Unaffiliated Templates
AX.GM.07.12 - Unaffiliated Templates
Most professions in this catalog are tied to organizations, institutions that provide structure, resources, backing, and the social context of a role. The Bureau trains its Agents. The Network connects its Hunters. The Order shapes its Wardens. These relationships define what a character has access to and who they answer to.
Some characters have none of that. They operate without institutional affiliation, by choice, by circumstance, or because no institution would have them. The four templates here cover these characters.
Unaffiliated templates are not lesser professions. They lack organizational authority and institutional resources, but they substitute personal autonomy, adaptability, and capabilities that only develop outside institutional structures. A Solo Hunter has no Network Pull, but also no Network politics, no verification protocols, and no one who can compromise their operation by leaking to the wrong contact.
When to use these templates: - The character's concept does not fit any existing organizational dossier - The character is a Faeborn with no institutional pathway (flagged gap: org index) - The character is a Shadow-Bound Marked whose only institutional options (Vanguard, Hollow Market) do not fit the concept - The character came to the hidden world through personal experience rather than institutional recruitment - The character actively avoids organizational entanglement as a defining trait
Mechanical note: Unaffiliated templates do not include Faction Authority perks. Stage 1 and 2 progression perks reflect personal development rather than institutional standing. Stage 3 perks reflect the character having become significant enough that the hidden world has noticed them, independently, not through an organization.
Template 1: Solo Hunter
You didn't find this life. It found you, through family, through loss, through one night that changed what you knew to be true. You've been doing this without backup ever since. It's not noble. It's just what you do.
Favored Save: Body Save (+1D to Body + Fortitude rolls)
Power Access: None by default. Lineage practitioners access their traditions through their lineage progression (Stage 2), not through this template.
Starting Resources: One established, trusted contact in the hidden world (not a full Network node, a single person who vouches for you and occasionally helps). Personal kit: hunter-grade loadout including one threat-specific material appropriate to the character's history (player and GM determine together). A vehicle.
Lineage Affinity: Human, Skinchanger, Dhampir. The Solo Hunter profile draws toward characters who rely on physical capability and personal knowledge over institutional support. Non-human lineages who operate outside their community structures fit well here.
Progression Track: Solo Hunter
Stage 1 (10 XP), Self-Sufficient
The Solo Hunter has built enough experience to function without a safety net.
- Field Improvisation: Once per scene, the hunter may treat any available
material as a functional substitute for a specific threat-material they
don't have. (Salt from a restaurant, iron from a railing, improvised
blessed water.) The substitute functions at normal effectiveness for one
use. This requires a Wit + Lore roll vs Threshold 2 to identify the
available substitute; on a failure, the improvisation doesn't work.
- Category Knowledge: The hunter's hard experience gives them working
knowledge of one specific threat category (player's choice at Stage 1).
For threats of that category, the hunter knows the standard weakness and
destruction method without a roll. On a second encounter with the same
named threat, the hunter gains +1D to all rolls against it.
Stage 2 (25 XP), Proven Operator
The hunter has survived long enough that the hidden world has started to
notice. People know the name.
- Reputation Pull: Once per session, the hunter's reputation opens a door
that credentials wouldn't. A hidden-world contact (NPC) provides
information, access, or assistance they wouldn't give a stranger,
because they've heard of this hunter. The GM determines the extent based
on what the reputation plausibly covers.
- Power Access (Lineage Tradition): If the hunter has a lineage with Power
Access, they may now access their lineage tradition at 1D (no Talent cost).
Solo experience and necessity have pushed them to develop what their
lineage makes available.
- Second Category Knowledge: As Stage 1 Category Knowledge, for a second
threat category of the player's choice.
Stage 3 (50 XP), The One Who Came Back
Most solo hunters don't make it this far. The ones who do have something
that can't be taught.
- Against All Odds: Once per session, when the hunter would be reduced to
0 Health, they instead drop to 1 Health and take their next action
before losing consciousness (immediate free action, then the normal
0-Health rules apply). This reflects the hunter's accumulated survival
instinct; they've been here before and they know what to do with the
last moment.
- Threat Sense: The hunter has developed a pattern-recognition that
functions below conscious thought. At the start of any scene, the GM
tells the hunter (privately) whether a supernatural threat is present
and, if so, its general tier (Minion/Standard, Elite, Champion/Legendary).
