13th Age - Foolz!

long run, this wasn’t going to be just any case of
demonic possession. No, this was going to be
serious juju. Clearly, his unique will also involve
some form of icon relationship with the
Diabolist. And possibly the Crusader.
I am bizarrely well-read, knowing
everything about everything: Jonathan takes
characters like this at their word, supplies more
background points connected to knowledge,
and looks forward to playing on their
knowledge and paranoia as a means of
motivating the campaign. They can’t literally
know everything, but they know a lot.
Rob notices that a character who has read a
lot of books is not entirely unique, not in a
world that contains an Archmage. So Rob would
find out if the player is interested in becoming
the personification of an ancient library or a
sentient reading-spell who has attained
personhood. Jonathan wouldn’t bother pushing
in that direction, but he’d be perfectly happy if
the player started with the weirder option for
their one unique thing.
Seemingly Innocuous
Players with a great deal of experience playing
d20 games sometimes have trouble coming up
with ambitious uniques. When you’ve always
understood that game balance is primary, it can
be hard to let your unique flag fly free. So we’re
okay with players who invent uniques that seem
minor . . . at first.
I am the only elf in the world with human
ears: A convention demo character. It’s possible
the player had something very special in mind
for her future. It’s also possible that round ears
are sometimes just round ears and that being
different in precisely this fashion was enough. In
Rob’s home game, the player would eventually
uncover reasons why it was extremely
interesting that this elf had human ears . . .
unless the player didn’t actually want center
stage and was deliberately choosing a unique
that gave them an out.
I am an elven pyromaniac: Wait, did we say
innocuous? Perhaps we meant simple. This isn’t
necessarily a unique on any grand scale, but it’s
more than enough to work with. The player has
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specified that all other wood elves are not
pyromaniacs. And that their character is a freak
and a danger to society. It’s sure to win them
special friends and special enemies.
Too Much for 1 st Level
Sometimes it’s best to think of your unique as the
first chapter in an epic story. You’re an
adventurer-tier hero. Some day maybe you’ll be
epic. There are uniques that would be right for an
epic-tier character that aren’t right for an
adventurer-tier character.
I am a dragon rider: When Rob had a player
want to be a dragon rider, he said that seemed
like a great thing for the character to grow into.
At 1 st level, Rob said that the character would be
better off having a special rapport with dragons.
In this case, the character had established that
part of their background was having had a noble
title stripped from them. It was an easy stretch
to imagine that it had been the post as the
Keeper of Dragons in Axis, so that the
character’s rapport with dragons was natural
and would stand them in good stead in
champion tier, especially if they regained their
titles.
I am the reincarnation of a previous
Archmage/Emperor/High Druid and I remember
everything: Well, no, you don’t. You are a 1 st
level character rather than an icon. But as you
rise in power, up toward 10 th level, you will
remember more and more.
Deliberately Pushing It
There’s a fuzzy line with uniques that some
players will insist on pushing. If you have a
player who insists that their character’s cool
story-based unique essentially amounts to a
combat-relevant power they want to define, you
can work with that. But you need to make it
clear to everyone involved that the character is
going to pay a price . . . and since the one unique
thing is ordinarily free, the price has to matter.
A PC with abnormally great power as an
adventurer-tier character can expect to attract
more than their share of dangerous attention. As
GM, you’ll want to define these types of power
in the story of the world in ways you want to
take advantage of.