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[vaxx01]

can anybody explain to me the gnosis systems
what players start with and how does it expand
and finally what can you do with

[Cathar the Great]

All the answers are there in the big rulebook, Chapter 24: Supernatural Presence.

My advice to a new GM/player would be to not bother about it too much. Assume that player characters don't have more than 10 and leave it at that for now.

[Lia Valenth]

can anybody explain to me the gnosis systems
what players start with and how does it expand
and finally what can you do with

Gnosis is hard to explain, it is sort of your spiritual power. At Gnosis 50 you are basically a god. At gnosis 0 you are a standard human. The best way to explain Gnosis, I believe, would be to compare it to narrativium from Diskworld or Ta'veren from The Wheel of Time. The higher your Gnosis the more you can affect the world, the more of a 'hero' you are.

Players start with an unknown amount of Gnosis. It is advised to start them with 10. Starting them with 25+ changes the game immensely, I'll explain below. Some GMs will have players start with up to 20. Gnosis is something creatures are born with. It never increases naturally, although some spells can forcefully increase it.

What you can do with Gnosis is a bit interesting.
Gnosis 0-20 does not really do anything for you, unless you are using the optional rules for Naturum. As Cathar noted it is best to have your PCs start with this and not care about the rest to start with. Naturum is more confusing than Gnosis, and is more of an after thought, I would not advise looking into it until you have a good grasp on the basic rules.
Gnosis 25 allows you to cast High Magic and gain Monster Powers.
Gnosis 30 allows you to percieve the supernatural and grants 50DP or 1CP
Gnosis 35 makes you immortal to anything with 25 less Gnosis, allows slight altering of reality and grants 150DP or 3CP.
Gnosis 40 Gives an AAB against things with less Gnosis and create Avatars, lesser copies of yourself. Grants 300DP or 6CP, and can cast Divine Magic.
Gnosis 45 walk between realities, such as the Wake and Gaia, at will, gives 500DP or 10CP.
Gnosis 50 Grants 15CP or 750DP.

Full explanations are on page 277

[Kalis]

Gnosis can go up naturally, we have a creature in the core rulebook that does so(dragons increase in gnosis as they age).

[FearlessElbow]

I've always thought there should be a mechanism for Gnosis increasing as you progress.

If you get to a stage where you're at Level 25 or something, and you've defeated Barnabas in single combat, having wiped out all the Jurgand agents he sends at you, it would seem (and this is a pretty weird thing to say) a bit disingenuous of the Universe to fail to acknowledge you as in any way significant.

If any of that makes sense.  At all.

It seems a bit like the equivalent of the Universe sticking its fingers in its ears and saying "La-la I can't hear you!".

[Lia Valenth]

Gnosis is stated not to go up naturally. I do not have it work that way in my games, and it does not seem to make sense. It creates a predestination effect and ignores free will, if one believes in free will then Gnosis really doesn't mean anything other than the powers it grants those with high Gnosis. But, officially, Gnosis is not supposed to go up naturally.

[Rii Nagaja]

[...]
Gnosis 40 Gives an AAB against things with less Gnosis and create Avatars, lesser copies of yourself. Grants 300DP or 6CP.
Gnosis 45 walk between realities, such as the Wake and Gaia, at will, gives 500DP or 10CP, and can cast Divine Magic
Gnosis 50 Grants 15CP or 750DP.

Full explanations are on page 277

Didn't Divine Magic start with Gnosis 40 allready *no rulebook at hand*

---

Also, Gnosis is pretty much enlightment in translation. It describes how much a character has evolved out of the life apparatus and has gained oversight above the "how" and "why" everything functions.

Normal people with gnosis 0 are bound to destiny in form of a higher will, while heroes with a score of 10 have the potential to make their own way and sometimes change how things were somehow meant to be. Also they occasionally are able to percieve if some higher being was just adjusting the reality to his will a bit (at least they sense that "something is odd").

A being with gnosis 25 is so enlightened allready that it can start to form out his own identity with his will to something more personal to your spirit (remember, we are on the way where you would be a deity with gnosis 50 at the end, and where you would then represent a certain aspect in life that you have chosen - as every other deity does). With the access to monsterpowers really everything becomes possible. If you want to have crazily fast regeneration? - do it. Your own non-magic/non-Ki special attack, named "Napalm Horror Finger Jab!!" or "Lord Basil tells you how it is" or something? - your choice. Just a matter of enough DP by now.
This state is for me a reflection of the usual main villain in a rpg, who normaly runs some absolutly non-canon powers, that players usually can't get by following the system.

Gnosis 35 makes you a demigod in gameterms. Your perception of reality and how the things flow is allready so advanced, that you can literally influence it with your willpower in some minor ways - "Would be so nice if they just left the key he.. , nice, thanks!"
Being allready crystallized out from the flow of souls somehow, you also cannot be killed so easy anymore. In fact you reincarnate all the time if it was just a being with 30 or more less gnosis than you were killing you (meaning only heros can really kill a demigod).