This is not a tradition ability and is not blocked by mundane concealment.
It is experience.
Template 2: Civilian Drawn In
Three months ago your life made sense. You had a job, a routine, a reasonable working theory about how the world worked. Then something happened. You survived it. Now you know things you can't unknow, and you're still figuring out what that means.
Favored Save: Wit Save (+1D to Wit + Resolve rolls)
Power Access: None; this character has no tradition access through this template. If their lineage grants tradition access, it becomes available through lineage progression, not here.
Starting Resources: Ordinary civilian resources, the character's normal life and profession (which now functions as a cover identity and resource base). One connection to the hidden world formed during the inciting incident (a hunter who helped them, an organization that debriefed them, a community member who recognized what happened). No hidden-world specific equipment at start; they are acquiring it.
Lineage Affinity: Human. Occasionally Haunt (a Haunt who has only recently become aware of what they are maps onto this template). This is the everyman entry point, the template for characters who were not raised in the hidden world and must learn it under fire.
Design Note: The Civilian Drawn In begins mechanically weaker than templates with hidden-world training. The Progression Track compensates with faster skill acquisition and broader competence. By Stage 3, a Civilian Drawn In has developed a range of capabilities that purpose-trained hunters rarely acquire, because they were forced to learn everything rather than specializing from the start.
Progression Track: Civilian Drawn In
Stage 1 (10 XP), Fast Learner
The civilian is not dead, which means they've been learning at a pace
that would break most people. The education shows.
- Rapid Adaptation: Once per scene, when the character encounters a
threat or situation they have previously experienced (same threat
category, same type of investigation), they may declare one piece of
knowledge they have learned from that experience. No roll required,
the GM confirms whether the knowledge is accurate. This reflects the
civilian's intense retention of everything they've encountered.
- Civilian Network: The character's ordinary life is a hidden asset.
Their civilian job, contacts, and routines provide access to resources
and information that hidden-world professionals can't access without
elaborate cover. Once per session, the character may use their civilian
identity to obtain something a hunter couldn't: building access,
professional records, community trust, institutional cooperation.
Stage 2 (25 XP), Baptism Complete
The character has crossed the threshold. They are not a civilian who
knows about the hidden world anymore; they are hidden-world, with a
civilian identity that is now genuinely dual-use.
- Cross-Domain Knowledge: The character's unusual path has given them
working knowledge across two threat categories (player's choice) plus
competence in one hidden-world skill area (investigation, combat,
research, or social navigation within hidden-world communities).
For the two chosen categories, they know the standard weakness and
destruction method without a roll.
- Cover Identity: The character's civilian life has been formalized as
a cover identity that supports hidden-world operations. Once per
session, the character may invoke their cover identity to deflect
official scrutiny, police, BUA preliminary contact, institutional
inquiry, without a roll. More aggressive scrutiny still requires a
roll (Wit + Deceive vs Threshold 2–4 depending on intensity).
Stage 3 (50 XP), The Unexpected Expert
The character has been doing this long enough that people who have
been doing it their whole lives are asking them questions.
- Broad Competence: The character has working knowledge of all seven
threat categories; they have encountered something in each and
know the standard approach without research. For any threat they
have personally confronted before (the GM tracks this), they gain
+1D to the first roll made against it in each scene.
- Perspective: The character's background gives them a view of
hidden-world problems that trained operators lack. Once per session,
the character may offer an outside-framework interpretation of a
problem the group is working on. The GM must either confirm the
interpretation is correct or provide the piece that makes it
incomplete, either way, new information is surfaced. This represents
the civilian's ability to see past assumptions that insiders take
for granted.
Template 3: Reformed Threat
You were on the other side. Whatever you were, whatever you did, you're here now, and you're working with people whose job used to be stopping things like you. That's not forgotten. By them, or by you.
Favored Save: Body Save (+1D to Body + Fortitude rolls)
Power Access: Lineage tradition at 1D (no Talent cost). The Reformed Threat's supernatural nature is inherent; it is not accessed through an institution, it simply is. This template assumes the character has a non-human lineage with tradition access (Dhampir, Skinchanger, Haunt, Faeborn, or Marked). Human characters who were enhanced or bound through supernatural means may also use this template with GM approval.
