Most player characters in Milhamah RPG will have common attributes that define what their basic fluency in broad, catch-all categories that all normal characters possess to some degree. These seven attributes are the main ones that your characters can use to determine how successful their actions and attempts are. During opposed rolls, an actor may gain an advantage or disadvantage based on the attribute he is using versus the one his opponent is using.
Characters who have particularly high fluency in an attribute may optionally take up a Blessing along with a Curse for roleplaying purposes.
The following are core attributes in Milhamah:
Dominance (DOM): The Strong, Defiant King
Dominance (DOM) physically represents your power, brawn and burst strength. Mentally and through speech acts, it reflects your ability to project your will upon others — your chutzpah, davka (spite), prestige, ambitions and drive. It also fuels one’s ability to lead, govern, compete and physically or mentally outclass their foes. It’s rooted in the Hebrew letter peh (פ).
In gameplay, DOM often is tied to melee attacks, initiative and irresistible attacks. Attacks may also have a chance of temporarily lowering opponent stats. Its power hunger and ambition easily overtakes the comfortable quietism of PEA and the anxious nerdiness of CRE.
If you need to fight for your goals or push people around (literally or figuratively) to get your way, rolling for DOM may be an option.
Shoresh: משל
Letter: פ
Common skills: Intimidation, Martial Arts
Virtues: Powerful, driven, courageous, masterful, ambitious, indignant, commanding, successful, leader
Flaws: Stubborn, wrathful, egotistical, spiteful, ill-tempered, bullying, bigoted, narrow-minded, arrogant, entitled
Success modifiers:
- Advantage: PEA, CRE (Active) or GRA, WIS (Passive)
- No change: DOM, VIG, BLE
Vigor (VIG): The Energetic, Audacious Warrior
Vigor (VIG) represents your stamina, vitality, encumbrance and endurance physical strain, especially over long periods of time. It’s also your health, your hardiness and LP. If you want to use your body for strenuous, athletic activities that require raw physical fitness like climbing or lifting, choose this.
Shoresh: חיי
Letter: כ
Common skills: Athletics
Virtues: Enthusiastic, tenacious, healthy, dutiful, athletic, wild, spontaneous, carpe diem
Flaws: Reckless, foolish, meatheaded, annoying, rough, awkward, party animal
Success modifiers:
- Advantage: BLE, WIS (Active) or PEA, CRE (Passive)
- No change: VIG, GRA, DOM
Grace: The Flashy, Smooth, Slick Musician
Grace (GRA) represents several things, including your charisma and gross motor agility. Your beauty and attraction, inner and outer. Also your artistic flair and finesse. This can be used defensively to dodge attacks at the narrator’s discretion, or strike with flamboyant, flashy moves. The favor you give and get from others. Your social skills and glibness in dealing with social difficulties.
In gameplay, the attribute most often affects agility, style, appearance, balance, charisma, social skills and reputation. If you want to do a flashy move or something artistic with smoothness, style, elegance and panache, pick GRA.
Shoresh: חנן
Letter: ת
Common skills: Seduction, Manipulation, Acrobatics
Virtues: Graceful, smooth, sociable, charismatic, flexible, beautiful, stylish, flashy, finessed, popular, humanitarian
Flaws: Vain, lustful, attention-seeking, gossip, ingratiating, deceptive, manipulative, hedonist, bleeding heart
Success modifiers:
- Advantage: DOM, PEA (Active) or BLE, WIS (Passive)
- No change: VIG, GRA, CRE
Creativity: The Witty, Innovative, Hardworking Prophet
Creativity (CRE) represents one’s fertility/virility, potential and productivity in multiple aspects of the term. It’s quickness of mind and wits, intuition, flourishing, ease of learning, perception with the senses, as well as hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity and fine motor skills, such as aim. It’s the source from where creativity, motivation, ingenuity, craftiness and technology flows. Creativity is innovation, the ability to pick up and learn things on the fly. The ability to make thing happen and the drive to work hard. It also represents one’s output. Sometimes it can represent initiative.
If you want to do something innovative, creative or something that require elbow grease or technical tinkering, pick CRE.