Gnosis 40 makes you a mundane deity with I believe(not sure at the moment) access to all kinds of magic which literally lays the tools of creation, life, time and doomsday in your hands.. (there is a spell named "Armageddon".., yepp). Your natural abilty to influence reality is so intuitive now, that mere thoughts are enough to adjust reality in your favor all the time, giving you insane advantages against any lesser enlightened being and making all not knowledge related tasks often so easy as snaping your fingers. You imagine how it should be and there it goes.
I like to compare this level as the final boss state of every final fantasy game, where the last enemy has multiple mutation phases and usually alot of unfair and for players normally unachievable powers. You can often observe there how these last villains have a certain degree of reality altering powers, running some will telekinesis, darkening the skies, floating and stuff like that (not to mention their personal world scaled special attacks )
Oh, yes and you can raise avatars of yourself which can handle things for you at a distance in a very deity-ish manor.

Gnosis 45 is what I would call the bestia and summon state in a final fantasy game, because it enables you to shift between the multiple layers of reality at any time (so without any spell, power or so), so you can appear and reappear as you please. At this moment you are a not earthbound minor deity that can allready represent some minor aspect of reality by himself (and if it is just being the king/prototype of all dragons "Bahamut", or the incarnation of the early mornings dewdrops on the leaves). But this is just my interpretation - I have not seen jet any example sheet of a character or creature with gnosis 45.

Gnosis 50 is the god state obviously. Choose your aspect and make your vote / give your influence on how the life apparatus should run.


///Disclaimer: I didn't want to say you can actually "evolve" by the rules. It is just good for the description I think.
This stays a GM (and players) thing as it is so often.

[Lia Valenth]

Hm, i don't have my book with me so I guess I am unsure on the Gnosis required for Divine Magic.

[Lagnalok]

Divine Magic is Gnosis 40.

[Lizbeth]

I've always thought there should be a mechanism for Gnosis increasing as you progress.

If you get to a stage where you're at Level 25 or something, and you've defeated Barnabas in single combat, having wiped out all the Jurgand agents he sends at you, it would seem (and this is a pretty weird thing to say) a bit disingenuous of the Universe to fail to acknowledge you as in any way significant.

If any of that makes sense.  At all.

It seems a bit like the equivalent of the Universe sticking its fingers in its ears and saying "La-la I can't hear you!".

Gnosis can go up with spells.
But yes, this rule is kinda dumb. I use HOUSERULE which increases PC Gnosis by 1 every level. And they start with 10.

[The Dread Polack]

I always thought the gnosis rules were sloppy too. I understand the idea, but why not just have 7 or 10 levels of gnosis instead of "gnosis 0-20 means nothing". The natura rules just make it all more confusing too. For now, I'm ignroring them.

[Lagnalok]

I always thought the gnosis rules were sloppy too. I understand the idea, but why not just have 7 or 10 levels of gnosis instead of "gnosis 0-20 means nothing". The natura rules just make it all more confusing too. For now, I'm ignroring them.

Natura is sort of the gnosis levels for 0-20: you take your gnosis, substract the natura value of the race your char is and then look at the natura table to see what your gnosis above natura benefit is.

[Lia Valenth]

I always thought the gnosis rules were sloppy too. I understand the idea, but why not just have 7 or 10 levels of gnosis instead of "gnosis 0-20 means nothing". The natura rules just make it all more confusing too. For now, I'm ignroring them.

Natura is sort of the gnosis levels for 0-20: you take your gnosis, substract the natura value of the race your char is and then look at the natura table to see what your gnosis above natura benefit is.

See? Confusing.

[The Dread Polack]

lol, yeah.

[Sharpandpointies]

I've always thought there should be a mechanism for Gnosis increasing as you progress.

If you get to a stage where you're at Level 25 or something, and you've defeated Barnabas in single combat, having wiped out all the Jurgand agents he sends at you, it would seem (and this is a pretty weird thing to say) a bit disingenuous of the Universe to fail to acknowledge you as in any way significant.

If any of that makes sense.  At all.

It seems a bit like the equivalent of the Universe sticking its fingers in its ears and saying "La-la I can't hear you!".

Counterpoint to that is you don't GET to that level unless your Gnosis is 15 or 20.

The simple way to deal with it is that if the characters in your game are likely to reach some ungodly level, give 'em Gnosis 15.  If it's going to be a 'normal' campaign, give them 10.  If they're going to progress slowly, and it's going to be a 'street level' game of them being guards in a big city dealing with the occasional weirdness, and thy're never going to be the big players in Gaia, give 'em 5.  :)

Milage may vary.  :)