1 Introduction

1.1 About SHARD

This is going to be a decent intro, some time soon…

1.2 Using the Codex

SHARD is divided in a few source “books”

The Codex is a collection of rules that will let you run a game in the SHARD universe. It covers rules character creation, exploration, magic, combat and most other aspects an adventuring Roll Playing Game entails. The rules are meant to lightweight enough to not bog down gameplay but sufficiently extensive to cover most situations. Think of it as a scaffolding to hold up the world and stories, rather than a cage to contain them.

In the Grimoire you will find a list of all spells, with details and descriptions.

The Bestiary contains information and stat blocks for the various denizens of the SHARDverse.

The Encyclopedia is a guide to the world(s) of SHARD, dealing with history, geography etc.

These are the building blocks of running a game and you can use as much or as little as you like in your games. Don’t be afraid to change things that works poorly with your lay style, or expand beyond what is already there.

1.3 Playing The Game

In simplified terms, the game more or less follows a set formula.

  1. The GM sets the scene, describing the location and environment the player characters find themselves in, as well as any creatures and objects of note. Depending on the players, the GM may also present a basic scope of options that the players have.

  2. The players describe what they would like to do, and may ask for additional information regarding their environment and available options. It is up to the GM to decide what information is and is not available to the characters. Some actions may require one or more dice rolls to determine their outcome. Usually, the players roll dice for their actions and the GM rolls for other creatures and random events. The GM might choose to roll the dice behind a book or screen (hidden roll) when resolving something that the players are unawaer of.

  3. The GM describes the results of the players characters actions. More often than not, this changes the premise of the scene, which leads right back to the first point.

Tools

To play SHARD, you can get by with just the rules, a pen, some paper and at least one 8-sided die, though adding visual aids, like maps and figurines (and more dice) can make gameplay both smoother and more enjoyable. If you like using props at the table, feel free to add other props like tokens, cards for spells and equipment, etc.


1.4 Adventures

The heart of the game is the stories you create by taking your group of characters on adventures. These stories can be anything from the diaries of a ragtag bunch of misfits, just trying to make a name for themselves, all the way to epic tales with the whole world hanging in the balance.

Adventure Building Blocks

No matter what kind of adventures you are embarking on, they usually contain three typical components: Exploration, Social interactions and Combat. How much of each component you want to include is entirely dependent on what kind of adventures you prefer, both as players and GM. Mixing things up between these three aspects will play the strength and weaknesses of different types of characters. There is no right formula, so focus on the things you enjoy and don’t be afraid to experiment with different combinations.

Combat

Whether it was plan A from the start or a last resort, combat is violent diplomacy in its most base form. One side wins when the other yields, flees or dies. Combat in SHARD is dangerous business. Players and GM alike are encouraged to bear consequences in mind. Bear in mind that neither player characters or their opponents are stupid. They have an objective and if the incentive to fight disappear or the risk outweighs the reward, they should concider alternative options. Treating the combat as a puzzle to solve opens up for a very dynamic and interesting play style.

Exploration

The world is a place of wonder and exploring the unknown can be both exciting and dangerous. Hostile environments, exposure, hunger and thirst can be every bit as challenging as any foe for the unprepared. To overcome these type of challenges you need to be very clever, innovative and tenacious. Having a well rounded set of skills and talents is also of great help. Something a simple as travelling from one place to another can be an adventure in itself, given te right thought and attention.

Social Interactions

Figuring out how to get what you want from others can be a complex puzzle in and of itself. This could be gaining the favour of a noble, plying a drunken sailor for information or talking your way out of a sticky situation. There is also the possibility of advanced and far-reaching plans, like infiltrating a guild or cult, build a reputation in a city or region, recruit people to a cause, and so on.

2 Basics

2.1 Basic Rules

Whether SHARD is your first experience with a tabletop RPG or just one of many games you have played, a easily digestible rule base is a good start to get into the game. All rules are written with the general principles below in mind. This should help resolve any ambiguity in the wording of a particular rule.

Always Round Down

Whenever you divide a number, the result is rounded down to the nearest integer, even if the fraction is 5 or above.

Capped values

Values like abilities, resource dice etc. can be modified in a number of ways. They all follow these same basic principles.

Specific Overrules General

If a rule for a trait, skill, ability etc. goes against a general rule, the specific rule will take precedence. If a rule on, for example, a trait says “X is reduced by half. Round any fractions up”, this overrides the general Always Round Down rule.

Effect Stacking

Multiple instances of the same effect from does not stack. If an effect is applied multiple times, merge them together as one effect using the values with the highest impact.

Example: A creature is hit with two instances of the same effect that deals damage at the end of its turn: The firt one deals two damage per turn for three turns. The other deals one damage for four turns. The net effect will be that the creature takes two points of damage for four turns. If the same effect is applied again on the affected creature, merge it with the current one using the same principles.

Novel situations

Rules cannot possibly account for everything that can happen in a gaming session, especially since creativity is encouraged. When a situation like this arises you may have to make up a rule on the spot. There are most likely rules for similar situations you can use, but failing that there are some base assumptions you can make to help you determine how to handle a situation.

