Hero personalities are developed in two primary ways: through seeding when the hero is created and through training during a hero's time in the player's service.
Singularity and duality personalities[ | ]
"Singularity" personalities are not paired with any opposite personality. "Duality" personalities, however, have an opposite personality. It isn't possible for heroes to have both personalities in a duality pair.
Personality progress[ | ]
The hero's active personalities are the ones revealed in a hero's information and are the only ones that affect the hero, but a hero has a hidden numeric progress value for each possible singularity personality and for each pair of duality personalities. For singularity personalities, this value can only be zero or positive. For duality pair, a positive value usually indicates progress toward the "positive" personality and a negative value indicates progress toward the "negative" personality.
Seeding of personalities[ | ]
When heroes are initially created, whether they are children of a player's heroes or come into service from other means, three random personalities are seeded by assigning a random progress value between 0 and 25.
Training of personalities[ | ]
Before a hero comes of age, his or her personality progress is influenced by their trainers. Trainers include the current regent of the keep, the regent's partner, and all standards.
The total amount of progress that a singularity personality or duality pair can gain (or lose) during the fifteen years of training is 100. The maximum amount of progress each day is thus 100 divided by the number of days in fifteen turns, so 100 divided by 5,475, or about 0.0183 per day. Every trainer gets an equal share of that 0.0183 per day per personality, so a hero with only one trainer would get 0.0183 progress, positive or negative, for each active personality of the trainer. In most cases, there would be more than one trainer, though. In a case with three trainers, each trainer would add about 0.0061 per day of progress to the trainee's progress in each of their own active personalities, which is 0.0183 divided by three.
For duality pairs, this additional progress could be positive or negative, so trainers with opposing personalities would cancel the influence of the other out on a given personality if no other trainers affect it.
Special cases[ | ]
- Withdrawn trainers
- Withdrawn trainers have no influence on the personalities of their trainees. They still count as a trainer, however, so they do reduce the influence other trainers have on the personalities of their trainees.
- Impressionable heroes
- Impressionable heroes gain 25% more personality progress from training than normal, which translates to a rare of about 0.0228 per day and 125 total during their youth. Additionally, their personalities are affected by the heroes they fight beside in tactical combat. See more here on the mechanics of personality training in combat.
- Strong Willed heroes
- Training has no personality influence at all on strong willed heroes. They can only gain personalities from seeding, though if the normal personality rolls fail to activate at least one, one is randomly selected and activated anyway.
- Rebel heroes
- Personality training of heroes with the rebel personality has the opposite effect. When a trainer has the positive personality active in a duality pair, a rebel trainee gains progress toward the negative, and vice versa. The exception is the rebel personality itself, which is influenced normally. For singularity personalities, this simply means that progress is reduced rather than increased. Note that at the time a rebel personality gets activated, all personality progress is immediately switched to the opposite.
Personality activation[ | ]
Personality activation occurs when a trainee comes of age or when an adult hero is recruited. A random number of activations between one and three is selected, with each being equally likely.
For each activation, a table of personalities and chances is temporarily generated as follows:
- The absolute value of all progress of all singularity personalities and duality pairs which are not yet active are added together. Absolute value simply means the negative number loses it sign and becomes positive.
- Each singularity personality and duality pairs with nonzero progress is added to the table. Its chance of activation is equal to the absolute value of its progress divided by the total calculated above.
After generating that table, one personality is selected from it according to the calculated chance. If a duality pair is selected and the progress is negative, then the negative personality of the pair is activated; otherwise, the positive personality of the pair is activated.
Example[ | ]
Let's say a hero comes of age with progress in five personalities. She has had the same trainers her whole life:
- Her father, the regent, was Insightful, Pessimistic, and a Reveler.
- Her mother was Pessimistic, a Rebel, and Tranquil.
- One of the standards was Insightful, Pessimistic, and Tranquil.
- The other was Pessimistic, a Reveler, and Nervous.
During her life, each trainer contributed a total 25 points of progress (100 divided by four trainers) for each personality they had. Tranquil and Nervous are a duality pair, so effectively the two standards are cancelling each others' effects out on that personality axis, but her mother was also Tranquil, so there is still progress.
The game randomly chooses to activate three personalities.
| Personality | Progress | Absolute value | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insightful/Oblivious | 50 | 50 | 20% |
| Optimistic/Pessimistic | -100 | 100 | 40% |
| Rebel | 25 | 25 | 10% |
| Reveler | 50 | 50 | 20% |
| Tranquil/Nervous | 25 | 25 | 10% |
| Total | 250 | 100% |
Let's say the game chooses Reveler as the first choice. The table for the second choice would then be:
| Personality | Progress | Absolute value | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insightful/Oblivious | 50 | 50 | 25% |
| Optimistic/Pessimistic | -100 | 100 | 50% |
| Rebel | 25 | 25 | 12.5% |
| Tranquil/Nervous | 25 | 25 | 12.5% |
| Total | 200 | 100% |
The game next selects Insightful/Obvilious. As the hero's progress in this personality is positive, Insightful is activated. The table for the third choice is then:
| Trait(s) | Progress | Absolute value | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Optimistic/Pessimistic | -100 | 100 | 66.7% |
| Rebel | 25 | 25 | 16.7% |
| Tranquil/Nervous | 25 | 25 | 16.7% |
| Total | 150 | 100% |
Now the game selects Optimistic/Pessimistic. As the progress here is negative, Pessimistic is activated.