Note: This article was originally posted on the Calenmir's RPGs blog on February 28, 2025. Restoring the article navigation links is a work in progress; thank you for your patience.

This is part 6 of an ongoing series about character creation in Apocalypse Keys, which was written by Rae Nedjadi and published by Evil Hat Games. It revolves around Omen-class monsters—beings of such immense power that they are capable of both saving and destroying worlds—struggling against Harbingers of the Apocalypse, and also against the darkness in their own hearts.

Apocalypse Keys gives players a great degree of freedom in character creation—so much, in fact, that intimidated new players often default to the base game’s premade characters. Therefore, to help players get more comfortable with character creation, this series will illustrate each of the game’s seven playbooks via meme builds of pop culture icons. My latest selection for this treatment is Optimus Prime.

Want to try Apocalypse Keys yourself? My one-shot module “Sweet Dreams” is now available on Itch, DriveThruRPG, and in the site shop!

Table of Contents

• How to Build Optimus Prime in Apocalypse Keys

• Table of Contents

• Why Optimus Prime Qualifies As an Omen-Class Monster

• 1) You Can Reflavor Gameplay Elements in Apocalypse Keys

• 2) One Shall Fall

• How to Build Optimus Prime

• Playbook: The Summoned

• Character Prompts

• Selecting Moves

• Advances

• Ruin Advances

• Playbook Advances

• Congratulations, You’ve Built Optimus!

• Glossary

Part 1: Batman | Part 2: Anya Forger | Part 3: Avatar Aang | Part 4: The Doctor | Part 5: Kirby | Part 7: All Might

Why Optimus Prime Qualifies As an Omen-Class Monster

If you’d like to dive into this build, jump ahead to How to Build Optimus Prime. First, I’d like to make two arguments in favor of classifying Optimus Prime, noted paragon, as an Omen-class monster and therefore potential Harbinger:

1. You Can Reflavor Gameplay Elements in Apocalypse Keys
2. One Shall Fall

1) You Can Reflavor Gameplay Elements in Apocalypse Keys

The rules of Apocalypse Keys specifically enable players to rewrite prompts, triggers, and other flavor elements in service of their character concept. One such example occurs in the section on playbooks:

Playbooks focus on specific monstrous themes and unique emotional arcs rather than specific archetypes. You are encouraged to interpret your powers and origin, while exploring the themes of the playbook.

Furthermore, players can “…tweak the prompts as you like—each prompt is a starting point.” This includes the prompts establishing Omens’ always-available superpowers known as powers of darkness:

How you choose to interpret your supernatural powers, and their possible limitations, is completely up to you. The Shade’s machines powered by soul magic may be automatons or small steampunk devices. The Last’s time distortion may be used in a purely defensive fashion or may be in the form of a mysterious voice from the future.

An even more significant example occurs as a result of the option players have to take moves from other playbooks as part of the game’s system of leveling up, AKA Advances:

…you may rewrite the premise or reword triggers to better suit your own character. If your character does not communicate telepathically, you may take the Found’s You Are Not Alone and change it to only work if you can speak out loud to the character you are helping. Or you may connect to a power of darkness you have instead of telepathy, such as the dimensional phasing of the Last or the cosmic energy of the Surge.

Therefore, it is well within the scope of the rules to play a Cybertronian, and to tweak moves from your own playbook accordingly.

2) One Shall Fall

This build is based mainly on the Transformers: Prime version of Optimus Prime, not only because it’s the part of the franchise I’m most familiar with, but also because of the emphasis it places on a certain prophecy regarding Optimus and Megatron: “One shall rise… and one shall fall.” In the show itself, this is generally interpreted as one killing the other. In the end, things turn out to be somewhat more complicated than anticipated, as is so often true of prophecies. So what if, in a universe adjacent to the show’s continuity, “fall” refers not to death, but to becoming a Harbinger of the Apocalypse?

Though Megatron would be the obvious frontrunner for Harbinger, given his gleeful and terrifying villainy, both Cybertronians are deadly combatants. Then there’s the mystical powers they can access—the Matrix of Leadership in the case of Optimus, and Dark Energon, with all that entails, for Megatron. Add in their centuries of knowledge and combat experience, and it’s no wonder that they’re the only ones who can equal each other in one-on-one combat. Therefore, it stands to reason that while Megatron has a greater inclination for the role of Harbinger, Optimus has just as much potential to carry it out.

