TFM: The First Men – Traits Guide

by Fernando Diaz / Articles, Misc. Guides / 01 May 2022

Traits in TFM: The First Men are crucial for shaping a character’s life. They include a variety of characteristics, such as personalities, abilities, passions, and physical traits, that help define the character’s unique identity. Traits can be gained or lost through the use of the Paths panel and other triggers within the game. They also affect the AI choices made by the character by modifying certain parameters. Additionally, some traits have the ability to trigger the acquisition of other traits under specific conditions.

Trait Categories

Traits are organized into different categories, each with its own unique purpose. For example, Genetics are determined at birth, but in rare cases, they can be awakened later in life. Personalities, on the other hand, are primarily gained through leveling up in the Wilds and shape the character’s statistics, provide triggered effects, and may lead to the character engaging in new activities. Combat traits are designed to improve the character’s abilities in combat, including unlocking new classes and feats.

Conditions refer to a broad range of temporary and permanent states that can have positive or negative effects on the character. They usually have a defined duration, but they can always be cleansed.

Quests, whether main or side objectives specific to the map, are visible on the Relations (F3) panel.

Desires are triggered based on other traits and make characters happy when completed, but if not, they stack unhappiness until they expire.

Passions are the main way for characters to gather resources and craft items, constructions, and doodads by engaging in work-related activities.

Quirks are quirky properties that can cause characters to have abnormal thoughts and actions.

Faith traits represent the character’s beliefs in a specific domain, providing certain benefits and new activities to perform. Consumables crafted by a domain’s cleric can only be consumed by that domain’s followers.

Managing Needs and Fatal Traits

There are several ways to deplete a character’s stat energies in TFM: The First Men. Finishing work-time and path activities, as well as casting skills and certain trait triggers, can cause this depletion. When a character’s stat energy bar reaches 0/100, the character receives a Fatal trait, and the bar refills again, reducing the stat by one. At this point, the character will try to perform a downtime activity to cleanse the Fatal trait and continue to finish assignments.

You will need items in your stockpile to help the character cleanse these Fatal traits. Different items are needed based on the color of the Fatal trait. For example, a green need item is required to cleanse a Fatal Body trait, a blue need item is required to cleanse a Fatal Mind trait, and so on.

There are five Fatal traits, each corresponding to a different stat:

Fatal Body is received when the Body stat energy bar is depleted. It can be cleansed after eating a meal (green need).

Fatal Mind is received when the Mind stat energy bar is depleted. It can be cleansed after sleeping on a sheet (blue need).

Fatal Heart is received when the Heart stat energy bar is depleted. It can be cleansed with items that excite the character (red need).

Fatal Soul is received when the Soul stat energy bar is depleted. It can be cleansed with hygienic items (white need).

Fatal Self is received when the Self stat energy bar is depleted. It can be cleansed with fun and addictive items (black need).

Keep in mind that there may be exceptions to these rules, but these are the main and most reliable ways to cleanse Fatal traits using downtime activities.

Fernando Diaz

Fernando is doing what he always did, sharing his honest opinions about games whenever he can. The difference is now he is writing and not talking about it.
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