This said, remember that the main objective is having fun and the rules are meant to offload a lot of considerations you have to make. So, if you rather rule-of-cool it sometimes, that is a valid approach.

2.2 Dice

Game Dice

SHARD uses 8-sided dice. You can either use the special dice that have runes on their faces, or regular 8-sided dice. In the latter case, use the table below to translate the result to the corresponding rune used by the system.

No. Rune Mnemonic
1 ᚢ Soul
2 ᛋ Mind
3 ᛟ Body
4 Blank
5 Blank
6 ᚦ Success
7 ᚦ Success
8 ᛒ Triumph

Rolling the Dice

There are a number of situations that may call for a dice roll. Most common are actions that have an uncertain outcome, such as when trying to pick a lock, jump over a chasm, strike an enemy or impress a crowd of people with your talents.

These situations are referred to as challenges and are resolved by rolling a number of dice (a dice pool), comparing the total number of successes ( ᚦ ), and triumphs ( ᛒ ), to a target number. In addition, any ᛒ rolled will also explode, as per the rules in Modifying the Dice.

The challenge is passed if the number of successes matches or exceeds the target number. The net result, i.e. the number of successes exceeding or falling short of the target number, may have an impact on the outcome. If that is the case, this is detailed in the rules for that particular challenge.

The target number for a challenge is determined by the difficulty of the task attempted and the type of challenge. For skills, this could be some other creatures ability score, or a predetermined value. The table below offers a generic guideline for challenge difficulties.

Difficulty Table

Difficulty Target Number
Effortless 0
Easy 1
Average 2
Hard 3
Very Hard 4
Extreme 5
Ludicrous 6

Dice Pools

Typically the number of dice in a dice pool is one of your ability scores paired with the skill level of a relevant skill, if any. Other factors may add or subtract dice from a dice pool. Modifications to the dice pool are made before any dice are rolled.

Modifying the Dice

Once the dice in a dice pool have been rolled, but before results have been calculated, you have the opportunity to modify the dice. Skills, traits or other effect may have applicable rules that allows you to do so. If more than one rule allows you to modify the dice, you can freely choose in which order to apply the modifications. Each die, however, can only be modified in the same way once. Usually, an option to modify dice contains criteria for which result(s) and/or amount of dice to modify. If not stated, the rule applies to all dice/results. If more than one rule gives you the same modification option (with the same or different criteria), you can choose which instance to use. If the rule does not specify criteria for number and/or result, assume any. Dice can be modified in the following ways:

Add (result).

Add one or more of the result to the roll.

Re-roll

Take the eligible dice and roll them again.

Change.

Turn the eligible dice to a side with the new desired result.

Cancel.

Remove the dice from the dice pool. Do not add the result to the total.

Explode.

For every triumph ( ᛒ ) is rolled, roll one additional die. Repeat this process for every new ᛒ you roll. All extra dice are considered a part of the pool and can be modified as per the rules under Modifying Dice.

Results from other sources

There are various effects that can add one or more specific results to a dice roll (spells, skills or abilities for example). These added results may not be modified like results from dice (above).

Spending Dice

Some actions or effects will let you spend dice for various effects. A common example is spending dice you’ve gained from your Prowess/Ether/Savvy to add them to your dice pool for a challenge. When you spend a die it becomes unavailable for a time, and cannot be used again until it has been recovered. Depending on how you spend your dice, they can be either spent, exhausted, depleted or burned. This will affect how and when it is recovered.

Spent Spent dice recover quickly. In combat they are available again at the start of a combat round. Outside of combat, they recover after a minute.

Exhausted Exhausted dice will be recovered at the end of a scene, which roughly translates to the break between two distinct activities. An example being the end of a combat encounter, or a short rest (See Resting).

Depleted Depleted dice may normally only be recovered after when the character have had an opportunity to recuperate. This corresponds to a long rest. (See Resting).

Burned Burned dice will not recover naturally. The effect that lets you burn a die will tell you how to recover it, if it can be recovered at all. If the burned dice were gained through one of your attributes, the attribute itself is reduced by the same amount as the number of dice burned. Likewise, if the dice are somehow recovered, the attribute is also restored.

Some traits, talents or other effects may also let you recover dice. Any restrictions or requirements that apply will be detailed with the corresponding effect.

Botching a challenge

Sometimes, luck and skill conspire against you, and you mess up spectacularly. This happens when you fail a challenge and you have no successes after modifying the dice. In the rare event this happens, the GM and players are encouraged to come up with a suitably embarrassing outcome for the unlucky character.


2.3 Time

SHARD uses two different time scales: Narrative time and Combat time.

Narrative time is divided into Scenes. The term is borrowed from the theatre and movies, where s scene is a coherent sequence of events and actions with a determinable beginning and end. This can be a chase through the streets, a quiet evening around a camp fire, a banquet or a long but uneventful journey. The actual amount of time that passes is secondary and can range from minutes to days or weeks. The point of this time format is to focus on the interesting things, while brushing past the tedious or boring. A long journey can be summed up in a few words if nothing happens. Should it be interrupted by an encounter of some kind this turns into a a new scene.

