Contents

 Introduction
 Overview
 How to Play
 Create a Character
   Qualities
   Race
   Skills
   Backstory
   Personality
   Summary
 Using Skills
   Karma
   Acquiring Skills
   Modifiers
   Saves
   Perception
   Group Feats
   Advantage and Disadvantage
   Raw Dice
   Summary
 Racial Skills
 Vocational Skills
 Combat Skills
 Adventuring Skills
 Magickery
 Rune Magic
 Divine Powers
   Invocations (A-C)
   Invocations (D-L)
   Invocations (M-R)
   Invocations (S-Z)
   Divine Skills
   Holy Ground
 Sorcery
   Axioms (A-C)
   Axioms (D-M)
   Axioms (N-Z)
 Combat Detailed
   Rounds
   Initiative
   The Action
   Reactions
   Movemment
   Different Modes
   Terrain
   Knocked Down
   The Attack
   Raw Die Scores
   Critical Hits
   Physical Damage
   Sneak Attacks
   Getting The Drop
   Touch-based Effects
   Defending
   At The Ready
   Grappling
   Pushing
   Shackling
   Flee Attack
   Impalement Maneuver
   Cover
   Obscurement
   Friendly Fire
   Weapon Negating
   Defense Rolls (Variant)
   Restrictions in Combat
 Armor
   Craftsman Armor
 Weapons
 Economy
   The Market
 Adventuring
   Size Categories
   Brute Force
   Social Interactions
   Travel
   Mounts
   Recovery
   Short Rest
   Long Rest
   Death Saves
   Exhaustion
   Climate Extremes
   Petrification
   Asphyxiation
   Dehydration
   Starvation
   Poisons
   Disease
   Curses
   Falling
   Mind-Spirit Death
   Illusions
   Glamours
   Phantasms
   Shrouds
   Underwater
 Archetypes
 Appendix A - Character Sheet

Create a Character

To create a character, there are several details. The following description is for game-mechanics. After those will be recommended details for role-playing, i.e., what personality traits drive and guide the character’s decisions.

There are numbers used to represent how talented a character is. These are recorded on a character sheet, which a blank template is included in the appendix of this text.

The items to be determined are qualities, race and skills. Optionally, personality and backstory can be added as well.

Qualities

Every entity, characters and monsters, have a set of three qualities: body, mind and spirit. Body represents physical health and athleticism. This also acts as life points. When a character is harmed, poisoned or fatigued, the effective value of the body score decreases. The mind score is one’s mental prowess, solve puzzles and void tricks. As stress occurs, mental exhaustion can set in, resulting in the potential loss of mind points. Lastly, spirit is a measure of willpower and faith.

When creating a character, 1 point is placed in each of these. Then the player place 3 additional points as desired. This could be placing all three in one quality or spreading them equally. Once these are set, these values are considered the maximum for the character. If loss occurs from damage, stress, fear or other causes, then the current value is lowered. If those points are restored through healing, then the current score can only be increased to the maximum value.

Qualities can increase; however, that is only through the purchase with karma. They are more expensive and more difficult to achieve as the numbers get higher. And the maximum natural quality score a PC can obtain is 12; however, it is possible through magic means to have an effective value a little higher. Also, some monsters are not subject to this 12-maximum rule.

Lastly, ability scores can offer modifiers to skills rolls. This will be detailed later, but the general rule is for every 2 quality points grants a +1 bonus. Thus, a score of 2 allows for a +1; a score of 4 allows +2, etc.

Race

There are five races which a character can choose: dwarf, elf, halfling, human, and lizardfolk.

	Dwarf		Elf		Halfling		Human		Lizardfolk
	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F
Avg Height	4-4	4-2	5-6	5-3	3-2	3-0	5-9	5-4	6-0	6-0
Avg Weight	160	150	120	100	40	35	160	110	200	200
Size Category	Medium		Medium		Small		Medium		Medium
Avg Lifespan	70y		120y		100y		65y		60y
Max Lifespan	135y		200y		150y		100y		180y
Movement	40ft		60ft		45ft		50ft		40ft
Daily	16mi		24mi		18mi		20mi		16mi
Starting Skills	2		2		2		3		1
Free Skills	Armor-Movement Under-Navigation		Wilderness-Lore Cantrip Control		Chance		+1 to lowest quality		Body-Weapons

Dwarves are short and stout earth dwellers. Their ancestry is hardy and older than humans. As free racial skills, they have Armor-Movement and Under-Navigation. Further, dwarves are permitted to have two basic skills as a beginning character.

Elves are forest-dwelling, gaunt, and delicate creatures with long pointed ears that rise above the tops of their heads. These sylvan beings have various skin tones. Their natural racial skill is Wilderness Lore as well as Cantrip Control. However, knowing any cantrips must be selected as a skill or purchased with karma. A player choosing an elf may select two more basic skills for a new character. Socially, elves tend to be more xenophobic of outsiders than the other playable races; however, they are considered more self-sufficient as a race also, commonly viewed as a people without government.

Halflings are short and small, barely rising about the three-foot mark in height. They have interwoven keratin and cartilege throughout the undersides of their feet, making halflings rarely in need of shoes or boots. Despite their thick and hairy feet, they are nimble, quick, oddly silent, and considered very lucky. Any halfling will have the Chance racial skill. Starting characters with halfling as their race have a choice of two more basic skills.