Starting Resources: The character's supernatural capabilities (lineage perks, tradition access at 1D). Knowledge of the hidden world from the inside; they know how threats operate because they were one. One tenuous relationship with the hidden-world community: a hunter, researcher, or organization member who believes the character's reformation is genuine and is willing to vouch for them, conditionally. No financial resources assumed beyond the ordinary.
Lineage Affinity: Dhampir, Skinchanger, Haunt, Faeborn, Marked. This template is designed for non-human lineage characters, specifically those whose lineages have historically been treated as threats by hunter communities. Human characters who were previously enhanced or possessed may also use this template.
Design Note: The Reformed Threat carries social weight beyond mechanics. Other hidden-world characters will have opinions. Some hunters will not trust them regardless of track record. Some organizations will refuse to work with them. Some threats will treat them as a traitor to their kind. This is not a template for characters who want uncomplicated acceptance; it is a template for characters who are working for something in the face of that.
Progression Track: Reformed Threat
Stage 1 (10 XP), Provisional Trust
The character has demonstrated enough reliable behavior that people
are starting to acknowledge the distinction between who they were
and who they are now. The acknowledgment is grudging and conditional.
- Inside Knowledge: The character knows the operational patterns,
weaknesses, social structures, and behaviors of their own kind,
and, through experience, of related threat categories. For threats
of their own lineage-adjacent category and one adjacent category
(GM and player determine at Stage 1), the character knows the
standard weakness and destruction method without a roll, and gains
+1D to Wit + Lore rolls involving the social or behavioral
patterns of those threats.
- Threat Communication: The character can attempt communication with
threats of their own category and adjacent categories where
communication is possible (not mindless threats). No roll required
to attempt communication; the threat's response depends on the
fiction. Other characters attempting this communication without
the Reformed Threat's background take -2D to social rolls with
these threats; the character takes no penalty.
Stage 2 (25 XP), Established Record
The character's actions have built something that can't be dismissed.
The conditional trust has become something more durable in at least
some relationships.
- Tradition Development: The character's tradition access (if any)
increases by 1D (to 2D total, no additional Talent cost). Years
of using their supernatural nature have deepened their competence
with it in ways that formal instruction didn't provide.
- Community Standing: The character has genuine standing in at least
one hidden-world community, a lineage community, an organization,
or an informal group. This standing provides one concrete benefit
the GM and player define together (safe passage in an area,
access to a resource base, a reliable contact network of a specific
type). The standing is real but still carries the character's history
, new contacts may not extend it automatically.
Stage 3 (50 XP), The Bridge
The character occupies a position that nobody else does: genuine
standing on both sides of the line between human and threat communities.
Whether they chose this role or had it thrust on them doesn't matter.
They are it.
- Negotiation Authority: The character can serve as a negotiator
between hunter-community parties and threat-community parties in
situations where negotiation is possible. Both sides accept them
as a legitimate representative, not enthusiastically, but
genuinely. Negotiations the character leads have a base Threshold
of 2 rather than whatever the unaided Threshold would be.
- Dual Knowledge: The character now has working knowledge of all
threat categories (standard weakness and destruction method without
a roll), reflecting both their inside perspective on supernatural
existence and the operational knowledge they've accumulated working
with hunters. For threats of their own lineage category specifically,
all rolls gain +1D from the depth of that understanding.
Template 4: Freelance Occultist
The traditions are fine for what they are. You've studied most of them. You've studied things older than most of them. What you've built doesn't have a name that any one tradition would recognize, but it works.
Favored Save: Wit Save (+1D to Wit + Resolve rolls)
Power Access: Mediumship or Glamourist at 1D (player's choice, no Talent cost). The Freelance Occultist has developed practice outside the formal tradition structures, they have real capability, but it is idiosyncratic and their path to it was non-institutional. Characters who choose Mediumship typically have a Haunt or Dhampir lineage; Glamourist choices align with Faeborn or Marked (Light-Bound). Human Freelance Occultists with no lineage Power Access may access this tradition through this template alone, they developed it through study rather than lineage.
Starting Resources: A personal research library, physical, digital, and field-note format, covering multiple traditions and non-tradition approaches. A working knowledge of the hidden world's major organizations and how to navigate their peripheries without being absorbed by any of them. Access to one research resource not available through normal channels (a specific archive, an unusual contact, an artifact they've been studying).