Shoresh: זרע
Letter: ד
Common skills: Engineering, Crafting, Marksmanship, Security, Navigation
Virtues: Clever, industrious, ingenious, intuitive, motivated
Flaws: Anxious, obsessed, workaholic, overly curious, indecisive, nerdy, neurotic, worrier, perfectionist
Success modifiers:
- Advantage: DOM, BLE (Active) or VIG, PEA (Passive)
- No change: GRA, CRE, WIS
Wisdom: The Sensible, Shrewd Judge
Wisdom (WIS) represents your learned knowledge, common sense and lived practical life skills borne by rote memory and experience. Shrewdness in human, ethical and moral affairs. WIS also is often used when using speech acts and effectively attacking with otiyot. It can also govern the perceptive ability to tell things apart. In normal game mechanics, you can use WIS if you’re trying to recall your studies or your better judgement.
If you want to do something shrewdly, carefully and sensibly, pick WIS.
Shoresh: חכם
Letter: ב
Common skills: Business, Lore and Persuasion.
Blessings: Learned, sensible, practical, experienced, careful, perceptive, truthful, honorable, shrewd
Curses: Self-righteous, judgmental, skeptical, miserly, melancholic, cynical, fussy, snobbish, zealot
Success modifiers:
- Advantage: VIG, GRA (Active) or DOM, BLE (Passive)
- No change: CRE, WIS, PEA
Peace: The Reserved, Resolute Sage
Shalom (PEA) represents your willpower, morale, sanity and resolve. It’s your well-being, inner peace, calmness, freedom from inner turmoil, chill and sense of purpose, self-assuredness and completeness. It also represents your sanity and connection to transcendence. Characters who are high in this stat will resemble anything from Spartan stoics to monastic monks to New Age hippies. Its inner peace produces willpower against mental or spiritual attacks.
If you want to do something calmly, quietly, diplomatically, thoroughly or spiritually, pick PEA.
Shoresh: שלם
Letter: ר
Common skills: Animal handling, stealth, etiquette/diplomacy, empathy
Virtues: Focused, empathetic, stoic, self-controlled, calm, quiet, chill, content, transcendent, diplomatic, contemplative
Flaws: Slothful, passive, pacifist, self-loathing, apathetic, eccentric, ascetic, masochistic
Success modifiers:
- Advantage: VIG, CRE (Active) or DOM, GRA (Passive)
- No change: WIS, PEA, BLE
Blessing: Fortunate, Prosperous Priest
Blessing (BLE) is a wildcard stat that basically represents your happiness, joy, gambles and gut instincts, luck, wealth, spritual blessedness and divine favor. It represents a charmed life, a je nais sais quoi, divine favor, the mandate of heaven and a certain joie de vivre. It also reflects your privileges, such as rank, status and fate.
In gameplay, it may influence charisma, wit, dexterity and agility rolls. It can represent your ability to use Merit points, find the right person or thing at the right time, and impact critical hits. It may also affect certain speech acts, loot drops, status effects and your social status.
If you want to YOLO something or leave it up to fate or chance, pick BLE. Or use it when playing the stockmarket or praying for a miracle.
Shoresh: עשר
Letter: ג
Common skills: Gambling, Religion, Business
Virtues: Happy-go-lucky, lucky, faithful, spiritual, instinctual, authentic, prosperous, privileged, destined, optimistic, soulful
Flaws: fatalistic, superstitious, comfortable, ennui, materialistic, greedy, gluttonous, wasteful, naive, lazy, eccentric
Success modifiers:
- Advantage: WIS, GRA (Active) or VIG, CRE (Passive)
- No change: PEA, BLE, DOM
Attributes and skills
When using skills, keep in mind that some attributes overlap, and the Narrator may allow rolls with either of the two. For instance, if your character has to make a piece of artwork, GRA and CRE could each easily apply. However, if the artwork is more stylish and flashy, GRA is probably more appropriate. If it requires more skill and is more crafty and workmanlike, CRE is probably better.
Various generalities among characters with high attributes:
The two strongest: DOM and VIG
The two fastest: VIG and GRA
The initiators: DOM and CRE
The two nimblest/sexiest: GRA and CRE
The two smartest: CRE and WIS
The two wisest: WIS and PEA
The two most spiritual: BLE and PEA
The two happiest: VIG and BLE
The two shrewdest: GRA and WIS
The two richest: DOM and BLE