This is an alternate ruleset for bonds inspired by the rules found in Golden Sky Stories. The goal of this of this change is to make bonds less “significant” and more freely taken. In this change, bonds are acquired in each arc with key NPCs, places, and themes relevant to the arc. At the end of the arc, those bonds will be cleared to make room for the next arc’s characters. However, if a character returns, the PC can start their bond at a higher level due to their shared history!
Bonds are acquired in the same fashion as core Fabula Ultima. They can be gotten via opportunities, camp scenes, or awarded from the GM for a scene involving that bond. The bond is given a description as normal.
Bonds cannot be acquired with party members. Instead, at the start of the campaign each PC gains a “Party” bond at strength 0. This Bond is unique and can only be increased via the GM. This represents a significant milestone for the Party as they become closer allies.
At the end of a story arc, the GM will call for all Bonds (asides from the Party bond) to be cleared. For each bond, the PC writes down a Token of the bond. This can be a memory, a physical item, or just a note of the emotions of the bond before it was cleared.
When a PC creates a new Bond that they have a Token for, they can choose one of the emotions they have recorded in that Token and add that emotion to the new Bond as well. Only a single emotion gets carried over, as time apart weakens your relationship.
For example, Alice has a token with Kat that has the “Hatred” and “Admiration” emotions. After meeting Kat again in a new story arc, Alice is feeling “Loyalty” for Kat after Kat betrayed Alice’s enemies to help Alice. Alice can use her Token with Kat to not only create the Bond with Loyalty, she can also add Hatred (because Kat is still a former enemy) or Admiration (because Kat did the right thing)!
When a Bond is cleared and the PC has a Token for that Bond, replace all the emotions in that Bond with the current ones you just cleared. Relationships change over time, so you don’t hold onto those emotions forever!