I was thinking about chakras after writing my Chakras post at KJD-IMC (prompted by the Lawful Indifferent post Magic Subsystem: Elemental Chakras) and realized they might fit as good talents for Echelon.
Background
The dominant chakra model used in yoga has seven prominent chakras. Each is believed to be associated with certain energies and effects within the body.
- Muladhara: Base or Root Chakra (ovaries/prostate)
- Swadhisthana: Sacral Chakra (last bone in the spine, the coccyx)
- Manipura: Solar Plexus Chakra (navel area)
- Anahata: Heart Chakra (heart area)
- Vishuddha: Throat Chakra (throat and neck area)
- Ajna: Brow or Third Eye Chakra (pineal gland or third eye)
- Sahasrara: Crown Chakra (top of the head; ‘spot spot’ of a newborn.
Each is activated in turn as the practitioner reaches toward enlightenment, starting with the Muladhara and ending with Sahasrara when the practitioner achieves enlightenment.
Other traditions vary in the number and location of the chakras, usually adding some between those listed above. They may also activate the chakras in a different order (at least one starts with the crown).
I might take the following from the above:
- Seven chakras, located in various places around the body.
- The ‘crown’ chakra (top of the head) is only activated on reaching enlightenment; I like this.
- Each chakra does (or is associated with) potentially different things.
Ways This Could Work
Here is one way chakras could be implemented in Echelon.
Chakras are each bound to different parts of the body and each chakra is has connotations to certain types of energies.
D&D 3.x has ‘body slots’ where magic items may be worn and each body slot has connotations to certain types of magic.
I hardly need point out the similarity here. In fact
D&D 3.x defines eleven magic item slots where magic items may be worn.
- One headband, hat, helmet, or phylactery on the head
- One pair of eye lenses or goggles on or over the eyes
- One amulet, brooch, medallion, necklace, periapt, or scarab around the neck
- One vest, vestment, or shirt on the torso
- One robe or suit of armor on the body (over a vest, vestment, or shirt)
- One belt around the waist (over a robe or suit of armor)
- One cloak, cape, or mantle around the shoulders (over a robe or suit of armor)
- One pair of bracers or bracelets on the arms or wrists
- One glove, pair of gloves, or pair of gauntlets on the hands
- One ring on each hand (or two rings on one hand)
- One pair of boots or shoes on the feet
That is somewhat more than seven. Hmm. It’s not strictly necessary to have exactly seven, but I like the number in part because that is the classic number, and in part because eleven (twelve if you consider there are two rings allowed) is a lot of magic items. Some assignments are fairly easy.
| Chakra | Location | D&D Body Slot | D&D Item Types |
| Muladhara | Base/Root, ovaries/prostate | ||
| Swadhisthana | Sacral, end of spine | ||
| Manipura | Solar Plexus | Waist | belt |
| Anahata | Heart | Torso | vest, vestment, shirt |
| Vishudda | Throat | Neck (amulets, brooches) | amulet, brooch, medallion, necklace, periapt, scarab |
| Ajna | Brown/Third Eye | ‘Eyes’ (eye lenses, goggles) | eye lenses, goggles |
| Sahasrara | Crown | ‘Head’ (helmet, hat, phylactery) | hat, helmet, phylactery |
From the descriptions of the chakras I might be tempted to move a few things. For instance, ‘headbands’ might be counted as Ajna because they cover the third eye.
Within certain liberties, five roughly align with five of the classic chakras. From here I’m not certain. I want two more.
“Hands” and “feet” are not classic chakra (they do show up as secondary or minor chakra in some traditions), but functionally they would probably work pretty well. I don’t mind lumping bracers (arms or wrists), gloves (hands) and rings (also hands) into a ‘hands chakra’, but the ‘feet chakra’ might be a little light on options.
‘Shoulders’ is closer to classic (upper spine below the neck) but I’m not certain what would work there. D&D 3.x says ‘cloak, cape, or mantle’, so perhaps something that covers the entire body (or possibly wings or something). However, such objects are usually worn outside armor, so it could be considered ‘far away’. On the other hand, perhaps you cannot open (or make use of) this chakra while wearing armor.
These don’t align perfectly with the chakras, but I’m willing to bend things a little. If I keep all three, though, we end up with eight locations instead of seven… and I like seven.
Opening Chakras
I see three ways to manage opening chakras.
Capstone Talents
For some time I have expected that capstone talents might be used to implement or acknowledge archtypes. That is, a character with the right set of talents might be a ‘Knight of Renown’ or ‘Dread Necromancer’ and gain new abilities and the like appropriate to that archetype.
When I started writing this post I realized that seven chakras is very close to six tiers (from Basic to Legendary). I can imagine having six chakras opening, one per capstone, until the Crown Chakra is opened at the Epic capstone. I can also imagine starting with one opened, then one per capstone until enlighenment (the Crown Chakra) opening at the Legendary capstone.
This could probably work fairly well if there are seven chakras.
If there are eight, though (including all three of ‘hands’, ‘feet’, and ‘cloak’) it doesn’t work quite as well.
Normal Talents
Each chakra could be opened as if it were a normal talent, with ‘Crown Chakra’ being a capstone talent you can take if you have all of the others open to that tier (so the ‘Champion Crown Chakra’ capstone talent requires that you have the other seven chakras open at the Champion tier).
Each character has eight top-tier talents when they are that capstone level, so it is possible to have each chakra opened at full strength and thus have the capstone open at full strength, so that looks like it would work out.
The simple way of applying this model is to have each chakra have specific effect, so we just have eight specific talents and are done.
Chakra-Bound Talents
A more complex way to apply the ‘normal talents’ model above is to have talents be either unbound or bound to chakras. Unbound talents are just that, talents that are not bound to a chakra. Bound talents, when taken, are bound to a chakra, which may mean there is the possibility of mutually exclusive talents. If Healing Touch is a bound talent, taking it may mean that the character is prevented from taking another talent that requires the Hands Chakra.
It might also be possible to have talents that can be bound to different chakras, having different effects depending where they are bound. I expect I would make them distinctly different talents unless I need them to be mutually exclusive as well (so you can only bind ‘Primal Fire’ to one chakra, with the exact manifestation varying by chakra).
This option opens a potentially interesting avenue, described below.
Classic Play: Book of Immortals from Mongoose Publishing
This supplement from Mongoose Publishing provides mechanisms for defining paths to immortality and divinity. Characters can form taps on various sources of power (such as primal wells, sources of primal energies). They can also form covenants (contracts) with other beings or groups of beings to exchange service, sacrifice, or something else in exchange for power. As I recall (book is at home) each such character can have up to twelve victories (bindings), and up to nine on a single track (such as nine taps on primal law).
I wouldn’t have a problem reducing this to seven (one for each non-crown chakra), especially since usually there are only specific effects on the first, second, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth associations (six total). Someone who focuses entirely on primal chaos might then have Chaos bound to all seven chakras.
Instead, I would probably split each into two talents, each of which can be bound to a different chakra. Primal talents like this probably only come into effect at the Master tier, meaning there are three tiers in which they are relevant before Epic, for a total of six powers. Easy fit!
One other element from Book of Immortals that I haven’t mentioned yet is that as a character forms these associations they not only gain power, but restrictions and stigma, physical signs of the power. For example, someone bound tightly enough to Law finds it difficult (or impossible) to lie, and may have crystalline eyes, metallic skin, or some other indicator of this association.