Combat time, however, is more precise, and will be used whenever a more granular and consistent time scale is required. Here, the time is measured in rounds, where one round is roughly 6 seconds long. Further details can be found in the chapter about Combat

3 Characters

3.1 Player Characters

Your character is an avatar who lets you explore the fantastic world you, your fellow players and GM create. The rules in this chapter provides a framework for you to bring your character to life.

Creating a character involves making a lot of choices. Having some sort of idea from the start about what kind of character you want to make is therefore usually very helpful. Don’t be afraid of leaning on stereotypes and existing characters from other media. SHARD offers many options to customise your character and as the game progresses you can take it in a completely different direction than what you initially imagined. If you are unsure what to play, you can always start with the mechanics and let that shape the concept of your character.

Character Creation

There are three corner stones that lays the foundation of your character: race, origin and background. Each choice may give you a unique combination of skills, traits and/or ability points.

Race

The characters race determines many of their most basic attributes. Though most races have distinct characteristics, there is often a great variety, both to appearance and behaviour, within each race. Most races are also capable of interbreeding. The offspring usually takes on the physical attributes of one of the parents, with only a few hints of their mixed heritage.

Origin

Origin denotes their geographic location and cultural affiliation, and is often equally, if not more important part of their identity. There are few regions that are populated by only one race and a character will likely feel more affinity with the people of their home province than any foreign member of their race.

Background

Background is how the character spent their formative years. It has less to do with where the character is from geographically, and more to do with social circumstances, interests and personal choices.

Abilities

The seven ability scores describes your characters physical, mental and magical capabilities.

Talents

As player characters grows and learns, they will develop new skills and abilities, as well as honing those they already have. Talents represents their experiences and growth.

3.2 Races

Choosing a race

Human

Compared to many if the other races, humans have a relatively short lifespan. This is likely one of the reasons for their high industriousness and adaptability. More than any other race, humans are shaped by their environment. They will gladly travel far and wide to settle, and so there are few places where they don’t make up at least some portion of the population.

Dwarf

Dwarves are hardy creatures, well adapted to all the various regions and their climate. Regardless of geographical location, they tend to prefer dwelling near, or under mountains and hills.

Large Dwarf settlements tend to be fairly homogeneous with regards to the permanent residents, as few other races can stand underground life for extended periods of time.

Mountain Dwarf

Mountain Dwarfs makes up the vast majority of the Dwarfish population and can be found almost anywhere.

Aboreal Dwarf

The Aboreal Dwarves all descends from a number of ancient clans that for a long time made their homes among the vast glaciers and frozen tundras. They are a rare sight outside their preferred environment, with only a few small settlements scattered across the lands. Adventurous individuals nonetheless tend to find a place in towns or cities with diverse population.

Atoll Dwarf

Faithful to their name, Atoll Dwarves descends from clans settled in the great archipelago. Although they can be found throughout the lands, they tend to settle near large bodies of water.

Elf

Elves are an ancient race that stems from the Feywild. Over the centuries, they have deviated from their fey kin in many ways. While some feel that their blood have been diluted, the general sentiment is that more has been gained than lost from their adaptation.

Wood Elf

Wood Elves are the most numerous and most widespread of all the Elves. While they are partial to forests, you will nearly as often find them in towns and cities of any size. Humans and Wood Elves are generally on good terms and are often seen working together.

Sea Elf

As their name suggests, the Sea Elves lives almost exclusively on or near water, either in large nomadic fleets, or small coastal settlements.

Eladrin

Often referred to a High Elves, the Eladrin have retained much of their Fey heritage. Their numbers are few, and while they are not adverse to interact with other races, they rarely live in settlements with them, preferring to dwell with their own kind.

3.5 Abilitiy Scores

This section details the numbers behind your character, i.e. how proficient they are in various areas. At creation, a character starts with a score of 1 in all Primary and Secondary abilities.

Primary Abilities

Each creature has seven ability scores that represent their physical mental and spiritual aptitudes. They are divided into the categories body, mind and soul Ability scores typically range from 1 to 3, though powerful or supernatural creatures can exceed this limit.

Ability Reppresents Category
Strength Overall physical prowess ᛟ (body)
Dexterity Agility, accuracy and motor control ᛟ (body)
Constitution Sturdiness and physical resilience ᛟ (body)
Perception General awareness, acuteness of senses ᛋ (mind)
Wits Memory, logic and reasoning ᛋ (mind)
Spirit Willpower and focus ᚢ (soul)
Charisma Charm, persuasiveness, and force of personality ᚢ (soul)

Secondary Abilities

These are baseline abilities that have static or derived scores, and are mainly tied to a characters progression.

Defence represents the characters ability to defend themselves from physical attacks from weapons, spells, etc.

Resolve measures the characters ability to defend themselves against assaults on their mind and senses, usually in the form of non-physical spells and abilities.

Resource Dice

In addition to the dice gained from primary abilities and skills, there are three auxiliary dice pools that a character can draw upon. They represent innate skill and experience three different areas and can be used in various ways. Most commonly they are used in conjunction with skills and primary abilities in a challenge.

Prowess represents a characters combat readiness. The dice in this pool can be used for offence, defence or a mix of both.

Ether is a measure of the characters connection to to the etherflow and is used to power magical and supernatural abilities.

