Advancement in The Carrington Event

You have an Advancement Rank that starts at Poor and may increase all the way to Spectacular. Each Advance typically costs 5 XP, but the GM may decide the cost is higher (see below). At the end of a session, spend XP to buy an Advance if you can afford it.

Experience

At the end of each session, you gain one XP for each of the following.

• Relationship: While playing a session, you demonstrated your character in some way (the GM has more details on this, but typically spending an Aspect or being Compelled easily qualifies).
• Heroism: Did my actions help to save someone from death (or a worse fate)
• Story Setback: Did I take a Compel or Concession this session, or suffer some other story-based setback imposed by the GM (the GM might award this XP for things like when they really want an NPC to survive and offer all the players XP to let them live through some story-based escape).
• Forbidden Knowledge: Did I trigger my own Manifestation, gain a rank in Uncanny, or discover other forbidden knowledge this session?
• Conclusion: Was I present for the session when an adventure was completed?

It’s very easy to get one XP per session, and up to five XP is theoretically possible.

Characters will get some XP even for sessions they don’t attend. If a session happens, and you weren’t present for it, add XP equal to the lowest awarded. So if three players were present and gained 1, 2, and 3 XP respectively, you gain 1 XP.

Per Advance

The basic unit of advancement is the Advance. They usually cost 5 XP but an optional rule increases this is as shown in the table. If you have enough XP you can buy an Advance at the end of a session. You can buy only one Advance per session. There are strategic reasons you might not want to buy an Advance immediately, but the better option is usually to buy them immediately.

Some benefits of an Advance are gained immediately, but Recovery is deferred till the end of a Chapter.

There are two types of Advance – an Ability Advance and a Knack Advance.

Advance Recovery

The recovery system is linked to the Advance system. Each time you gain an Advance (any type), take ALL of these:

• Recover all Aspects
• Recover all Knacks
• Recover one Condition
• Recover one point of Eldritch Power

And then you may choose one of these:

• Swap the ranks of two adjacent skills (if you have Ferocity at Good and Charm at Fair you might swap them so Charm is now Good and Ferocity is Fair). In this way, your skills can change in time.
• Change the definition of one Aspect.
• Change one Knack (if you have any).

Note: as you’ll see in Eldritch Powers, characters have another way to regain these, so don’t worry if this seems slow. It shouldn’t though – you’ll probably get this roughly every 2 sessions (roughly).

Ability Advances and Increasing Rank

Rank is used for a few things. Look at the advancement tale above. If you have all the boxes below a Rank, you increase to the next rank. You start at Poor, but when you fill that first rank, you become Fair.

Character Rank is used for limited benefits – see the relevant sections of the rules. But if you are ever at the highest Rank, Spectacular, you are reaching Retirement and the end of your character’s adventures.

Gaining Abilities

Whenever you mark an advance box, you advance an Ability. When you mark the first box in a set, advance a Poor ability to Fair. When you mark the second, advance a Fair to Good, and so on.

When you reach a new rank, start over back at Poor.

Buying Knacks

There is a special class of benefit which are described elsewhere. These are special abilities, stunts, extra Conditions, and so on. You can have one Knack per Character rank (so if Fair, 1, and if Spectacular 5).

The cost of a Knack is in Advances and equals the number of Knacks you will now have. So, your first Knack costs 1 advance, your second costs 2, and so on.

Knacks do not give an extra Ability or Knack for each box marked – you have to mark all boxes for that rank to get the new Knack. This means they start out fairly cheap, but rapidly become expensive – and don’t forget there’s a limit to how many you can have.

The Cost of Knacks

The base cost of advances is 5 XP. If using the optional rule to increase the cost of Advances, add 1 for each knack you already have.

You can’t have more Knacks than the number of rank advances you have gained. If you are a Poor character, you can’t buy any Knacks yet. If Fair, you can buy one Knack; at Good, 2, and so on.

Secondary Benefit: Aspect

You start with 5 aspects, described in Aspects in the Carrington Event. Whenever you gain a Knack, you choose what that is – the benefit can be a new aspect. In some games, that may be the standard and only possible benefit.

When you gain an Aspect, it should be something that fits the events of the previous sessions and downtime. The GM must approve any new Aspects.

Retirement

When all Ability advances are marked in, you must Retire.

At Spectacular rank, you gain exactly 1 XP for every session you play the character – this is fixed.

When you retire your character, you can make some sort of permanent change to the world (work with the GM who has rules for this) and your next character has any rank up to one less than your current rank. You choose, and they are at the beginning of that rank. So if you retire a Superb character, your next character can have up to Great Advancement rank.

Time (Optional)

There’s an optional XP award for the length of your session.

• 2-3 hours: a short session, -1 XP
• 4-5 hours: the normal length, no award.
• 6-7 hours: a long session: +1 XP.
• 8+ hours: a marathon, +2 XP.

If the group normally plays shorter sessions, and wants the XP to reflect that, add 1 XP to each of these awards. Whatever your normal length is should probably be +0, but you should never earn less than 1 XP for a session.