Quirks are options that shape your experience of the game, and lightly mechanise your character's abilities and resources.

Playstyle Quirks communicate the themes and content you're OC comfortable with, thereby tailoring the way that GMs interact with your character and influencing the plots your character is involved with.

Character Quirks are mechanical reflections of aspects of your character and their backstory, affecting the way they interact with the world around them. They are used to help the GMs weigh up the success of characters in turnsheets, and are intended to be plot and roleplay hooks. We encourage you to prioritise what is thematically interesting for the story you want to tell over what seems the most powerful.

The GMs will consider your Playstyle Quirks throughout all our interactions with you. By default, other players do not have knowledge of these Quirks. Your Character Quirks will be primarily relevant for helping us to determine the outcomes of your turnsheets.

You can change your Playstyle Quirks at any point in the game; simply message us. No explanation is required.

You may take as many Playstyle Quirks as you wish. You must, however, indicate which level of Mind-Altering Effects you would be most comfortable with. This game will prominently feature mind-altering effects, as a subject of discussion if not direct experience, and so this Quirk allows us to ensure that players only engage with it to an extent with which they are comfortable.

(NB: experienced players may notice the lack of a “More Gore” Quirk. We are not expecting gore to be present in Chronicle, and, as such, this Quirk does not apply.)

The Conduct and Acceptable Themes Policy entries on 'Mind control or other means of removing agency' and 'Discrimination on the basis of physical disability, mental health condition, or neurodivergence' may be helpful in determining your comfort levels here.

There are three levels available:

Mindstraightener: Your character will not experience mind-altering effects at all. However, we cannot guarantee that they will be able to avoid discussion of them, as these elements, and discrimination based on them, will play a role in the unfolding of the plot.

Mindbender: We will steer your character into plots that may involve them being offered the decision of consensually undergoing mind-altering changes. These experiences may lead to discrimination.

Mindwarper: Mind-altering effects will likely happen to your character without their consent. This does not include mind control. It does include experiences akin to visions and psychic communication. These experiences may lead to discrimination.

Note: Some Character Quirks will provide more uses if taken alongside Mindbender or Mindwarper. These are:

• Member’s Club Card for the Mundmix Café
• Shepherd
• Disciple of OBIX
• Disciple of Alaxus
• Nameless One
• Mountain Dweller
• Inhabitant of Yuu
• Inhabitant of Doip

Actions have consequences, and discoveries do not exist in isolation. Take this Quirk if you want said consequences to be more extreme. This does not affect the likelihood of your character's actions succeeding or failing, only the severity of the outcome should they fail.

Taking this Quirk means that you're ok with your character experiencing more extreme emotional trauma, grief, and inner turmoil, and this being a focus of turnsheets. It does not automatically equate to a tragic story, but allows for more possibility of an engagement with tragedy.

This Quirk indicates that you are comfortable with GM-run NPCs initiating romantic interactions with your character. Even if you don't take this Quirk, you may still initiate romantic interactions yourself, with the consent of the GM. For initiating romantic relationships with other PCs and crew NPCs, this Quirk does not apply. You should make sure the other player or crew member is comfortable with it OC on a case-by-case basis.

Most character quirks provide a specific, more mechanical ability. However, most of them also represent a wider pool of contacts and sources of information that you gain through access to a community, area or faction. You may invoke them in both contexts.

Character Quirks are intended to be represent significant factors in your character’s plot, that are likely to feature significantly in turnsheets. For instance, if your character has had a passing relationship with the Temple of Mumnos then this doesn’t need to be a Quirk, but if this is a significant part of their life it makes sense for it to be one.

You may take Quirks from across regions, depending on your character’s life story. A number of people will have moved between regions; a number will have stayed put. All characters have access to VAA and Personal Quirks.

Some Character Quirks may be gained or lost based on turnsheets, depending on your relationship to the resources and connections they represent.

The parts of the quirk descriptions in bullet points indicate their stricter mechanical uses or any suggested or disallowed combinations with other quirks.