Savvy signifies the characters ability to improvise and apply their knowledge and skills in various situations.

3.6 Personality

Now that you have a foundation for your character, it is time to make it come alive. What kind of a person lies beyond the numbers and statistics? Think about what whey like and dislike; what motivates, excites, scares, and angers them.

To keep it simple, try to sum it up in a sentence or two for each of the categories below.

Belief

What does your character believe in? A higher power? Justice, and if so what kind? Redemption? Duty? The belief(s) a character holds is a great driving force and says a lot about who they are.

Virtue

Does your character have any particularly admirable quality? Are they perhaps generous? Brave? Compassionate? Maybe they are a natural leader? Whether they show it or not, the quality is there and shape their actions.

Flaw

What does your character struggle with? Irrational fear or resentment? An unsavoury past? The need for attention? Poor impulse control? A well thought out flaw can make for a very dynamic and compelling character.

Relationships

Even if your character is new to you, they are not new to the world, and have reasonably already made a few friends, acquaintances and/or enemies. At character creation, note down a few different individuals that has had an impact in your characters life and what the nature of their relationship is. These individuals are a resource, both to the GM as potential plot hooks, and to the player as per “I know someone…”

Building relationships is a large part of your characters interactions with the world, and players are encouraged to do so. This is especially true of the members of your adventuring party. There can be many reasons to why they ended up in each others company. Take some time to discuss with the other players and work out what your characters are are to one another. Relationships are by nature complex and complicated, but in most cases they can fit into a broader category. Pick a category from the options below for each of your party member. This is the initial nature of your relationship. Note that it is in no way static, and can easily change as the game goes on. The relationship does not necessarily have to be symmetrical. It is entirely possible that the party member you see as a friend sees you as a rival.

Apart from the role playing aspects, the relationship between you and your allies will give you some sort of benefit in certain situations.

Friendship

Benefit: You may add a bonus die to your dice pool when you take an action to assist your ally. This can be used both in and out of combat. In addition, when you are in combat and adjacent to your ally, you may spend resource dice on their active defence as if you were the target.

Love

Benefit: If a creature actively harms your ally, add one bonus die to the dice pool of all your attacks against that creature, until end of combat. If the attack causes your ally to fall unconscious or die, instead add two bonus dice. If the harm is caused outside of combat, the effect will still apply if combat is later initiated with this creature.

Additionally, while you are adjacent to your ally, once per round you may move up to 5ft as a free action to intercept an incoming attack (or other physical harmful effect) That attack now targets you instead. Resolve as normal. If the attack has an area of effect, your ally instead benefits from half cover.

Rivalry

Benefit: If your rival rolls one or more (triumph) while performing an action that you can see, you may add one bonus die to the dice pool for your next action challenge. If you are taking the same action as your rival, you may add one additional die.

As for all the other denizens of SHARD you may encounter, their attitudes towards your character can range from friendly or indifferent, to downright hostile. For non-player characters, refer to the attitude table in the Exploration chapter for general guidelines.


3.7 Talents

Talents are how your character progresses. They represent the differnt ways in which your character grows and develops. These skills and abilities that they acquire during their adventures can take many forms. You start out with a few talents at character creation, based on your race, origin and background, but there is no set path.

Every talent have three ranks, representing the depth of your mastery. At each rank, you gain a combination of skills, traits, resource dice and, in rare cases ability dice. Most talents follow the pattern below.

While getting to the third rank of a talent usually is a good idea, as it usually offers a little more value than the first two, this is by no means required. You do not have to rank up a talent before starting on a new one and you are free to go as wide and as deep as you prefer.

Some talents have prerequsites, meaning that you have to fullfill one or more conditions to be able to choose them. The critera may be tied to being a member of a certain race, having a certain origin, require certain stats or it can be a more advanced version of another talent that you have to develop first. Any requirements are listed in the talents description.

Some of the benefits you get are statick, while others will let you pick freely. Others limit the choice to a smaller sub-selection of a category, indicated by (any sub-selection) For spells, this refers to key words and for skills a type. For example:

Any individual limitations on skills and spells still apply.

Animist (Apprentice)

You have special connection to the spirit world, which gives you a noticable advantage when manipulating ether from this realm.

rank 1

rank 2

rank3

Animist (Experienced)

Prerequisite: Animist (Apprentice)

You have special connection to the spirit world, which gives you a noticable advantage when manipulating ether from this realm.

rank 1

rank 2

rank3

Animist (Master)

Prerequisite: Animist (Experienced)

You have special connection to the spirit world, which gives you a noticable advantage when manipulating ether from this realm.

rank 1

rank 2

rank3

Artificier

You really put your soul into your work, as you bring magic and your craft of choice together.

rank 1

rank 2

rank3

Brawler

You excel in unarmed fighting, whether it entails slugging it out bare knuckled in a tavern or honing your body into a weapon through martial trainig.

rank 1

rank 2

rank 3

Flagellant Mage

Exchanging pain for gain, you are ready and willing to overstep limits your body and mind imposes on you for your own protection. A litle masochism never hurt anyone (in a bad way…).

rank 1

rank 2

rank 3

Gladiator

Fighting with flair is your forte. You are versed in a variety of weapons and can be entertaining as well as effective.

rank 1

rank 2

rank 3

3.8 Scars

Scars function more or less like negative talents. They represent various trauma (physical, mental or spiritual) the character has endured. Scars are almost always permanent, but like talents they have three ranks, where subsequent ranks kan help mitigate or offset the drawbacks.

