Two spellcasters are attacked by a demon assassin—one reflexively raises a shield of fire; the other sows confusion with an illusion. The first of the group converging at the spaceport bar looking for rumors tries learning information directly from the patrons with their mental powers, another attempts to befriend everyone, and a third dares intimidating a target in the corner by revealing the horrifying shape they can take. The warriors face off—one never quits a fight, always coming back for more while the other holds nothing but their clenched and deadly fists.
Your focus helps make your character unique, differentiating you from the other PCs whether you have the same or different types. Your focus provides you with associated special abilities. It's the verb of the sentence “I am an adjective noun who verbs.”
This section contains over forty foci, such as Blazes With Fire and Works for a Living. Each genre in this book includes a list of foci appropriate for that setting, but work with your GM if you have an idea for how a focus not on that list could be adapted to fit the genre and your character's theme.
When choosing your focus for a game, coordinate with the other players and the GM about what you're all thinking of selecting. Ideally, none of you should have the same focus, because your character's distinctiveness is part of the reason you're choosing a focus in the first place.
How your character came to have the focus you do is yours to define, as long as it fits within the setting.
For example, if your character Entertains, maybe you grew up as part of a traveling troupe, or perhaps you found yourself in the role accidentally in order to make ends meet. If you choose Employs Magnetism, maybe it's because you're secretly a mutant, you stole an experimental device that confers the ability, or you don't know where your gifts come from and you want to find out. (It's okay for you, the player, to know the answer even if your character doesn't.)
Giving a little thought to the origin of your character's focus helps flesh out your background, ties you to other places and people, and connects to other parts of your character.
The foci descriptions are purposely stripped down to basics so they have the widest possible application across multiple genres. A single descriptive sentence or two summarizes each one.
Each focus offers one or more genre theme suggestions. These are “quick hits” to help conceptualize how that focus might fit your character in a particular genre. For instance, the Builds Allies focus might mean that, in a science fiction genre, the allies you build are robots. But in a fantasy genre, you might be crafting golems and similar magically animated entities.
Each focus also offers one or more GM Intrusion suggestions for possible ways the GM might complicate the situation, or as a consequence of a bad roll on your part.
Sometimes, a focus grants you additional equipment: one or two starting items you gain, in addition to whatever you already have from other sources, that might be required for you to use your ability or that might pair well with the focus. For instance, a character that can build things needs a set of tools. That said, many foci don't require additional equipment.
At tier 1, choose two tier 1 special abilities from your chosen focus. It's not in your best interest to choose an ability identical—or effectively identical—to one you already have, such as one granted by your type. Doing so doesn't provide any benefit unless it's an ability that specifically indicates it can be taken more than once or an ability that improves something you already have.
When you advance a tier, you can always go back and take a lower or equal tier ability, as long as you've taken the preceding ability in the flowchart. And you can always take another tier 1 ability (if any remain) for your focus.
If an ability specifically indicates it can be taken more than once, you can choose it again instead of advancing elsewhere along the flowchart.