Either way, one thing is certain: the war between Autobots and Decepticons has already left one world in ruins. If Optimus ever failed to keep his rival in check—or if he himself were to turn Harbinger—Earth would likely be next.

How to Build Optimus Prime

To build a character in Apocalypse Keys, there are five steps:

1. Choose your playbook
2. Fill out your playbook’s prompts
3. Select two available moves from the indicated lists
4. Introduce your character to your fellow players
5. Establish shared character backstories and Bonds

We’ll only be covering the first three steps since 4 and 5 will, by necessity, vary from group to group. In addition, rules for leveling up—which in Apocalypse Keys is known as Advancement—has been placed in its own section.

For the full text of playbook, Ruin, and DIVISION moves, please refer to the official rules.

Playbook: The Summoned

For some playbooks—most notably The Found—I struggled to think of good examples from pop culture. For The Summoned, I had the opposite problem. The Summoned is broadly defined by three traits: they come from another world, they’re bound by a prophecy, and they’re capable of extraordinary violence. Taken together, these criteria describe characters as dissimilar as Sailor Moon, Samurai Jack, the Teen Titan Raven, the Terminator, the Iron Giant, Goku, and, of course, every Isekai protagonist ever. On the plus side, that means this is a playbook with especially wide applicability, even if we’re only focusing on Optimus Prime for now.

Each playbook has a unique starting move, which for The Summoned is Sometimes, I Get Angry. Basically, whenever The Summoned enforces their will through anger and violence, they get 3 Darkness Tokens. Note that Darkness Tokens are a resource that increase the odds of success, but also make consequences such as collateral damage more likely.

The Summoned, much like other playbooks, can also get Darkness Tokens by meeting certain roleplaying triggers, some of which are more likely for Optimus than others:

• Feel unloved or abandoned

• Overreact with violence

• Ask someone to give me their best shot and not hold back

• Ask someone to love me, and only ever me

• Embody a Condition that affects me

Notably, rather than having a system to track physical damage, this Powered by the Apocalypse game uses Conditions, which represent the emotional toll various situations take on a character. Therefore, an Omen who has marked a Condition gets Darkness Tokens for roleplaying that Condition. The available Conditions for The Summoned include:

• Raging

• Lovelorn

• Obsessed

• Despairing

Once again, some are more likely for Optimus than others. Regardless, once all Conditions are marked, you hit your Breaking Point. Rather fittingly, when The Summoned hits their Breaking Point, it involves realizing that this world is not your own, only for something from your world to unleash devastation.

Character Prompts

We can skip over the prompt questions we already have answers for, such as “Your Name,” “Your Look,” “Your Origin,” and “What is the prophecy that haunts you?” For powers of darkness, we’ll select Colossal Strength and Weapons from Elsewhere to represent Optimus’ combat capabilities. “What Does the Darkness Demand of You?” represents, more or less, the dark fate Omens are sometimes tempted to give in to, so we’ll choose “to push away those I need most” and “to embrace and strengthen my prophecy” for Optimus.

Selecting Moves

After you pick your playbook and fill out the prompts, you get to choose two moves. One always comes from the list included with your playbook. The other can either be a Ruin move from your playbook, or one of the generally-available DIVISION moves. The former provides power at the cost of accelerated corruption, while the latter ordinarily represents the resources made available by the organization backing your team.

For Optimus Prime, choose the playbook move Together We Are Destiny and the DIVISION move Hero’s Weapon.

Playbook Move: Together We Are Destiny

In Transformers: Prime, Megatron and Optimus battle over many things, including the outcome of the prophecy. This move lets Optimus spite Megatron’s vision of the prophecy and take destiny into his own hands. Fate may have other ideas. After rolling the dice, potentially with assistance from your allies, a success allows you to select situational benefits, a disastrous success provides both benefits and complications, and failure makes the prophecy increasingly painful and intractable.

DIVISION Move: Hero’s Weapon

This move normally involves a member of DIVISION bestowing a weapon on whoever claims this move. Rather than using this move as-is, we’ll be renaming it The Matrix of Leadership. For those unfamiliar with Transformers lore, “Prime” is a position of leadership among Cybertronians, with Optimus being the latest to inherit the mantle. The Matrix of Leadership is a repository of ancient wisdom that was passed to him upon being chosen as Prime.