You may choose a maximum of four Character Quirks, and a minimum of two. Some Quirks cannot be taken alongside others. Some Quirks take up two Quirk slots, as they require extra work for us to facilitate.

Quirks representing pieces of your past. All characters have access to these.

Cherished Titbit: You carry a secret unknown to your colleagues. Tell us the nature of this secret. Who do you aim to hide it from the most? What would the possible repercussions be for letting the cat out of the bag?

• You may take this Quirk multiple times, each use pertaining to a new secret.

Ripple from the Past: You have a significant prior relationship with an NPC who isn't listed on the wiki, but who will now appear in uptimes and/or emails. Tell us what this relationship looked like, or currently looks like. Were they a dear friend you’ve been meaning to get in contact with? An old rival seeking to settle the score with you? Something else entirely? If they appear in uptimes, why have they got access to the Archive forum meetings?

• This Quirk costs TWO QUIRK SLOTS. This is in order to ensure we have the space to do your NPCs justice.
• The NPC you create is likely to be played by Crew.
• You may establish connections to pre-existing NPCs without spending a Quirk.
• You may also establish backstory NPCs who only appear in turnsheets without spending a Quirk.

Quirks representing your skills as a Volunteer Assistant Archivist. All characters have access to these.

Worker Bee: You understand the immense value of contacts when it comes to your research.

• Your turnsheet actions often end up being more successful if you carry them out alongside other Archivists.
• Can’t be taken alongside Lone Wolf.

Lone Wolf: You understand the value of inner contemplation and an unclouded perspective.

• Your turnsheet actions often end up being more successful if you carry them out by yourself.
• Can’t be taken alongside Worker Bee.

Specialist: You have a particular goal pertaining to your work with the Archive, and you intend to see it through.

• Identify a specific field of research (whether demarcated by place, period or method).
• It will be easier to make new discoveries in this specific field in turnsheets.
• Can’t be taken alongside Interdisciplinary.

Interdisciplinary: Your scholarly universality is a hefty boon for anyone in need of assistance.

• It will be easier to cross-reference with other Archivists’ specialisms and synthesise conclusions in turnsheets.
• Can’t be taken alongside Specialist.

Respected Researcher: Senior Archivists have taken an interest in your research and recommended you for funding.

• Access to delicate Archival sources may be easier to receive.
• Perhaps even an offer of permanent employment is on the horizon…

Member’s Club Card for the Mundmix Café: Get even more sweet deals, starting at just §5!¹⁾

• Within your turnsheet at the end of each downtime period, you may choose to use ONE of your minor actions to acquire a stamp on your Member’s Card.
• Each stamp gives you one free drink and Honey-Bunny Cake™ combo — on us!
• Your stamps are redeemable at the Mundmix branches in the Beginning of the Archive, the Temple of Blessed Air in Endring, Lutown University in Mayton Greynes, and the Port City of X in Nemeus. (More to follow!)
• This quirk will give you greater access to plotlines where it is strongly recommended you have the Mindbender or Mindwarper playstyle quirks.
• This quirk is FREE TO TAKE: it does not count towards your quirk total.

These represent non-Archivist jobs and connections one might have as an inhabitant of the Archive and its environs.

Bureaucrat: You help organise economic and political life in the Archive, a mirror of the Archivists organising their collections.

• Within your turnsheet at the end of each downtime period, choose ONE PC other than yourself.
• This PC is designated as one of the Archivists of the Season for this turn.
• A single minor action they performed will be made public on the upcoming turn’s News bulletin.

Port Worker: You work in Port Nemeus (on the coast near the Archive), and hear the gossip of traders from all over the world.

• Within your turnsheet at the end of each downtime period, choose ONE PC other than yourself.
• You learn of an indirect consequence of their major action for this turn (e.g. a GLUMM official has recently ceased contact with them for an unknown reason).

Shepherd: As a hermit wandering the rolling hills scattered throughout the Petu Peninsula, you tend well to your flock and ensure its steady preservation. In turn, their thick wool has the capacity to offer you serenity throughout the night.