3.9 Skills

Skills represents areas of knowledge and experience that a character has. They can be a part of the characters background, or something learned while adventuring. Every skill has a few examples of what it lets you accomplish. While you can attempt most of these things without any rating in the skill at all, the difficulty is increased by (at least) on level.

Skill challenges work like most other challenges, where you roll a number of dice, trying to match or beat a number based on the difficulty of the challenge. The dice pool will based on one of your primary abilities. In most cases this corresponds to the one indicated in the skill description. For some applications of the skill, however, another suitably ability may be substituted.

For instance, if you want to impress someone with your skill, you might use charisma instead of the standard ability score. Likewise, if your goal is to gauge someone else’s skill level, perception is a valid substitution. As always, the DM has the last say in which ability to use.

In some cases, a skill challenge can be a bit excessive. Rather than rolling any dice, if your rating exceeds the difficulty of the challenge, the DM may let you succeed automatically.

Some skills may have additional benefits at certain ranks. If so these are listed in the skills description.

Academia

Having a formal higher education can provide you with knowledge and insights you don’t normally come across. Academia gives you, mainly theoretical, knowledge in a wide area of subjects, such as botany, zoology, geology, engineering, administration and law.

Easy

Average

Hard

Animal Handling

This skill covers a range of knowledge and experience pertaining to riding, training and caring for animals. You can elect to use this skill instead of Medicine when treating injuries and illnesses in beasts.

Armour Training

Anyone can strap on some additional protection, but someone who is trained in wearing armour knows how to get the most out of it. Your rank lets you ignore any encumbrance penalties of one or more types of armour and lets you use their specific traits (se below).

Rank

  1. Light armour, small and medium shields.

  2. Medium armour, large shields.

  3. Heavy armour.

Athletics

Under normal circumstances, physical activity like running, jumping, balancing or climbing rarely requires any special training. Athletics lets you do this in bad conditions, under pressure, and with little to no gear. It also means you have some training in tumbling, acrobatics and other advanced physical feats.

Connect

Connect is your ability to navigate social landscape and find what you are looking for, whether it be goods, contacts or information. You can use it to tap into the rumour mill, procure goods (legal or otherwise) or insert yourself in the right crowd without too much suspicion.

Connect is a skill that often requires both time and resources, in order to reap the full benefits.

Easy

Average

Hard

Craft (Type)

Craft is not a single skill. Every craft has its own skill and should therefore be noted as Craft (type). Below is a list of typical crafts. You can use this as inspiration, but you are not limited to them specifically.

Culture

This skill represents your knowledge of the when, where and whys of the world. It encompasses subjects like History, Geography and Anthropology.

Endurance

This skill is how well you have trained yourself to push your limits. When forced to exert yourself or endure harsh conditions for an extended period, every rank in this skill lets you add one die to any challenges you make trying to persevere.

In addition, you gain an extra benefit at each rank (se below).

Rank

  1. Add one equipment slot.

  2. Add a number of dice equal to your rank to the dice pool when recovering Strain damage.

  3. Add one hit point to each level of your health track.

Influence

This skill encompasses the ability to get what you want from others, in various ways. You know how to plead, flatter, coax and apply pressure of the right type and amount to get results. Influence can be a precarious skill to use, whether you use persuasion, negotiation or downright intimidation. Depending on the target and the objective, success may come at a small cost while failure assuredly at a great one. The size and credibility of compensations/threats may influence the difficulty.

Investigation

Investigation is the ability to organise and categorise information. It helps you figure out what is accurate and relevant. You can extrapolate and draw conclusions from incomplete data. This gives you an advantage in several different situations. When searching an area you know that to look for and where. During an interrogation you have a good sense for what information is useful, when something is left out and what questions to ask to figure out what you want to know The skill also includes knowledge on cataloguing, collaborating data and figuring out what might be missing and where to find it.

Language (family)

What languages you speak are mainly determined by what area you grew up in. While there are a multitude of languages, many of them are similar enough that they are considered to be of the same language family.

When selecting this skill, you pick a language family, rather than a single language, as you are considered able to communicate reasonably well with speakers of any language in the same family.

Your skill rank determines your level of fluency and normally you do not have to make any challenge rolls; only when trying to communicate or understand things beyond your fluency level (like riddles, idioms and archaic or technical jargong).

Rank

  1. Basic. You can use and understand everyday phrases, but you speak with a noticeable accent. You lack the vocabulary for complex, nuanced or academic speech.

  2. Fluent. You have a good grasp of the language and a broad vocabulary and you speak with very little accent. While you might recognise bits of archaic language and specialist terms, you can not grasp them well enough for conversation.

  3. Native. You speak fluently and without accent and you can communicate with both precision and nuance. Only very obscure words give you any trouble.

Lore

Where Academia and Culture covers mundane subjects, Lore is knowledge in mystical and mythical areas. This includes knowledge about magic and creatures from the known shards, as well as the shards themselves. It also covers religion, myths and legends; things that goes beyond common campfire stories.

