How much freedom do players have to differ from the 'norms' for their cult and culture. When buying new keywords can a player name anything at all he fancies having and pay the x2 modifier? When creating new characters can the player put anything at all down as a keyword? HW does away with a list of skills, and I can see how this can be a jolly good thing. However the flip side is that you can't then say that a given skill from the list is restricted in some way.
For example if I am a newbie creating a humakti could I include invisibility as a feat just because I fancied it (in RQ terms he somehow knows the invisibility spirit spell), and then assign my 5w to it?
One issue is that this may not be a very humakti thing to do. That is to say the keywords chosen conflict with the cult or culture as the referee sees it. I presume that the ref has the right to veto keywords, or to ask that it became an item not a feat, or to tell the player he only gets it at 10.
Another issue is that keywords may be straying into an area that is specifically the domain of some specialist cult. For example in later RQ years invisibility had been removed from general availability and became a specialist spell known to a few sneaky cults. Again I assume that the ref has the right to say a given keyword is just not available.
How much right does the player have to design his character and how much right does the ref have to meddle and maintain some sort of consistency? Obviously we can all do it how we fancy; I am asking how its intended to be 'by the book'.
Nick Hollingsworth
Birmingham - the land of the free and the home of the balti.
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