Fame is not inherently positive or negative. A character can be famous for heroism, brutality, scandal, beauty, skill, or the kind of incident that people retell in taverns with decreasing accuracy. You and the GM agree on what the character is known for during creation. The mechanical weight is the same regardless of the reason — people react to the name, not the nuance behind it.
Fame uses the same triangular cost curve as skills. Each dot costs its dot number in XP. The cumulative cost rises steeply — being well-known is expensive, and being iconic costs as much as maxing an entire skill.
| Fame Level | Dot Cost | Cumulative XP |
|---|---|---|
| 0 — Unknown | — | 0 |
| 1 — Locally Known | 1 | 1 |
| 2 — District Reputation | 2 | 3 |
| 3 — City-Wide Name | 3 | 6 |
| 4 — Legendary | 4 | 10 |
| 5 — Iconic | 5 | 15 |
Fifteen points is a serious commitment. That is the same price as taking a skill from zero to five. A player who spends it should feel the weight of that choice in every scene.
Nobody knows your name. You walk into a room and nobody looks up. You leave and nobody remembers. This is not a disadvantage — it is freedom. You can go anywhere, do anything, and the city does not care enough to form an opinion.
Your immediate neighborhood knows you exist. The baker nods. The local guard recognizes your face. The woman who runs the corner stall saves you the good bread, or stops stocking it when she sees you coming. Beyond your block, you are nobody.
People you have never met have heard your name. Merchants in your district form opinions before you speak. Strangers glance twice. You can still walk through other districts unnoticed, but within your own, conversations occasionally stop when you enter. Whether they resume depends on what you are known for.
Walking into a tavern changes the room. Strangers across Soltherra have heard something about you — possibly accurate, probably not. Guards know your face. Factions have filed you under “relevant.” Going unnoticed requires effort, and most of the time the effort fails.
Your name appears in stories that have drifted far enough from the truth to be entertaining. Factions seek you out as ally or threat — sometimes both in the same conversation. People form opinions about you before meeting you, and those opinions are loud. You attract followers, enemies, and petitioners in roughly equal measure.
Your name is part of the city’s vocabulary. Children play-act as you in the streets. Innkeepers tell their staff to watch for you. Privacy within Soltherra is functionally impossible — someone always knows where you are, and someone else is always asking. The city does not forget you, even when you want it to.
Fame shapes how NPCs behave before a single word is spoken. It does not add dice or modify rolls — it changes the situation the roll happens in.
The key distinction: Fame does not make social interactions easier or harder in mechanical terms. It makes them different. A famous character gets a different conversation than an unknown one. Both conversations can succeed or fail.
Fame is a tool you use during the Prepare stage of any scene. Before the players act, consider who in the scene would recognize them and what that recognition changes.
A character famous for generosity enters the silk market. Merchants compete for attention, offer samples, extend credit. The same character, famous instead for defaulting on debts, finds stalls closing early and shopkeepers discovering urgent business in the back room.
A character with Fame 4, known for violence, walks into a crowded tavern. Half the room suddenly remembers somewhere else they need to be. The other half watches very carefully. The barkeeper pours a drink without being asked. Nobody charges for it.
A character with Fame 3, known for solving problems, tries to have a quiet meal. Three strangers approach with requests before the food arrives. The character wanted information from one specific person — that person is now waiting behind a queue of petitioners who saw the famous face first.
Fame earned through play is a narrative reward, not a transaction. The GM can increase a character’s Fame at any point based on what they have done — no XP cost, no negotiation. The character pulled a district out of a plague? Fame goes up. The character burned down a landmark? Fame goes up. The reason changes; the visibility does not.
Decreasing Fame is slower. People forget less readily than they learn. A character who retreats from public life might lose a dot over weeks or months of deliberate obscurity. A character who actively works to suppress their reputation might manage it faster, but suppression itself tends to generate stories.
Fame 3 and above makes anonymity difficult. Fame 5 makes it impossible within Soltherra. This is by design.
Visibility is the cost of social power. A character who is known everywhere can leverage that recognition — doors open, names carry weight, reputations precede them. But the same visibility means enemies know where to find them, rivals track their movements, and every action is observed, interpreted, and retold by people with their own agendas.
At Fame 3, disguise and misdirection can still work, but they require active effort and carry risk. Someone will recognize the voice, the walk, the habit of cracking knuckles before speaking. At Fame 5, the character’s face is common knowledge. Disguise is not impossible in the way that gravity is impossible to ignore — it is impossible in the way that hiding an elephant in a parlor is impossible. Technically achievable. Practically, someone is going to notice the elephant.
This compounds with Caste and Wealth. An Upper Caste, wealthy, famous character is the most visible person in any room they enter. The advantages are real. So is the exposure. Players who invest heavily in social standing should expect the world to pay attention to them — and not always in the ways they prefer.
Character Creation — the full point-buy process, including Caste, Wealth, and Skills.
GM Guide — pairing judgment, the fun rule, and practical guidelines for running Soltherra.
© Soltherra RPG System