Easy

Average

Hard

Medicine

A must have skill for all aspiring physicians. Apart from a good grasp on physiology, you have a useful repertoire of herbal remedies for treating a wide range of ailments. You can set broken bones, dress wounds and diagnose various symtoms of disease and poison. Adding ranks in this skill will let you go from a herbalist and bone-saw, to a proper physician and all the way to a skilled surgeon.

Performance (Type)

Like Craft, Performance is not a single skill. When selecting this skill, you pick an art form and note the skill as Performance (type). Common art forms are Music, Dance or Poetry, but you are free pick something else, or make up your own. Your focus is within one aspect of the art form. For Music this corresponds to an instrument and for Dance or Poetry a type/genre. Apart from the actual performing, you possess knowledge in areas related to your art form, such as notorious practitioners, significant venues, great works, and area-specific preferences.

Both the width and depth of your expertise increases with your ranks in the skill.

Rank

  1. You are skilled in one aspect of your chosen type, and passable in two more. You can more often then not exchange your services for a few coins or or free room and board for a night.

  2. You are exceptional your main aspect, skilled with three more and passable in the rest. You may get recognised and asked for a performance in exchange for a more than modest compensation in coin or favours.

  3. You are skilled in all aspects of your craft and a master in your main one. Your name is quite known and any performance is likely to draw a crowd Wealthy clients may even offer a handsome reward for an exclusive performance.

Seafaring

When travelling by water, knowledge of Seafaring is invaluable. This skill gives you knowledge on navigation, trade routes and naval customs/etiquette. You can also know how naval various vessels operate and can in many cases, if skilled enough, even operate them.

Spellcasting (school)

Each school of magic corresponds to a different skill. Some powerful spells may require that you have at minimum a certain rank in the corresponding school in order for you to be able to cast it.

In addition, each rank in a school lets you increase the potency of a spell from that school by one (1) for free.

Schools of Magic

Stealth

The skill och choice for skulkers. Stealth will let you move unseen and unheard through your environment. You can also use it to hide and camouflage yourself, other creatures and things. This includes hiding items on yourself and others to pass casual searches.

The skill also works in reverse, since you know what to look for and what techniques to use.

Subterfuge

Subterfuge is the art of deception. Training in this skill will let you hide the true nature of things.

You can disguise both yourself and others, mimic voices and sounds and lie convincingly. You also have some knowledge of forgery. If you have the appropriate crafting skill, you can do it yourself. If not, you at least know what you need and where to go.

Survival

When travelling in the wilderness, survival is a crucial skill. It lets you find water, hunt and forage for food, build shelters and navigate. Every rank of this skill lets you select a particular environment where you are particularly skilled.

Tactics

This skill implies military training and or experience. It lets you make informed assessments of enemy capabilities and apply various tactics and strategies in combat. It also includes knowledge of military etiquette, symbols/insignia pertaining to roles and known armed forces and general logistics.

As an added benefit, at the start of a combat encounter, you may add a number of dice equal to your rank in this skill to a general dice pool. Any member of your party may use one or more of them as bonus dice during their turn. All of them are refreshed at the start of a new combat round.

Thievery

Thievery represents an assortment of skills that, as the name implies, is predominantly employed by individuals intent on making free with other peoples property. This includes things like picking locks, setting/disarming traps and slight of hand.

Weapon Training (Type)

Each weapon type is a separate skill. Having at least one rank in the corresponding skill lets you make use of the special traits for that weapon type. Some weapons may belong to more than one type.

You only may apply bonuses from one skill at a time, but you get to choose which one to use in each instance.

Weapon Types

3.10 Character Progression

As your character goes on adventures, overcome challenges and makes friends (and likely enemies), they gain experience in the form of experience points.

Gaining Experience

Experience is handed out to the group of characters at certain intervals, here referred to as milestones. A milestone occurs when there is an appropriate transition, where one thing is ends and something else begins. This could be things like reaching the end of a long and arduous journey, escaping from a dungeon or just before a climactic battle. It should ideally be placed where the adventure takes a turn in a new direction. As an alternative, experience can be awarded at the end of a session, or a set of sessions if they are short and/or uneventful.

When a milestone is reached, the characters are normally rewarded 1-4 experience points, depending on what they have gone through. Below are a few typical events that should each award a point. All characters present at the event(s) are awarded the points.

Challenging Combat Encounter

Win or lose, battling strong opponents. There is little to learn from defeating
weak opponents. Also, prevailing in clever and creative ways should be commended. If you are facing a far superior opponent, simply getting away in one piece should be considered successful. Should the players prevail in a particularly challenging combat, the GM may choose increase the reward.

Gaining Fame and/or Allies

By many small (and/or a few large) actions gaining the trust and appreciation of people of significant numbers or power, like a town, an organisation, a noble or wealthy family, etc. Alternatively, the opposite: gaining their cooperation though fear and intimidation.

Discovering or Creating

Finding new or re-discovering lost knowledge, artefacts or locations. Alternatively, creating something novel and/or significant that inspires awe.