Since it isn’t a weapon in itself, we’ll need to edit the move slightly: whenever Optimus protects someone while acting in his capacity as Prime, he gains a Bond—an in-game resource representing relationships and emotional attachments—with his predecessors. In addition, he may choose to narrate a flashback involving a former Prime, to describe how he embodies or challenges the legacy of being a Prime, or to decide that his role has been sullied by acting on his own selfish impulses. Each choice provides corresponding benefits.

Advances

At this point, you’re ready to introduce Optimus to your fellow players so you can establish shared backstories. If you continue playing with Optimus, you can also unlock additional traits and abilities known as Advances. This section will cover the two types of Advances—Ruin Advances and playbook Advances—plus which ones are best suited for Optimus.

Ruin Advances

The downward spiral into becoming a Harbinger is tracked via Ruin, which is gained primarily by misusing the vast power at your disposal. Once you gain 5 Ruin, you unlock a Ruin Advance. Narrate a scene of Optimus as a future Harbinger and choose from one of nine options:

• Take a new Ruin move (2X): Gain an additional Ruin move from The Summoned
• Take a Ruin move from another playbook (2X): Gain a Ruin move from a playbook other than The Summoned
• Permanently mark a Condition (2X): Choose a Condition that is always marked and can’t be cleared
• Gain a new Ruin Condition (2X): Gain an additional Condition that is permanently marked
• Retire Your Character and Become a Harbinger of the Apocalypse: Optimus becomes a Harbinger and is no longer under your control

For each of these options, I’ll describe the ones I think are the best fit for Optimus Prime.

Take a New Ruin Move

This Ruin Advance can be taken twice, but must be a different move both times. Of the available options, the ones easiest to adapt to Optimus are None Stand Before Me and Heavy Is the Crown.

Ruin Move 1: None Stand Before Me

Optimus can always choose to kill a non-player character (NPC) who is vulnerable to him. You can choose whether to gain 1 or 2 Ruin, which in turn determines whether the NPC will come back to haunt him or whether they are dead beyond any chance of revival.

Ruin Move 2: Heavy Is the Crown

Optimus, as the current Prime, is just a smidge famous. At any time, you can declare that a Harbinger knows of Optimus and of the prophecy regarding him. The amount of Ruin you gain determines whether they offer assistance in exchange for pursuing the prophecy, or whether they seek to appease you.

Ruin Moves from Other Playbooks

Of the Ruin moves listed in playbooks other than The Summoned, the best options are My Beloved Nemesis from The Fallen and Death Always Leads to Life from The Shade.

Ruin Move from The Fallen: My Beloved Nemesis

Previously, I recommended this move to represent the relationship between The Doctor and The Master. Here, it represents the fraught relationship between Optimus and Megatron, who used to be friends but are now, as Red of Overly Sarcastic Productions so eloquently put it, “murder soulmates.”

Since this move was intended for The Fallen, ignore the bit about them having orchestrated your fall and substitute Optimus Prime’s past with Megatron. Optimus gains a Bond with Megatron upon taking the move, and can gain another, along with clearing a Condition, by narrating a flashback to when he and Megatron were friends, at the cost of gaining a Ruin. Alternately, by gaining an additional Ruin, Megatron arrives in the scene, regardless of plausibility, to offer a temporary alliance.

Ruin Move from The Shade: Death Always Leads to Life

This move was written for The Shade, who has an intimate relationship with Death, so any references to Death and Life must either be rewritten or interpreted metaphorically. Similarly, Optimus doesn’t have the ability to manipulate his soul in the manner described in the move’s second option. But when all is said and done, whenever a person, object, or location is at imminent risk of destruction, Optimus may take drastic action to prevent it. If he does so with regard to the natural order of things, he only gains 1 Ruin, but must pay a price. If he instead defies the laws of prophecy, nature, and morality, he gains 2 Ruin, and the object of his intervention can never be destroyed without his express permission.

Mark Permanent Conditions

When you permanently mark a Condition, you:

• Make it easier to hit your Breaking Point

• Can more easily gain Darkness Tokens, which also makes it easier to get disastrous successes and to trigger the suboptimal move Torn Between

• Ensure your Omen is always emotionally compromised

Given Optimus’ personality, the two Conditions that make the most sense to mark permanently are Raging and Despairing.

