Howdy all.
I've been fiddling with an idea for a purposefully prep-less game. It borrows heavily from Ghost/Echo, Lady Blackbird, and Promethean.

Current state of the game:
This is in the pre-history of mankind. Humanity is huddled into small city-states for protection against the dank-infested wilds.
The Aether-kind see the world is dying, and wants to give magic to the human. They must bind the Fires of Creation to the human soul.

The characters wake up - the transit from the Aether-realms to the mortal-realm has changed them, they remember only flashes from before,

Characters start with 5 stats - All at +0
Earth - Body/Fortitude
Air - Mind/Perception
Fire - Violence/Rage
Water - Compassion/Relationships
Aether - Magic/Change

Uses the Otherkind dice (like ghost/echo) 2d6, divide result dice to Goal and Danger.
Goal relates to one of the stats.
roll 2d6+stat dice, keep highest 2.

If you roll a 6 on a goal- that action becomes a "key of element" (relevance 1)
Whenever you do an action related to that key, you roll for goal:learning, danger:relevance.
goal:
1-2: 0xp
3-4: 1xp
5-6: 2xp
danger:
1-2: -1 relevance
3-4: +0 relevance
5-6: +1 relevance.

When you get 5xp, you can increase one of the stats by 1.
When a key goes to 0, it is removed.
When a key goes to 5, it becomes a "secret"

Secrets are special abilities - like the class special activities in apoc world, or the secrets from lady blackbird.

Example - character fights a monster threatening a town and kill it - the action becomes a "key". The player chooses "Defend the helpless".
Everytime they do something related to that topic, they might get XP/relevance. Defend a child, Watch a town mount a defense. Stand by and let defenseless people die.etc.
The secret might be " roll+Aether to know biggest threat" or similar things.

My biggest problem - the goal I want for the game is "making the soul". I have no idea for this?
Maybe once you have a secret for each element, you can make a final secret "secret of soul"?

Also, the randomness of gaining keys seems to not sit too well with me.

Help me obiwan Forge, you are my only hope :)

Awesome start, you've got some good ideas here.

I'll have to think over it a bit before I offer some suggestions. I might have something for you tomorrow.

Howdy Dionysus,

I think you might already have more towards what you're going for than you realize! I've read a lot of discussion about "the fruitful void" and it's a design concept I've tried to embrace (but I'm still a bit too fiddly-detail oriented). The idea here, if you're unfamiliar with it, is that your design elements all point towards something (e.g. "creating a soul") but then that 'something' that is so important isn't necessarily a crunchy-bits mechanic. It can very much be the focus of the game and drive play, but without you having 'soul points' or the like. And the way your elements are associated with behavior, and behavior is associated with play bonuses (I like that you can get 'special abilities' either for being a great person or really awful, but not from middle-of-the-road, if I understand correctly). So, that being said, here's a few ideas I have reading your stuff:

1) Right now your development is based very much on in-play decisions, which is great. There's an element in your back story that I think can enrich that. You say that the aether-kind reborn as mortals only remember flashes of their past lives. I think a genuinely interesting idea in 'creating a soul' is going to be how much of your 'old soul' matters to who you are now. Maybe make any sort of learning/character development associated with embracing or rejecting your aether-nature extra potent
2) You said something about having a secret for each element/stat and then maybe an additional one for your soul. Again, I think the relationship between the elements creates the interest there (are you more violent or compassionate? more changeful or solid?). So, I think if you do go the route of having another 'secret of soul' it should probably be informed by all of the secrets you already posses.

Hope that stuff helps, I know it's pretty vague, but I'm interested to see where you go with this.

Thanks for the positive feedback - I'll make a quick post as I'm on a plane to Mexico in a few hours :)

Yes, the special abilities are for "excellent" actions. Be it trying to heal a person, or slaughtering a town. As long as your goal was achieved with a 6, it becomes a key - which can become a special ability.

I'm thinking that the Aether can so some supernatural things from the start - maybe like trying to read your old soul, or gain hints towards the acts they should do. etc.

I'll have to look into this a bit more...