In addition, both the players and the GM may nominate one or more characters for an extra point, for extraordinary accomplishments impressing the table. This could be through exceedingly clever/funny stunts, captivating role play or some epic feat of skill and/or luck. Anything that has a big positive impact on the players and GMs enjoyment.

Spending Experience

Once the players have received their experience points, they may choose to spend any number of them on progressing their characters. This can in a few different ways, with varying costs.

Note that it is possible to assign experience points towards a talent or ability, even if it does not cover the whole cost. You record the points spent as usual, but do not get the benefits until the whole cost is paid.

Other Sources of Experience Points

Characters can optionally earn experience in other ways than adventuring. One example would be an extended period of working or training a specific skill or ability. Another could be knowledge supernaturally bestowed as a boon. In contrast to the general experience gained from adventuring, these experience points are restricted to gaining or ranking up a specific talent and have to be assigned there, rather than added to the general experience. Se Spending Experience above.

4 Equipment

4.1 Adventuring Gear

About Gear

4.2 Melee Weapons

About Melee Weapons

4.3 Ranged Weapons

About Ranged Weapons

4.4 Armour

Any sane adventurer would want at least some protection from getting hit with sharp or blunt objects. While they have the same function, not all armour is the same. Different types of armour are designed for different purposes and there is a lot to consider when picking out an armour to suit your particular needs.

All armour comes with three stats: Class, Rating and Traits

Armour Class

Armour comes in three classes: light, medium and heavy. Which class an armour belongs to depends on material, make and coverage.

Light armour

Light armour is usually made from cloth or leather. It trades protection for utility and covers the mostly the vital parts of the body. This makes it less cumbersome to wear and is ideal when travelling on foot, especially in uneven terrain.

Medium armour

Medium armour is a more decked out version of light armour. Parts that cover vital areas are reinforced with plates or scales of stiffer materials, like boiled leather, bone or metal. Usually, some non-vital but exposed areas also get a bit of coverage. It’s light enough for travel, but trekking on foot quickly becomes arduous.

For every 2 hours of travel on foot, or half as long in rough terrain, you must take a short rest or suffer 1 point of true strain damage.

Heavy Armour

Heavy armour offers superior protection. It covers most of the body in sturdy materials, like bone or metal. It consists of at least two layers: a softer and more flexible underneath a more rigid one. While it does not restrict movement, it is heavy and warm to wear. Travelling for any longer periods is very straining. Trekking on foot even more so, with need of frequent rests.

For every hour of travel on foot, or half as long in rough terrain, you must take a short rest or suffer 1 point of true strain damage.

Armour Rating

The armour rating is a measure of how well it mitigates an attack. While armour almost exclusively is made to protect from weapons attacks, i.e. physical impacts, it will still offer at least some limited protection against elemental damage. See the table under Damage Types.

For damage types belonging to the Physical category, reduce the damage by the rating of the armour.

For damage types belonging to the Elemental category, roll a number of dice equal to the armours rating and reduce the damage by the number of successes (ᚦ) rolled. Any triumphs (ᛒ) rolled are counted as successes, but do not explode.

The Special category have types of damage that does not follow the normal rules and armour offers no protection at all.

Normal armour have a rating between 1 and 3. Note that shields are different from armour. See the rules for Cover.

Armour Traits

Armour is often tailored for use in certain circumstances, and so they can have one or more special traits to reflect this. Some traits are inherent to the make or materials used.

Strong (damage type) The armour offers more protection against this damage type. Increase the Armour Rating by 1 against this particular type.

Weak (damage type) The armour offers less protection against this damage type. Decrease the Armour Rating by 1 against this particular type, to a minimum of 0.

Buoyant The armour does not sink in water and will keep it’s wearer afloat, unless over encumbered. Diving may call for a strength challenge (1).

Impenetrable The armour has no weak spots. Its Armour Rating cannot be reduced by skills, effects, traits, etc. Note that true damage ignores armour completely.

Impressive The armour is a work of art. Elaborate, with fine details and decorations. This does not affect its function, but it looks nice.

Armour List

Scalemail

A typical scalemail armour consists of a cloth or leather breastplate with a layer of overlapping metal scales, covering the wearer from shoulders to mid thigh. It also includes shin guards and braces.

4.5 Goods and Services

Various stuff

5 Magic

5.1 Magic In SHARD

Magic is intrinsic to world of SHARD. It manifests itself in a myriad of ways and is as natural as any physical laws, to the point that a user may not even reflect on the fact that their skills or abilities are magical in nature.

All characters can potentially have access to ether powered actions in the form of spells or spell-like abilities. For the sake of simplicity, they are all treated as spells.

5.2 Spellcasting

Casting a spell

Whether you are casting a spell or using a spell-like ability you follow the same basic rules.

Targets

Spells and abilities requires a target to apply their effects to. This can be yourself, a creature, an object or an area. Unless the spell specifically gives an exception, you have to be able to see the target. There also has to be a clear path from the caster to the target. This applies to all targets if there are more than one. If the spell has an area of effect the limitation above applies to the point of origin, but all creatures inside the area of effect can be affected whether you are aware of them or not. Unless the spell has the keyword ethereal, targets gains the benefits of cover if they are obscured from the direction of the spells point of origin.