• Your flock possesses two separate modes: Wrangled and Dispersed. You may choose which mode your flock begins in at game start.
• In addition, you can swap between modes within your turnsheet.
• The Wrangled mode ensures that you are able to sleep comfortably regardless of location, as you trim wool from your flock and knit it into blankets for yourself. You will also receive a brief dream as part of your minor actions this turn.
• The Dispersed mode allows you to spread these benefits to up to THREE PCs of your choice for the turn (during which you sell your blankets or a handful of your sheep to willing customers), so long as you acquire OC consent. However, you will not receive a new dream during a turn in which your flock is Dispersed.
• This quirk will give you greater access to plotlines where it is strongly recommended you have the Mindbender or Mindwarper playstyle quirks.

The daily grind in Mayton Greynes grinds on, and on. Where do you fit inside the machine?

Lutown University Affiliate: Whether staff, student or administrator, you have access to the Lutown University Single Sign-On, which grants you access to a number of academic papers.

• As a result, you are significantly more likely to succeed on turnsheet actions investigating falsifiable, non-theological information, e.g. changes in the population of Nemeus over the past year.
• In your turnsheet, you may choose to spread this benefit to ONE PC each turn.
• Take note, however, that you may face disciplinary action should you be found out for sharing proprietary data with non-University affiliates.

GLUMM Affiliate: You are a gear inside the complicated clockwork structure of GLUMM, likely as a civil servant or an enforcer. As such, you have fingers in the Greynesian monarchy's pie…

• Within your turnsheet, choose ONE of the regions other than Mayton Greynes (The Archive, Endring, or Nemeus).
• At some point, over the course of the next three months, King Alden will make an appearance in this region, before returning to Mayton Greynes.
• Your character designates the reason for this appearance.

Complex Manager: You are a middle manager of a sub-branch of a sub-branch of the Complex’s enormous collection. So long as it doesn't affect profits, you can use your corporate power and connections for your own benefit.

• Within each turnsheet, come up with a physical, handheld invention of your choice.
• This invention will be subject to GM balancing and must be in line with what’s scientifically possible to achieve.
• You receive this invention (chronologically after your turnsheet actions).
• You may subsequently sell this invention to other characters (with a minor action).

Dispossessed: You live in the Pockets and likely work multiple zero-hour contracts, if you have a job at all. In the crowded, chaotic setting of the Pockets, getting by requires some falling in with groups who know how to exploit the cracks in the shell of industry.

• Within your turnsheet at the end of each downtime period, choose ONE handheld item your character is aware exists.
• This item cannot be being deliberately hidden or actively surveilled.
• You may create a counterfeit (and faulty) version of the item.

Chronically Online: You constantly receive advertisements and news pings while you’re trying to interact with the Archive.

• We will add you to a Discord channel where you cannot comment but will periodically be @ed with advertisements during uptime.
• This quirk is FREE TO TAKE: it does not count towards your quirk total.

In addition to drawing on the mutual aid and libraries of the Temples, disciples of Endring’s gods bear a variety of uncanny blessings. Perhaps they are cultural placebos, reinforced over time. Perhaps not.

It is widely believed that the gods are more powerful when the month bears that god's name (see Time and Date). In the Month of the Many, this applies to the Small Gods.

Disciple of Itztepex: Your alignment with the god of rhetoric offers you clearer insight into what grabs the attention of the populace.

• Once per uptime, you may @ the entire playerbase in the #ic-announcements channel with a single message of your choice.
• This message can only convey one piece of information.

Disciple of Liria: Your alignment with the god of naming grants you the gift of using personal signifiers to your advantage, for a time.

• Every uptime, choose ONE PC or NPC, so long as your character knows their name.
• You may ask the GMs to establish a private channel with only this character for the duration of that uptime.
• After that uptime, you and that character cannot communicate in the same way for the remainder of the game.

Disciple of Mumnos: Your alignment with the god of community offers you a greater sense of harmony with nature and its myriad of denizens.

• Animals, wild or domesticated, are drawn to your presence, and can be calmed easily by you with soft touch and soothing voice.
• This can, however, cause them to congregate in places that may be undesirable, e.g. a colony of termites making itself at home inside your desk.
• In addition, organic food and crops arise more plentifully upon the land around wherever you currently reside, regardless of climate.

