It’s a staple of many “HFY” stories that humans can pack-bond with anything, from wild animals, to Roombas, to a volleyball, to a robot marooned to die on an alien planet. They often advocate or even take extreme actions to recover or repair such objects, baffling other creatures.
While it seems to be partly a learned behavior, from hearing childrens’ stories about animate objects which cannot be animate (trees, socks, or children’s toys are common), part of it seems to be innate to humanity. It’s a triumph of humanity’s spirit over uncomforting logic. Let’s gamify that! Humanic Empathy is an ability gained by humans and those who are mostly-humans (half-Orcs, half-Elves, and similar races, but probably not Tieflings and Aasimar, unless they were raised thinking they were human) . When a character pack-bonds to a thing, identifying it as something valued and given personality characteristics which they wouldn’t normally have, their Humanic Empathy is activated. The object must be given a name, even if that’s “Spellbook McBookFace”. The human then gains a +1 determination bonus on saving throws against any effect which would force them to harm or otherwise abandon the object or creature. In addition, if the human is in touch contact with the thing for the majority of a long rest, they heal an additional 1 hit point during the rest. However, if the object is lost, damaged, or destroyed, the human gains no benefit from the next long rest immediately following. Why humans cannot easily extend this empathy to fellow intelligent creatures is unknown, and studied by many sages. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 15 February 2019) Comments are closed.
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AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
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