The Elder

An Water Tribe woman riding a snowmobile is featured as an example for the Elder playbook.

The Elder (智者) 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 Elder is one of the four playbooks featured in Wan Shi Tong's Adventure Guide. They have seen much, been to many places, and done much. Now esteemed and successful, they have much to teach, but they also have the wisdom to see they have much to learn. Their balance principles are Experience vs. Humility.

Description

The Elder has spent many years living and learning, making mistakes and growing from them. Play the Elder if you want to teach (and be taught by) your companions.

Experienced, esteemed, studious, guiding. The Elder is distinct from other companions because they are always mid-30s or older, and they are experienced, successful, and even respected. Whereasmost other companions are proving themselves, establishing themselves, becoming heroes for the first time, the Elder has already seen and done so much. But crucially, the Elder has not finished learning, growing, or changing. They can guide others along the path with their own hard-won experience, but they will never stop walking down that very same road of learning and being a student.

The Elder has achieved much that earns them praise and respect throughout the scope of the game, but they are not currently in a position of power. Working and traveling with the companions, the Elder has moved away from their static position. Once, they might have been an important general or the leader of a monastic order; now, they have set that position aside, if only temporarily, to join the other companions.

• Starting stats: Creativity 0, Focus 0, Harmony +2, Passion -1
• Demeanor options: Diligent, Kindly, Bemused, Dour, Distant, Irascible

Principles

The Elder's two principles, Experience and Humility, reflect their current position, caught between being learner and teacher.

The Elder's Experience principle reflects their adherence to what they have learned during their time shaping the world. All of that experience puts them in a position to see the world differently. At their best, the Elder can provide new insight and guidance to the companions; at their worst, the Elder can discount the companions and see things rigidly through a lens of past experience.

The Elder's Humility principle reflects how the Elder understands that for all they have done and learned, they do not know everything and have plenty left to learn. The time to change who they are, what they believe, and how they act in the world is never truly over. An Elder overly committed to Humility can discount the wealth of their experience, however, and fail to intervene when they see a friend making a terrible mistake.

The Elder's Moment of Balance is all about seeing the world as it is, truthfully. What is more, they can share that understanding with others in perfect clarity. In their Moment of Balance, the Elder guides everyone around them to honest understanding, all deception and confusion stripped away; they all come to a new understanding of the situation, of others, and of the world, and anyone who once sought to conceal the truth finds their work exposed.

Characteristics

Moment of Balance

You will always be anchored to the past — unable to escape the painful lessons you have learned — but now you can hold the weight of that experience with the humility true wisdom brings. You look upon the current situation with unbiased eyes to see the truths roiling beneath the surface.

Moves

• Cut the Garbage
• An Open Heart
• As Long as I'm Breathing
• Life's True Delights
• Around Here Somewhere

Growth question

The Elder has no growth question, nor does the Elder earn growth like the other playbooks. Instead, the Elder earns growth advancements as they aid chosen protégés to achieve their full potential and move toward their own principles.