Gain Ruin Conditions

When you gain a Ruin Condition, you add a permanently marked Condition to your playbook from the following list:

• Cruel
• Fragile
• Guilty
• Haunted
• Paranoid
• Possessive
• Ruthless
• Reckless

While a Ruin Condition doesn’t affect the likelihood of hitting your Breaking Point, it does increase the possibilities for gaining Darkness Tokens. With this in mind, some good choices for Optimus include Guilty, Haunted, Paranoid, and Ruthless. Of those four, the two I most recommend are Haunted and Paranoid.

Becoming a Harbinger

You can’t keep playing as Optimus once he transforms into a Harbinger—he becomes an NPC your party must contend with, either immediately or down the road.

Sequence of Ruin Advances

Aside from the final transformation into a Harbinger, you can take Ruin Advances in any order. For Optimus Prime, I recommend:

1. Ruin Move from The Fallen: My Beloved Nemesis
2. Ruin Move from The Shade: Death Always Leads to Life
3. Ruin Move: None Stand Before Me
4. Ruin Move: Heavy Is the Crown
5. Ruin Condition: Haunted
6. Ruin Condition: Paranoid
7. Permanent Condition: Raging
8. Permanent Condition: Despairing
9. Retire Your Character and Become a Harbinger of the Apocalypse*

Since Megatron is going to be around anyway, Optimus might as well benefit from the relationship via My Beloved Nemesis. Next up is Death Always Leads to Life, showcasing how Optimus protects his allies to the point of self-destruction. Meanwhile, None Stand Before Me expresses how Optimus’ prowess on the battlefield exists within a larger cycle of violence. It also further fuels Optimus’ fearsome reputation, which can intimidate potential foes into becoming allies via Heavy Is the Crown.

No matter how strong a bot is, centuries of battle take their toll. Optimus is increasingly Haunted by the atrocities of war, even as he becomes increasingly Paranoid about Megatron’s latest schemes. He turns to Rage to fuel his action, and then, overcome by the ever-expanding scope of all-consuming war, he is overcome by Despair. With no future left to fight for, he succumbs to his inner darkness, falling from grace to become a Harbinger of the Apocalypse*.

*Or you can work with your Keeper to retire Optimus before he hits rock bottom, which I recommend.

Playbook Advances

Experience points (XP) are gained by roleplaying, via end-of-session introspection, and through certain moves. Once you accumulate 8 XP, you unlock one of nine Advances:

• Take a new move from your playbook (2X): get another move from The Summoned.
• Take a new DIVISION move (2X): select another DIVISION move.
• Take a move from another playbook (2X): gain a move from a playbook other than The Summoned.
• Describe a new way to gain Darkness Tokens: define a new roleplay trigger for getting Darkness Tokens.
• Take a new power of darkness from your playbook: Get another power of darkness for The Summoned.
• Change your playbook: Start playing with a different playbook.

If Ruin Advances represent the descent into becoming a Harbinger, playbook Advances are the more difficult road to rising above. Here are the waypoints I recommend for Optimus Prime’s path.

Take a New Move from Your Playbook

The Summoned has two more moves that are good fits for Optimus: Come On, Tough Guy and We’re Family Now.

Playbook move 1: Come On, Tough Guy

As mentioned in my build of Kirby, this move lets you provoke a colossal, otherworldly opponent into focusing on you. On a success, your ploy pays off. On a disastrous success, while you do reap some benefits, you also get caught up in the heat of battle. On a failure, things go badly—the flavor indicates “tak[ing] on a colossal form as your prophecy… leaves a permanent mark on you,” but considering Optimus’ Cybertronian nature, this may need to be reflavored as somehow falling into an opponent’s trap.

Playbook move 2: We’re Family Now

In Transformers: Prime, Optimus has grown to see his allies as more than just soldiers, embracing the human concept of “family.” This move, which I also recommended for Anya Forger, kicks in whenever that affection is reciprocated. When a fellow Omen spends a Bond with Optimus, they can choose whether it is more effective than usual, or whether Optimus subsequently gains a Bond with them.

Take a new DIVISION move

DIVISION is an ancient and secretive organization with immense resources, skilled personnel, and far-reaching connections. While DIVISION moves are designed with this in mind, some of them align well with Optimus’ resources and capabilities. Therefore, the two moves we’ll be taking for Optimus are Orphanage Visit and Monster Celebrity.

DIVISION move 1: Orphanage Visit

I recommended this move for both Batman and The Doctor, with varying levels of reinterpretation. In this case, rename the move to Human Companions, with Optimus gaining mechanical benefits whenever he spends meaningful time with the inhabitants of the planet he’s chosen to protect.

