Pawn Inclination

Pawn Inclination is a characteristic of pawns that affects their behaviours in the field and in battle. Inclinations can vary from bravely aggressive, to protective or other pawns and the Arisen, and from cautious to adventurous. There are nine possible inclinations.

Inclinations are an easily overlooked and important aspect of pawn behaviour.

Overview
A Pawn's inclination assists in dictating the behavior of a Pawn, mostly when in combat. Main Pawn inclinations are initially decided by answering questions during character creation. Inclinations can be modified at any time by using the Knowledge Chair found at Inns and Rest Camps, or directly and most efficiently by using the Inclination Elixirs, which are purchased from Johnathan in the Encampment.

The primary and secondary inclinations are shown in the stats menu ingame, under "Profile".

Inclinations affect likely behaviours, but do not introduce new behaviours, or totally prevent other actions. A pawn's inclinations just make the actions associated with those inclinations more likely, or causes them to prioritise them when there are multiple action options available.

It is thought only the Primary and Secondary inclinations affect behaviour. The effect of the "Tertiary" or the other lower ranked inclinations on behaviour is unknown.

Temporal and battle effects
Inclinations change periodically over time - there are four main causes of changes to a pawn's inclination
 * Battle actions - including which can include : the type of enemy which is attack first, enemies slain, actions such as grapple
 * Debilitation and healing - becoming debilitated, curing ailments, taking great damage, and healing harm
 * Pawn commands - each of the three pawn commands "Go", "Come", and "Help" will modify some inclination's likelyness - the effects sometimes depend on whether in battle or not.
 * Hired pawns and their inclinations - the Arisen's main pawn slowly drifts towards hired pawn's inlcinations over time (Hired Pawns' inclination does not alter over time.)

Some other actions such as picking up look affect specific inclinations

Knowledge Chair
Whilst talking in the Knowledge Chair a pawn may ask which of two inclinations to prioritize - this swaps the Secondary inclination and the otherwise invisible 'Tertiary' inclination. The primary inclination is unchanged.

Inclination Elixirs
Consuming a single inclination elixir promotes the associated inclination to Secondary, or if it was already the Secondary inclination, promotes it to Primary. Taking more inclination elixirs for a behaviour already in the primary position reinforces its position, as well as moving other inclinations down in value. The Neutralising Elixir resets all inclinations to a middle value.

Creature associations
Most types of foe are associated with an inclination type. In general :
 * Mitigator corresponds to small foes
 * Challenger to ranged foes
 * Scather - giant foes including giant saurians.

Polyheaded creature have a different inclination associated with each head for example the Chimera's Lion head is associated with Scather, whilst the Snake is associated with Mitigator.

Pawns of a specific inclination will tend to attack a creature matching their favored inclination if given a choice. Furthermore battle actions such as the first foe targeted promote the inclination associated with that foe - similarly when foes are defeated - though in some cases the inclination change depends on the type of attack used :
 * eg for a Wraith defeat by ranged attacks promotes Challenger, whilst defeat by melee attacks promotes Scather

Additionally the classification of foes may also depend on the other enemies present - a Frostwyrm may be a Mitigator targetted foe in the presence of a stronger Scather targetted Firedrake, but if the drake is defeated, then the wyrm becomes the target of scather attacks.

Pawn chatter
Pawns indicate inclination specific actions in their battle talk :


 * "I'll leave the weak foes to you." (Scather)
 * "Never mind the monsters, I'll get the loot!" (Acquisitor)
 * "I'll take care of the weak." (Mitigator)
 * "The ranged ones are mine!" (Challenger)
 * "Any that would target the Arisen are mine!" (Gaurdian)