Harmony & Ambition: Making Alignment Worth Something

Wanted to make a system for alignment for my Revelations of the Mononoke Princess idea. One's alignment can either help them directly or help them assist others, mirroring stuff like Lady Eboshi shooting off the head of the Forest Spirit, or San helping Ashitaka recover from his wounds.

Lady Eboshi

When you make a character, you have three points to distribute amongst your alignments. The two alignments, Harmony and Ambition, are described as:

HARMONY
One's desire to be at peace, and to keep all things stable. One lacking in Harmony is selfish and arrogant, whilst having too much Harmony makes one stupid as a beast and unable to effect the world in any meaningful way.

Characters who are more Harmony than Ambition are the Lepers, Moro, or Toki.

AMBITION
One's desire to achieve what they want, and to improve themselves. One lacking in Ambition is easily influenced and unable to control their lives, whilst having too much Ambition steals one's empathy and leaves them unable to co-exist with others.

Characters who are more Ambition than Harmony are Lady Eboshi, Jigo, or Okkoto.

A character who is in balance, with both pools being equal, is Prince Ashitaka. These characters are considered as "seeing with eyes unclouded by hate."

When playing Revelations of the Mononoke Princess, you can invoke your alignment to give your character's pushes. They have a number of d4 equal to the number of points in their highest rated alignment. So, if you have 2 Ambition and 1 Harmony, you have 2d4 Ambition dice and 0 Harmony dice.

WHEN YOU ASSIST ANOTHER PLAYER, NPC, OR CREATURE
When helping something, you can spend up to all of your Harmony dice and add the rolled number(s) to the helped creature's roll.

WHEN YOU ARE DAMAGING ANOTHER PLAYER, NPC, OR CREATURE
When rolling for damage, you can spend up to all of your Ambition dice and add the rolled number(s) to the damage roll.

Other mechanics, such as Curses or Gods, draw on your Harmony and Ambition dice as well, but those will be explained in another blog post.

Once you've spent any of your alignment dice, you don't regain them again until you level up. When you level up, you also add an additional point to one of your alignment pools. If both pools are of equal size, choose one alignment: that is your dominant alignment. You can change your dominant alignment after spending at least 12 hours in meditation. You can only spend a number of dice equal to your highest alignment pool, so if you have 3/3 in both and spend 3d4, you can't meditate and then have another 3d4 for the other side of the coin.

You can never have more than 4 points in a specific alignment. Should both pools be maxed, you must spend all dice before leveling up in order to keep both pools in balance. If you've spent more from one pool as compared to the other, you lose a point in the opposite alignment. This is to make it difficult to stay in balance, similar to how Prince Ashitaka was tried in many different ways while being in harmony.

A bullet is a hefty trial.