DIVISION move 2: Monster Celebrity

As written, this move represents being a public figure as well as an Omen, and was used mostly unaltered for Batman. In most continuities of Transformers, however, the existence of Cybertronians is kept secret from the human public, and Transformers: Prime is no exception. Therefore, we’ll be changing the focus to how difficult it is for Optimus to live up to the nigh-impossible expectations his fellow Autobots have of their Prime. Therefore, the move now triggers whenever Optimus hides aspects of himself to be the leader Cybertron needs. When he does, he chooses one of the available benefits—and when he falls short, he must earn the forgiveness of his allies.

Take a Move from Another Playbook

After centuries of loss, Optimus Prime is intimately familiar with Tragedy’s Long Shadow. Meanwhile, as a Cybertronian on the planet Earth, it is all too easy to shatter what the humans have built via I Am Your Destruction.

From The Last: Tragedy’s Long Shadow

This move is highly applicable for characters with dark and tragic pasts, which is why I also recommended it for Batman and The Doctor. Whenever Optimus recognizes echoes of the tragedy that devastated Cybertron in a tense situation, he can describe what he’s afraid of and roll. On a success, he and his allies prevent history from repeating itself, but on a disastrous success, he must face the problem alone. On a failure, things are worse than even he anticipated.

From The Surge: I Am Your Destruction

As described in the build for Avatar Aang, this move lets you choose from a list of benefits whenever you unleash immense collateral damage. However, since Optimus Prime generally has precise control over his strength, it instead reflects that he ordinarily holds himself back when he’s in the vicinity of fragile, easily harmed humans.

Describe a New Way to Get Darkness Tokens

The triggers for gaining Darkness Tokens typically reflect Omens acting in ways that align with What the Darkness Demands of Them, which can encompass both selfish and self-destructive behavior. For Optimus, we’ll add the condition that he gains Darkness Tokens whenever he seeks to fulfill the prophecy by destroying Megatron.

Take a New Power of Darkness

For Optimus’ third power of darkness, choose Supernatural Resistance to represent how impervious he is to damage.

Change Your Playbook

When you change your playbook, you lose access to your current playbook’s abilities in exchange for those of your new playbook. Unfortunately, The Summoned is the only good fit for Optimus Prime. Of the others, The Last is the next-best fit, since while there are plenty of Cybertronians other than Optimus, he is the last of the Primes, and the loss of his planet weighs heavily on him.

Sequence of Playbook Advances

In order to balance mechanical benefits against a compelling narrative arc, I recommend the following order for Optimus Prime’s playbook Advances:

1. DIVISION move: Monster Celebrity
2. New Power of Darkness: Supernatural Resistance
3. Playbook Move: Come On, Tough Guy
4. Move from The Last: Tragedy’s Long Shadow
5. Move from The Surge: I Am Your Destruction
6. DIVISION Move: Orphanage Visit
7. Playbook Move: We’re Family Now
8. New Way to Get Darkness Tokens: Destroy Megatron to Fulfill the Prophecy
9. Change Your Playbook: The Last

Every Cybertronian knows who Optimus Prime is, and with that reputation comes much responsibility. Therefore, Optimus begins with Monster Celebrity, a move we’ve reflavored to represent the weight of the mantle of Prime. In times of war, his duties require him to fight on behalf of the people he leads. Supernatural Resistance and Come On, Tough Guy provide additional combat utility accordingly. But battle is not all there is to being a Prime, and in the wake of the fall of Cybertron, Optimus Prime becomes increasingly attentive to preventing such horrors via the move Tragedy’s Long Shadow.

Perhaps through chance, or perhaps through fate, Optimus arrives on the planet Earth, which is inhabited by the small, sapient mammals known as humans. Though he has great respect for all life, Decepticon incursions often force his hand, with I Am Your Destruction representing the inevitable colleteral damage. Even so, Optimus becomes increasingly attached to the Autobots’ Human Companions, which is our rework of Orphanage Visit. In fact, they even teach him the important concept of “family,” which he applies to his fellow Cybertronians to gain the move We’re Family Now.

