
While transformed, you can pass through narrow spaces and move quickly through the air or surrounding environment. You are difficult to physically restrain but cannot attack normally while in this form.
When you establish and maintain eye contact with someone, take +1 ongoing on Moves made directly against or involving them for as long as the gaze remains unbroken.
When you have a few uninterrupted minutes to recover, heal down to 4 Wounds: Wounded, just below Broken.
This can heal you even when you are Broken or Dying. If you already have 4 or fewer Wounds, it does nothing.
When a living person willingly drinks your blood, you may make them your Bloodbound.
You may have only one Bloodbound person at a time. Creating a new Blood Bond ends the previous one.
You always know the direction and approximate distance to your Bloodbound and whether they are healthy, wounded, or in immediate danger.
Each time you would suffer Harm, first apply your Armor and other reductions. If at least 1 Harm remains, you may transfer 1 of that Harm to your living Bloodbound, regardless of distance. They suffer 1 Harm ignoring Armor, and you suffer any remaining Harm. You may do this only once per instance of Harm.
Direct sunlight severely weakens you.
While exposed to direct sunlight, you cannot use the supernatural effects of your Transformation's Free Perk or optional Perks. You can still drink blood to satisfy Hunger, but Blood Drinker does not heal you during this exposure.
Prolonged or dangerous exposure deals 1 Harm ignoring Armor when the fiction calls for it.
You must feed on blood once per session.
If you finish a session without feeding, begin the next session Weakened, taking −1 ongoing, until you drink blood.
You cannot willingly enter a private home unless invited inside by someone who belongs there.
Entering consecrated ground or coming into direct contact with a genuinely holy object deals 1 Harm ignoring Armor.
Remaining exposed for a prolonged period may deal another 1 Harm ignoring Armor when the fiction calls for it.
You may transform between your ordinary form and a monstrous wolf or wolf-like hybrid.
While transformed, your claws deal 3 Harm ignoring Armor. Use your choice of Might or Grace when you Fight with them.
You have 2 Armor in this form and cannot use equipment.
When you have a few uninterrupted minutes to recover, heal down to 4 Wounds: Wounded, just below Broken.
This can heal you even when you are Broken or Dying. If you already have 4 or fewer Wounds, it does nothing.
Wounds caused by silver cannot be healed this way. Clear only Wounds not caused by silver; silver Wounds may prevent you from reaching 4 Wounds.
While transformed, you may unleash a horrifying howl that affects creatures your size or smaller. Roll +Presence.
10+ — Affected creatures flee, freeze, or cower in fear, as appropriate.
7–9 — They hesitate, giving you an opportunity to act before they can respond.
6− — They stand their ground and brave your howl.
Player characters may choose to resist the effect instead. If they do, they take −2 ongoing on a 10+ or −1 ongoing on a 7–9 while they remain in your presence for the rest of the scene.
You can identify and follow a creature by scent long after ordinary tracks have disappeared.
Once you know someone's scent, disguises and ordinary attempts to conceal their identity do little to fool you.
Choose up to 2 people you genuinely consider part of your pack.
You always know the direction and approximate distance to each member of your pack and whether they are healthy, wounded, or in immediate danger.
When you act directly alongside, protect, or help a member of your pack, take +1 ongoing.
Someone cannot simply be added to or removed from your pack whenever convenient. Your relationship must meaningfully change in the fiction.
Harm dealt by silver ignores your Armor.
Wounds caused by silver cannot be healed through your Regeneration Perk.
During certain nights or phases of the moon established with the GM, your transformation becomes extremely difficult or impossible to resist.
When you suffer severe injury, humiliation, or witness someone you care for being badly harmed, the GM may ask you to Face Danger to keep the beast from taking control of your immediate response.
Animals and perceptive people can sense that something predatory lives inside you.
Ordinary animals may become nervous, aggressive, or submissive around you, and those familiar with werewolves may recognize the signs of what you are.
Bind your soul to an object of great personal importance. This object becomes your Soul Vessel.
You may have only one Soul Vessel at a time. Creating a new Soul Vessel ends the previous vessel's bond.
If you die and your Soul Vessel remains intact until your return, your body reforms beside it with 0 Wounds, and you return at the beginning of the next session. This replaces the normal choice of a consequence to survive death, and your previous Dying deadline ends. If the vessel is destroyed before you return, resolve your death using the normal rules.
If your Soul Vessel is destroyed, take −1 ongoing until you create another.
Creating a new Soul Vessel requires an object of genuine personal importance and a ritual lasting several hours.
You no longer need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep.
You are unaffected by ordinary disease, poison, aging, and other weaknesses that rely upon a living body.
You may still rest if you wish.
You may animate a human or animal corpse as an undead servant. Raising one takes about 1 minute.
You may command up to 10 undead at once.
Your undead obey simple commands without requiring Loyalty. They retain none of the memories, Perks, skills, or supernatural abilities they possessed in life.
Individually, each undead has:
When 3 or more of your undead fight together, treat them as a small Battalion with Quality +1, base 2 Harm, and base 0 Armor. Use Command a Battalion to resolve their clashes and apply the normal size bonuses when fighting smaller opposition.
Resolve both sides' Harm in the exchange before removing casualties. Each Harm the Battalion suffers after Armor and other reductions destroys 1 undead. If fewer than 3 remain, they act as individual NPCs rather than a Battalion.
Destroyed undead do not reform. You must raise replacements from new human or animal corpses.
When you establish direct supernatural contact with a living creature, you may drain its life.
Deal 2 Harm ignoring Armor and heal 1 Wound. This can heal you even when you are Broken or Dying.
You may call upon the spirit of a corpse and speak with it.
The dead know only what they knew in life and retain their memories, feelings, loyalties, fears, and grudges.
They may still lie to you, refuse to cooperate, or resent being disturbed unless something gives you power over them.
Your body unmistakably shows signs of death unless concealed through clothing, masks, magic, or some other appropriate means.
People who discover what you are may react accordingly.
You can always feel the direction of your Soul Vessel.
Unfortunately, powerful magic or creatures capable of sensing souls may also be able to follow that connection toward it.
Entering consecrated ground or coming into direct contact with a genuinely holy object deals 1 Harm ignoring Armor.
Remaining exposed for a prolonged period may deal another 1 Harm ignoring Armor when the fiction calls for it.
Healing intended for living creatures no longer affects you.
Instead, you may spend 1 minute draining deathly essence from a corpse or undead creature to heal 1 Wound. This can heal you even when you are Broken or Dying.
You may do this only once per scene.
If you drain an undead creature rather than a corpse, it suffers 1 Harm ignoring Armor.