Disciple of Kleiops: Your alignment with the god of loss ensures that you are a reliable safehold for distant memories.

• You possess a personal Cache.
• Determine what this Cache looks like (whether it’s a large object that’s at most half a person tall or a small cranny-space) and where in the world it is located.
• If you store a separate object within your Cache, so long as the new item could reasonably fit within it, attempts made by individuals other than you to find that item again are insurmountably difficult.
• However, should the item be important enough, it might not be long before multiple search parties all aim to seek out your Cache at once…

Disciple of OBIX: Your alignment with the god of games is imperceptibly evident, mostly displayed by your aptitude for being favoured by chance.

• Events of minor luck tend to accumulate around your life, whether it be an extra stipend attached to your paycheck, the posture of your new chair helping you focus on your research more clearly, or an extra biscotti that accidentally slipped into your morning coffee.
• Yet on occasion, your fortune tends to swing in radical, often delightfully weird ways, for better or for worse…
• This quirk will give you greater access to plotlines where it is strongly recommended you have the Mindbender or Mindwarper playstyle quirks.

Nameless One: Your non-subscription to the multitude of deities in Endring comes with the merit of going unnoticed.

• When you enter an establishment or a new region, you may choose to make yourself appear as an entirely different, nondescript member or citizen of that establishment or region.
• The maximum level of clearance for the Archive you could choose to appear as with this quirk is 1.
• Before uptime, you may choose to enter a state called “Incognito Mode”, during which your character’s name and profile picture are unidentifiable, save for their pronouns.
• You should replace your server username with question marks and profile picture with a blank colour.
• During this state, your online reputation and nature may be heavily questioned and scrutinised.
• This cannot be taken alongside any of the Disciple quirks; it cuts you off from the Temples as a resource, until such time as you sufficiently repent.
• This quirk will give you greater access to plotlines where it is strongly recommended you have the Mindbender or Mindwarper playstyle quirks.

Nemean Quirks primarily represent the importance of home. Each place in Nemeus sings with divine memory. Even Merchants have a sacred home: the open sea.

As in Endring, Nemeans often believe they have uncanny capabilities, associated with their home-god. In both regions, a number of these manifestations have recently been sailing into the new waters of the Internet. There is also a belief that each island's blessings are greater in the year of its god (see Time and Date).

Inhabitant of Yuu: Your residence within the Mountain-Ache’s domain has given you a longing to reignite tales of ages past, even as they rest forevermore amongst the Arkhē. As such, you hold within your heart a mission to channel the virtue of the archipelago’s old friends.

• Make up a hero who might have existed in Nemeus’ distant past. What deed are they known for? How are they remembered?
• You currently hold an inactive backlog account stored in the Forum’s files that’s made to represent the hero you venerate.
• During a single uptime over the course of the game, you may switch accounts, donning the moniker and identity of this hero. You may do this by changing your server name and profile picture.
• While typing as your hero, you must use all-caps and a hashtag (#) at the front of your messages.
• By the end of the uptime, your hero’s account will be deleted by the Archive, and you cannot use this quirk again.
• Your character likely does not choose this moment frivolously. You are encouraged to discuss the timing and nature of your hero’s manifestation with the GMs, so that we can ensure its importance to your character’s development.
• This may be interesting to take alongside Mindbender or Mindwarper.

Inhabitant of Baggaban: Your island is known for its lavish hospitality and decorum. As such, you find that it’s relatively easy for most people to trust your word.

• Once per downtime, you may write a story to post for next turn’s News bulletin.
• This story cannot exceed 100 words.
• At some point in Nemeus’ historical past, this story has occurred in the real world and can be verified in scholarly Nemean texts or oral traditions.
• Your story will be subject to GM discretion.

Inhabitant of Xheech: Living in Nemeus’ creative nexus has gifted you with an exceptional eye for detail… and living in its economic nexus has given you an eye for the finer things in life.