The Decepticons, however, only see humans as a potential vulnerability. When harm comes to a human caught up in a clash between the two factions, an enraged Optimus decides to fulfill the prophecy with Megatron’s death. Whether or not he succeeds in this endeavor, Optimus ultimately comes to regret his actions. As a result, he switches playbooks to The Last, deciding that fighting an endless war is secondary to upholding the legacy of Cybertron and of the Primes.

Congratulations, You've Built Optimus!

Thank you for reading my thinly-disguised take on why it was important to have humans in Transformers: Prime! If you’d like to learn more about the Apocalypse Keys playbooks, I demonstrated The Shade with Batman, The Found with Anya Forger of Spy X Family, The Surge with Avatar Aang of Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Last with The Doctor of Doctor Who, and The Hungry with Kirby. Definitely reach out if you try this build, or if you would have chosen different moves or Advances for Optimus Prime.

In one week, the final entry will demonstrate how to build The Fallen. The clock ticking down to zero heralds the release of my original Apocalypse Keys mystery “Sweet Dreams” on March 14th!

Glossary

Advance: additional abilities granted by accumulating Ruin or by earning experience points (XP). Ruin Advances bring Omens closer to being Harbingers and are unlocked with 5 Ruin. It takes 8 XP to gain a playbook Advance. There are a total of nine Ruin Advances and nine playbook Advances.

 

Bonds: The mechanical representation of emotional connections between characters, which also serves as a resource. Most notably, it can be used to modify the outcome of a dice roll.

 

Breaking Point: After an Omen marks all available Conditions, they have a dramatic and consequence-filled breakdown as they hit their Breaking Point.

 

Condition: Because Apocalypse Keys is a Powered by the Apocalypse game, it uses emotional states called Conditions to track the decreasing ability of characters to endure whatever strain they’re under. Marking all available Conditions triggers an Omen’s Breaking Point.

 

Darkness Tokens: a resource Omens gain primarily by indulging in the emotions and behaviors that tend toward What the Darkness Demands of Them. While Darkness Tokens can increase the odds of success, they also increase the odds of disastrous success, and having too many Darkness Tokens can have negative consequences.

 

Disastrous Success: In Apocalypse Keys, rolls succeed when they’re middle-of-the-road, and rolling too high introduces complications and negative consequences due to giving the darkness too much sway. This is called a disastrous success.

 

DIVISION: a powerful, shadowy, ancient organization that protects the world by fielding Omens against Harbingers.

 

Experience Points (XP): a resource gained through roleplay, introspection, and select moves that unlocks playbook Advances. It takes 8 XP to unlock an Advance.

 

Harbinger of the Apocalypse: entities that both seek the end of the world and are capable of bringing it about.

 

Keeper: a synonym for gamemaster or narrator used in Apocalypse Keys and other Powered by the Apocalypse games.

 

Key: effectively, clues to the mystery arcs that gameplay in Apocalypse Keys is centered around. They may be situations, tangible objects, or something more esoteric.

Move: pre-packaged abilities with defined triggers and outcomes. Each playbook has a unique starting move, plus additional moves and Ruin moves to choose from. There are also DIVISION moves that all Omens can select, plus basic moves that any player can trigger at any time.

 

Mystery: The plot unit of Apocalypse Keys, which revolve around investigating and preferably foiling a Harbinger’s plans.

 

Omen-Class Monster: often abbreviated to Omen. It can be used both to indicate a player character or to refer to any entity who has world-shaking powers but is not pursuing the end of the world.

 

Playbook: The basis of character creation in Apocalypse Keys. Each playbook provides prompts, moves, and traits that provide a thematically consistent basis for fleshing out an Omen.

 

Power of Darkness: The term for Omens’ superpowers, which are always available to them.

 

Ruin: a mechanical representation of Omens’ progress toward becoming a Harbinger of the Apocalypse. Gaining 5 Ruin unlocks a Ruin Advance.

 

Ruin Advance: When Omens accrue 5 Ruin, they narrate a cutscene of themselves as a future Harbinger, select an available ability from the relevant list, and reset their Ruin track. This is called a Ruin Advance. The ninth Ruin Advance always has the Omen transforming into a Harbinger, but the other Ruin Advances may be taken in any order.

What the Darkness Demands of You?: One of the prompts consistent across all seven playbooks, the answer to which hints at what kind of Harbinger their inner darkness wants them to become. In addition to spurring roleplay, What the Darkness Demands of You is relevant to some moves. It is also possible to form a bond with What the Darkness Demands of You, representing an Omen’s connection to their own inner darkness.