Humans are self-descriptive. Their racial ability is adaptability, allowing a human to select three basic starting skills as a beginning character. In addition, human characters gain a one-time quality score bonus as a beginning character. This is applied to the lowest of the scores from the distribution above. If more than one score is tied for the lowest, then the player may choose which quality to give the bonus.

Lizardfolk are reptilian bipeds. These creatures can live for a very long time; however, most grow obese as they age which causes a high mortality rate in midlife. This crocodilian race also has claws and a bludgeoning tail, giving one a special racial combat skill called Body-Weapons, which allows them to fight with only their natural weapons. This skill cannot be combined with other combat methods besides melee and spinning moves to gain extra dice on an attack. Lizardfolk are permitted only one additional starting skill; however, if melee is selected, they are the only race capable of having a 2d20 attack as a beginning character.

Skills

Starting characters must select only from the basic skills list below. Some races may have skills that are not in the basic list as part of their racial abilities. The details of the basic skills and how they are used are explained in the Skills section. Other skills are available and explained in the Skills section, which is broken into seven different section: Racial, Combat, Adventuring, Vocational, Magickery, Divinity and Sorcery.

Skill			Skill
Combat			Vocational
	Melee Fighting	Fighting with melee weapon		Agriculture	Planting, Harvesting
	Ranged Fighting	Fighting with a range weapon		Animal Breeding	Animal Breeding
Adventuring				Armoring	Forge Metal Armor
	Acrobatics	Bonus to Agility Actions		Bowyer	Build Bows, Arrows
	Astrology	Sense of Direction, Foretelling		Brewing	Create Beer and Ales
	Bartering	Lower Costs, Increase Sales		Carpentry	Make Wood Construction
	Cartography	Read, Decipher Maps		Cooking	Prepare Food, Clean Carcass
	Dash	Burst of Movement in Combat		Creature Lore	Knowledge of Monsters
	Discipline	Bonus for Spiritual Defenses		Farrier	Horseshoeing
	Fire-Building	Build Fire without Tools		Fishing	Catch Fish
	Language	Learn a new Language		Flora Lore	Knowledge of Plants
	Lip-Reading	Eavesdrop from a Distance		Gardening	Landscaping, small food
	Mountsmanship	Control a Mount		Glass-Blowing	Glassworks
	Mental Fortitude	Bonus for Mental Defenses		History	Knowledge of History
	Stamina	Bonus to Exertion Actions		Hunting	Hunting Game
	Swimming	Ability to Swim		Knots	Tie Knots with Proficiency
	Tap and Touch	Improves Searching		Lapidary	Cut Gems
	Under-Navigation	Direction Underground		Leatherworking	Create Leather, Hide Armor
	Wilderness Lore	Survival in the Wilderness		Legal Work	Urban Government Work
	Wound Care	Render Medical Aid		Masonry	Extract, Build with Stone
Divinity				Papermaking	Create writing surfaces
	Divine Accord	Connection to Deity		Religious Studious	Knowledge of Religions
	Priestly Points	Divine Power		Sailing	Sail a Ship, Command Crew
				Scribing	Writing, Calligraphy, Forgery
Magickery				Skinning	Recover Hide, Extract Organs
	Cantrip Control	Ability for Simple Magic		Knots	Advanced Rope Use
	Any Cantrip	Simple Magical Effect		Sailing	Navigate a water vessel
Sorcery				Scribing	Writing, Calligraphy, Forgery
	Sorcery	Ability for Advanced Magic		Skinning	Remove Hides
	Spell Axiom	Learn New Spell to Cast		Tailoring	Create Clothing, Armor
	Spell Point	1 Spell Point		Weaponsmith	Force Metal Weapons
				Woodworking	Weapons, Build with Wood,

Backstory

In the game, a player is pretending to be another person, living in another world, which is governed by different physics. To have a sense of what decisions to make, it is important to understand the motivation and influences of this character.

Often this can be accomplished by detailing the entity’s backstory first. Often the environment and events from growing up or living in a particular way can set a general impression of what this character will be like. When noting on the character sheet the backstory, write as much detail as desired; however, often just one or two words can summarize, such as “Criminal” or “Guild Merchant.” The other details about the past will be captured when documenting the character’s personality.

Personality

After thinking about the character’s backstory and how that influences who that character is today, a few key notes should be made, perhaps just a short sentence for the following categories.

Traits: This is a general statement of a noticeable personality behavior. It could be “I am very intolerant of those who have a different faith” or “I am a hopeless romantic but fall in and out of love quickly.”

Ideals: This is the goal or the hope of how the character would live in a perfect world. It is the inspiration that drives the character’s behavior. One example is “I aspire to prove myself worthy to my family.” Another is “I am greedy and just in this for the bounty.”

Bonds: A character’s bond is what is important to him; that for which he or she would sacrifice. This could be a person, a group of friends, a relative or even tangible objects. It might be “the workshop where I learned my trade” or “my mother means the world to me.”

Flaws: Finally, it is important to have at least one character-flaw. These are weaknesses which could undermine the character. Some might be obvious like “I am a binge drinker,” while others might be secretive like “I can’t help but pilfer a little from the share.”

Summary

• Assign 1 point to all three qualities, then assign another 3 points as desired.
• Select race for character from dwarf, elf, halfling, human or lizardfolk. Add racial skill to character sheet. Humans gain +1 to lowest quality score.
• Pick starting skills. Number of starting skills vary by race selected.
• Write general personality and backstory for the character.