The Bound

A character featured as an example for the Bound playbook.

The Bound (使者) is one of the playbooks for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game, an outline of a character archetype that can be customized in the game. The Bound is one of the four playbooks featured in the Uncle Iroh's Adventure Guide playbook, and is described as loyal, responsible, questioning, and fair. Their balance principles are Duty vs Justice.

Description

The Bound has sworn oaths and committed themselves wholly to their role. Play the Bound if you want to be a duty-bound servant of others wrestling with your oaths and your own sense of justice.

Loyal, responsible, questioning, fair. The Bound is committed to their role, having taken on all its duties and rules in full. They are tied to some institution that they serve, but that doesn't mean they serve blindly or thoughtlessly. The Bound believes in the expectations and duties of their role, and they believe in the service that they offer, but they know that those very rules can mislead them. They are constantly balancing their own sense of right and wrong with the sense imparted to them by their role.

• Starting stats: Creativity -1, Focus 0, Harmony 0, Passion +2
• Demeanor options: Formal, Grandiose, Honest, Proud, Stern, Straight-laced

Principles

The Bound struggles between the principles of Duty and Justice.

Their Duty principle is all about their commitment to their role, their obligation to follow its rules, dictates, and responsibility. As Duty rises, the Bound becomes more and more committed to the rules, tenets, and service of their role; they don't just want to obey the institution they serve, but they put more and more stock in the role itself. They believe that the obligations and traditions of the role will guide them to do good in the world better than their own judgment.

Their Justice principle is all about their commitment to their own sense of right and wrong, their own beliefs in how to do good in the world. As Justice rises, the Bound puts more stock in their own beliefs in how to act, even if their beliefs conflict with the rules of their role. A Justice-focused Bound begins to resist the constraints and expectations of their role, but that means they lose the confidence and the drive that it gives them.

The Bound tries to balance these two principles by constantly not committing too hard to one side or the other. They can't be too rigid, too devoted to the demands of their position to use their judgment; but they also can't be too invested in their own beliefs to ignore the expectations and responsibilities bestowed upon them. Their Moment of Balance represents this by showing when they change their understanding of their responsibilities to match their own belief in justice.

Characteristics

Moment of Balance

Your role and your self have never been entirely the same thing, no matter how you might've wished they were, but in this moment that divide becomes a great boon. You expand and alter your understanding of yourself and your oaths to match the current situation, taking strength from your role to push yourself and perform the impossible. Tell the GM how your confidence in yourself and your role together allow you to take exactly the right action to solve the current crisis, and rewrite any one tenet of your role as you choose.

Moves

• Find Your Center
• A Committed Will
• Devotion
• Comfort in Guidance
• Strength in Purpose

Growth question

Did you speak to at least two other characters about their beliefs on what you should do?

The Bound's question is about seeking the opinions and ideas of others to address their dilemmas. At the simplest, this means the Bound looks for orders from their institution... but they need to seek at least two other opinions and are liable to get different answers that push them to consider their own sense of justice.

Characters

• Hakkun