• Within your turnsheet at the end of each downtime period, list ONE place, person or object you have physically seen within the past three months, e.g. Dr. Alethea Acevedo or Edgar Ross. This is your Subject.
• You notice all the objects currently within the place or on the person, or the detailed features of the object.
• Over the course of the next three months, you can from memory produce a piece of artwork (in any medium) that features the Subject.
• If another individual looks at the piece that features your Subject, you may voluntarily point out these objects or features to them.
• At the end of the next downtime period, you must pick a new Subject, after which your old one is lost.
• This may be part of your minor or major action.

Inhabitant of Doip: You’ve received a thorough education in the Alsatia, and have a detailed understanding of their teachings on Nemeus’ history and traditions.

• One of the most notable traditions of Doip is lépimancy — the practice of calling upon the forces beneath the water for insight.
• In your minor actions each turnsheet, ask ONE question.
• Over the course of the next three months, you will catch a particularly striking fish, the type, colour, and taste of which could be interpreted as an answer to your question.
• This may be interesting to take alongside Mindbender or Mindwarper.

Merchant: You know how to sell your wares with a persuasive tongue, and make trades with ease. Much of your skill is indebted to your family contacts, which allow you to acquire resources more easily than most.

• Within each turnsheet, choose ONE handheld item or material good that your character is aware exists.
• You receive the item, or a single crate or burlap bag of the material good, at the end of the turn.
• This happens chronologically after the result of your other turnsheet actions.

Mountain-Dweller: You live near the higher peaks, where the High Sages are said to dwell. You do not know their secrets, of course. No one does. But you may have heard more stories, caught more glimpses, than most. More practically, you’ve spent your life climbing up hills and through forests. You’re physically strong as a result of this, and have higher-than-average stamina.

• You automatically succeed at ascending or descending steep surfaces and spending time in high altitude safely.
• If you are sharing a major action with other PCs, you may spread this benefit to ONE of them.
• This quirk will give you greater access to plotlines where it is strongly recommended you have the Mindbender or Mindwarper playstyle quirks.

There are a number who live in the interstices between Nemeus and Endring, most notably the people of Alaxus. Note that not all Disciples of Alaxus are Inhabitants of Alaxus, or vice versa. Alaxian faith often calls its worshippers to wander the world, while there are other Endringian and Nemean religious traditions represented on the Island of Alaxus.

Disciple of Alaxus: Your alignment with the god of wayfare has ensured your own paths stay true… and exceedingly efficient.

• The time it takes for you to travel from one region to another is much faster than most, allowing you to cover double the amount of space over a three-month downtime period.
• You could, for instance, travel from Mayton Greynes to Endring in a single downtime, rather than two, or back and forth from the Archive to Nemeus in a single downtime.
• This may be interesting to take alongside Mindbender or Mindwarper.

Inhabitant of Alaxus: You’ve spent most of your life on a floating island, and consequently know the oceans well. You know how to navigate by the stars, and can build boats fairly effectively. And in order to ensure safe navigation, the island encourages competency with computers and machines.

• Before or at the beginning of each uptime, choose ONE proper noun.
• This noun is marked as your North Star for the turn.
• Over the course of the uptime, if a PC or NPC inputs your North Star online in a channel that you can see, you may track their precise location for the rest of the turn.
• Within your turnsheet at the end of the downtime period, make sure to list all characters who input your North Star that turn.
• By next uptime, you must choose a new North Star, after which your old one is lost.
• Abbreviations of this proper noun also apply for the purposes of this quirk; e.g. if you have selected 'Mayton Greynes', 'MG' will count.

Small God Disciple: This is an opportunity for you as a player to name your character’s god, whose domain will generally be smaller than the major gods of either culture. They may have a small Temple or Island associated with them, and grant you perhaps-uncanny skills.

• If you wish the god to be a character you can communicate with in uptimes and emails (e.g. an Incarnate God, or a god who you feel is notably responsive to your prayers), you should combine this with Ripple from the Past.
  • Note that this combination will take 3/4s of your Quirk points. We will work with you to make sure this is a worthwhile and rewarding narrative focus if you do choose this.
• If you suggest a skill associated with the god, it will be subject to GM balancing.