Lineage Affinity: Human, Haunt, Faeborn. Human occultists who developed capability through study rather than lineage are the canonical fit. Haunt and Faeborn characters who have pursued research beyond their lineage tradition also work well.
Design Note: The Freelance Occultist is defined by breadth over depth; they know a lot about many things and have genuine tradition capability, but they are not a specialist in the way that a Warden (Sacred Fire 2D at access) or a Grimoire Compact Researcher with full institutional resources is. Their strength is adaptability, cross-domain knowledge, and access to approaches that tradition specialists have never considered.
Progression Track: Freelance Occultist
Stage 1 (10 XP), Applied Research
The occultist's cross-domain study is paying off in the field.
- Eclectic Approach: Once per scene, the character may apply their
tradition access to a problem that the tradition was not specifically
designed for. (Mediumship used to detect a fae's Liminal signature;
Glamourist used to read a shadow compact's metaphysical structure.)
The Threshold increases by 1 for this off-domain application, but the
attempt is possible where tradition specialists would say it shouldn't be.
- Threat Research: Given access to their library and a scene's worth of
time, the occultist can produce a working threat assessment, weakness,
known behavioral patterns, documented destruction methods, for any threat
category. Wit + Lore vs Threshold 2 for standard information; Threshold 3
for obscure or variant information. The library covers more categories
than any single organization's resources do.
Stage 2 (25 XP), Theoretical Depth
Years of cross-domain research have given the occultist a grasp of
underlying principles that tradition specialists often lack.
- Tradition Insight: The occultist's understanding of how their tradition
actually works, at a theoretical level, gives them one additional
technique. Choose one: (a) their tradition Threshold 1 applications cost
no Veil Strain (they are so well-practiced at base applications that they
don't strain); or (b) when they fail a tradition roll, they may spend
their Free Action to attempt a modified version at Threshold +1 in the
same scene (the first attempt told them something about what won't work;
they adapt immediately).
- Independent Archive: The occultist has built research connections across
multiple organizations without becoming beholden to any of them. Once per
session, they may access a piece of information from any organization's
research base (Grimoire Compact, Aldersham Institute, BUA unclassified,
Network lore archive) as if they had standing contacts there. The
information is a specific fact, not ongoing access; they know who to
ask and the ask is currently acceptable.
Stage 3 (50 XP), The Approach No One Else Has
The occultist has developed something genuinely novel, a synthesis
of tradition knowledge, independent research, and field experience
that exists nowhere else.
- Developed Methodology: The occultist has formalized one specific
non-standard approach into a reliable technique. Work with the GM to
define this: it should be specific (a particular type of binding,
a research methodology that surfaces hidden connections, an off-domain
application of their tradition that they've refined into reliability).
This technique functions at normal Threshold rather than the +1 that
Eclectic Approach requires; they've practiced it enough that it's
no longer improvised.
- Tradition Depth: The occultist's tradition access increases by 1D
(to 2D total, no Talent cost). The theoretical understanding has
finally translated into genuine deepened capability, late, compared
to a lineage practitioner, but built on a foundation of comprehension
rather than instinct.
Using Unaffiliated Templates Together
These four templates cover distinct conceptual ground and can coexist in the same group without mechanical overlap:
| Template | Core Identity | Mechanical Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo Hunter | Survivor; self-reliant operator | Physical resilience; accumulated threat knowledge; Threat Sense | No institutional backing; no tradition access by default |
| Civilian Drawn In | Ordinary person with extraordinary knowledge | Civilian access; broad adaptability; Perspective ability | Starts weaker; no threat-specific training at creation |
| Reformed Threat | Insider knowledge of threat communities | Tradition at 1D from start; Threat Communication; Bridge role | Social complexity; not trusted by default; history follows them |
| Freelance Occultist | Independent researcher-practitioner | Tradition access; cross-domain knowledge; Eclectic Approach | Less tradition depth than specialists; no organizational standing |
A group built entirely from unaffiliated templates has no organizational backing, no faction authority, and no institutional resources, and is completely off every organization's books. This creates a specific campaign texture: the characters are genuinely independent, owe nothing, and are beholden to no one's agenda. They also have no safety net.
Mixed groups (some unaffiliated, some organizationally affiliated) reflect the most common hidden-world team structure: people from different backgrounds who ended up working together because the work required it.