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# System prepended metadata

title: M01-2 - Aetherskills
tags: [Mechanic]

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# AETHERSKILLS

Aetherskills are a core mechanical feature that further serves to define Aetherbornes against their peers. While their existence in narrative contexts is dubious, the mechanical effects of their presence on a character serves to define your character's gameplay identity further than what is possible in standard D&D 5e rulesets.

At its core, an Aetherskill is a set of features that you can progressively unlock as your character levels up. Generally, features that unlock under the same Aetherskill will share a certain core theme, or center around a certain aspect of your character.

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## Defining an Aetherskill

An Aetherskill is comparable to a homebrew class that only exists for your character. No two Aetherskills are the same, and even ones that seem similar mechanically or thematically may have wildly differing lore or implementations.

When creating your character's Aetherskill, think of your character's capabilities and specialties. What do you want your character to do? What should they be able to do according to their lore, that isn't represented by any other features? An Aetherskill would be a great place to add these features.

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## Levelling up

In order to represent your character's progress in their own specialized path, Aetherskills also grow as you level up. You gain an Aetherskill feature every three character levels, beginning with Level 1. Each Aetherskill consists of seven features, with the first level granting two features.

When you initially gain an Aetherskill, you receive a Level 0 and a Level 1 feature for the Aetherskill, as well as the core functionality of the Aetherskill itself. The Level 0 feature functions essentially like a feat, and is intended to provide a small boon to your character that fits the theme but otherwise does not cohere mechanically with the rest of the Aetherskill.



| Level              | 1   | 3   | 6   | 9   | 12  | 15  | 18  |
| ------------------ | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Number of Features | 2   | 1   | 1   | 1   | 1   | 1   | 1   |


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## Gaining another Aetherskill

Every time you reach another level threshold for a new Aetherskill feature, you can instead use that to take another Aetherskill. This is especially useful for when you wish to develop your character in a different direction incompatible with your original Aetherskill's premise.