Threat: constant
The Wilds
The animals are huge, clever, and hungry. Leaving the city does not make you free. It makes you food.
Field note: a locked door helps less than you would like.Where Nyra starts
The walls keep monsters out. They keep empires in.
People in Nyra live behind walls because of what is outside them: huge animals, hostile country, and magic that nobody fully controls. Inside, the Humans and the satyr-like Ethakkra run things. They keep an uneasy peace because it pays, and commoners are treated as assets.
Everyone else hides, raids, studies, or waits. The Sarkin live in caves, where nobody goes hungry or homeless, because outsiders hate the way they look. The Kaze send scholars abroad to watch and report. The Famulus were slaves once, and now coastal towns evacuate when their flags show up.
“Those who seek the life of an individualist must stand against the barbarity of nature alone.”
What will kill you
Three pressures close around every survivor.
Threat: organized
The Empires
Fortified cities give you work, food, and law. They also watch you, work you, and lie to you. The human middle class barely exists, and the nobles do not care.
Field note: the gate swings both ways for people with money.Threat: visible
The Stream
Mages can use the force that drives everything. Humans, Ethakkra, and Kalnis hunt them and execute them in public. Most mages never learn what they are.
Field note: the healer and the witch are the same person.Combat
Every wound has a location, and its own hit points.
Roll to hit, then roll to see what you hit. Armor takes some of the damage, and the rest comes off that body part’s pool. A bigger, tougher body can take more, and species have their own numbers.
- SlightThe body part is marked. You can still fight.
- SeriousPast this point, the GM starts deciding what the injury changes.
- CriticalA limb at this stage is probably ruined.
- Severance / DeathPush a limb far enough past Critical and it comes off.
Body-part thresholds
Your STR and CON set the thresholds for Slight, Serious, and Critical on each body part. A sword in the arm and a sword in the chest are different problems.
The sheet does the math
The character creator works out every body part’s thresholds from your species, STR, and CON, so you know how bad it is before the fight starts.
Crits go both ways
A natural 1 doubles your damage dice. A natural 10 means you trip, or hurt yourself. Smart players bring armor and friends, and know when to run.
Magic
Magic works, and it kills you.
The rift
A mage’s Eye of Arkhan opens a rift to a plane where one element rules: air, water, stone, plasma, Order, or chaos. The element comes through for a short while and then goes home. Fewer than one person in ten thousand becomes a full mage.
The cost
Every spell leaves magicite in the caster’s body. It makes them stronger, and it is a toxin. The more powerful the mage, the more their organs turn to mineral. After death, gods and daemons eat souls, and only the most devoted mages stay intact.
What you get
- 300 to 600 skill points to start, more for a veteran campaign. Spend them however you like.
- Favored skills can go past 10, up to a hard cap of 20.
- Species, class, and subclass set where you start. Skills decide the rest.
- JSON export for your sheet.
Skills over classes
Pick a class, then ignore it. Build the person the world made.
Classes (Warrior, Hunter, Mage, Savant, Brawler, Rogue) tell you how you tend to fight. Skills tell you what you can actually do. A Warrior who is also a decent surgeon is fine. So is a terrified commoner.
Choose a species and a class, then spend your points on whatever you think will keep you alive.
Open the Free Character CreatorFree. Runs in your browser.
Before you sit down