The Curious Case of Flight in Silvervine

In a lot of the playtest games we’ve run, one thing that people have commented on is the ability to easily make a flight capable character within the Silvervine system. The ability to fly can really change the balance of some game systems and thus it is often limited or held until later levels.

Flight can definitely unbalance a game, but it doesn’t have to. In a system like Silvervine, where there are many other options for movement that balance flight out, flight becomes just one more way to move your character. Focuses like Minor Levitation and Jumping can put non-flying characters right on par with the winged ones. Many of the ranged attack and magic options force characters into range if they want to attack.

Learning To Fly
The most obvious way to get access to flight is to pick up the Flight focus that grants magical powered flight. By spending one single manna the character is given flight for a fairly long time. Tacking on the Permanent Ability focus to your flight makes it an inbuilt part of the character. From there all you have to do is determine how and why the character’s flight works. Even simpler, if your character is an Animos in Cyrus(intelligent animal), or otherwise has wings built in to their race (winged fey races, gargoyle, alien race with wings, self-made race that the Game Master agrees to, etc.) the character can move at their movement speed through air or on land.

For those who are more magically inclined, there are various spells within the core rulebook that allow for flight. Casters can use Change Creature to turn into a creature capable of flight, use Flying Element to build a flight capable platform, or use Telekinesis to move themselves. These are just the options available in the spells as they are written. Creative players an always use spell ingeniously to enable flight, let alone the powers that a summon might grant.

Flight In Cyrus
In the Cyrus setting, flight is definitely a part of the world structure. Since people have been flying in airships since the days of the Godelves, flight ability is important. While a person might fall off of a sailing ship and float until rescued, falling from an airship means almost certain death. Many airship sailors learn a flight spell or pay for flight granting magical items.

Flight is a great tool in a Silvervine game. Have you ever had a character with flight? If you haven’t, you might want to think about including it in your next character. Game Master’s you might find flight is an interesting option to use in your NPCs.

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