Renown

As you accomplish heroic deeds, your fame allows you to influence NPCs and attract followers. Your infamy among your enemies also grows. Every hero has a Renown score that represents how they can use their reputation to influence others. The higher the score, the greater your impact with those who know of your legend.

At the start of character creation, your Renown is 0. Some careers can increase your initial Renown score (see Chapter 4: Background).

Increasing Renown

Some perks (see Chapter 7), downtime projects (Chapter 12), and titles and treasures (part of Chapter 13: Rewards) can increase your renown. But for the most part, you earn Renown at the end of an exciting adventure, often after the acknowledgement of a powerful NPC that you helped save them, their family, their home, their organization—or even their nation or world. That NPC and anyone else who witnessed your heroics can tell the tale, and from there, your legend grows.

In most campaigns, the Director sets the characters up to earn 1 Renown per level, but some campaigns will feature heroes who are more or less famous (or infamous) than that.

Influence Negotiation

Renown changes the way NPCs respond to heroes during negotiations (see Chapter 11), whether that renown takes the form of fame or infamy.

Attract Followers

Your Renown score allows you to attract and employ followers who perform different duties or favors for you. The Renown and Followers table shows how many followers a hero can have at one time based on Renown. You can always let go of a follower in your employ to hire a new one.

You can recruit followers up to the maximum your Renown allows as a respite activity, provided you are in a place or have a means of communication that allows you to recruit such followers.

Renown and Followers Table

Stronghold

Many followers stay at a stronghold, which is a home base you designate and can change. Your stronghold is typically a location shared by your fellow heroes. It could be a few rooms at an inn in a sleepy village, an old castle you claimed after clearing it of monsters, or a fleet of sailing ships.

Follower Types

When you attract a new follower, you decide on their name and ancestry, and choose what role they play in their service to you.

Artisan

Artisans are crafting experts who can contribute to your research and crafting projects (see Chapter 12: Downtime Projects). An artisan can contribute one project roll per day to a downtime project you choose, whether you spend those days in respite, adventuring, or other activities. They must remain at your stronghold or at the site where the project is undertaken, and must have access to the necessary materials.

When you recruit an artisan, choose four skills from the crafting skill group that they know (see Skills in Chapter 9: Tests). An artisan has a Might or Agility score of 1 (your choice), a Reason score of 1, and a 0 in all other characteristics. They know Caelian and two other languages of your choice.

Retainer

Retainers are heroic NPCs who adventure alongside the player characters. They are controlled by players in combat and are both simpler to run and less powerful than player characters. A hero can have only one retainer in their service at a time unless the Director deems otherwise. Because retainers and their stat blocks are combat focused, the Director can also decide that a large party can have only one retainer in total—or can't have any retainers at all—to keep combat from getting long and tedious.

Rules for retainers are found in Draw Steel: Monsters.

Sage

Sages are research experts who can contribute to your research and crafting projects. A sage can contribute one project roll per day to a downtime project you choose, whether you spend those days in respite, adventuring, or other activities. They must remain at your stronghold or at the site where the project is undertaken, and must have access to the necessary materials.

When you recruit a sage, choose four skills from the lore skill group that they know. A sage has a Reason and Intuition score of 1, and a 0 in all other characteristics. They know Caelian and two other languages of your choice.