Potency

This is the amount of power you pour into the spell. The spells potency is equal to the number of dice you spend from your Ether pool. A spell with a potency lower than 1 will disperse with no effect.

Spellcasting challenge

To determine the effects of the spell you have to make a spell casting challenge. Your dice pool for this test is your spellcasting attribute (usually Spirit) plus your skill rating in the relevant magic school. The target number for the test depends on what spell you are casting and what you are targeting. When targeting creatures the target number is usually either its Defence or Resolve. For objects, areas and utility spells, refer to the Difficulty Table and the examples given there.

Willing targets

A target can willingly drop their defences to let a spell affect them, effectively lowering their Defence and Resolve to 0 for the purpose of the spell in question. This is usually only relevant for beneficial spells and effects. If the target is unconscious or in some other way unable to make decisions, the choice is up to the controlling player, or in the case of non-player characters, the GM.

Spell components

Ether abilities in general, and spells in particular, typically involves gestures, mystic words and some sort of material component. Each of these are tools that helps casters focus their will and shape the ether into the desired effect. While it’s possible to cast a spell with only an exertion of will, it requires a much greater effort.

For each of the three components you can’t or won’t apply, subtract one from the spells potency. The material components are things that in some way can be associated with the spells effects. Each school of magic have their own typical materials components, as noted in their descriptions.

Spell Parameters

Each spell has a set of parameters that specifies how to use it, followed by a description of its effects.

Keywords

Keywords describe what categories the spell belong to. This includes things what tier and school of magic the spell belongs to, if it is associated a particular realm, any elemental properties and so on. Keywords does not do anything on their own, but they may affect how other rules apply.

Range

This is how far away the target of the spell can be. If the spell has an area of effect, this point is where the spell is centered.

Duration

Duration determines how long the effect of the spell lasts. Some spells effects last only an instant, while others linger. Duration can be measured in combat rounds, minutes, hours or even days, depending on the spell.

If the duration is followed by (sustained), the caster may choose to extend the spells effects. This requires some effort from the caster, however, and the caster have to exhaust a die from their Ether pool to do so. It is possible to sustain more than one spell at the time in this manner, but the number of dice that have to be exhausted increases by one for each additional spell already sustained. Thus, sustaining two spells would exhaust three dice from the Ether pool and sustaining three spells would exhaust six.Dice exhausted in this way cannot be recovered as long as the spell is sustained, but otherwise recovers normally.

Severe distractions, like injury, may cause the caster to drop one or more sustained spells. In this event, make a spellcasting challenge against a given target number for each sustained spell. If no net hits are generated, the caster drops the spell. In case of injury, the target number is the points of damage taken. The target number from other types of distractions may either be derived from an opposed challenge, or the Difficulty Table under the section Game Dice.

Upcast

This details which parameters of the spell that can be enhanced end in what way. When upcasting a spell, the caster may choose to spend one or more points of the spells potency. For each point spent, one upcast enhancement can be chosen.

The dangers of spellcasting.

Manipulating the Ether can be very taxing for both mind and body. When you cast a spell, note how many net blank results you roll (after any dice modifications). If the number is greater than your spellcasting attribute, you take 1 point of true strain damage.

6 Combat

6.1 Encounters

This chapter provides the rules needed for player characters and their adversaries to engage in combat. The fate of the combatants is determined by their ingenuity in actions, strategy and by their luck with the dice.

A typical combat encounter is a confrontation between (at least) two opposing sides. SHARD organises this chaotic clash of combat into a series of rounds, where one round roughly represents 6 seconds of in game time.

Start of Combat

When combat is initiated, a brief setup is required. Take a moment to set the scene and establish a few crucial details.

  1. Determine surprise. Getting the jump on your opponents is always advantageous. At the start of the engagement, determine if any of the sides are surprised. A surprised party suffer the following penalties on the first round of the combat:

    • They only get one action.
    • The action can only be taken in the second action phase of the round.

  2. Determine positions. Players describe where their characters are in relation to environment and each other. The DM does the same for all non-player characters. If you are using maps and figurines, place them on the playing area.

Once this is done, the first combat round can start.

The Combat Round

The combat round is divided into two action phases. Participants can take up to two actions, one of which can be a Complex action, in a combat round. Se Actions below. Player characters are usually limited to one action in each action phase. Non-player characters might have a different number of actions they can take, as noted on their respective stat cards. When performing more than two actions, they are divided equally over the two action phases, with the second action phase taking precedence in the case of an uneven number.

Combat Round Sequence

  1. Start round. Refresh all applicable dice pools and resolve any effects that triggers at the start of a combat round.

  2. Plan actions. Each group of participants plan and announce their actions for the combat round. Players can (and are encouraged to) collaborate their upcoming actions. At this stage, only general intentions are necessary.

  3. Roll initiative.

  4. First action phase. All members of a group take turns performing their first action. They are free to take their turn in any order. Any disagreements are settled with a roll off. When all members in the group have acted, the members of group next in the initiative order take their actions. Once all groups are done with their turn, move on to the second action phase. Note that members of a group that has not yet acted may declare a reaction in response to another character’s action (see Reactions).

  5. Second action phase. Like in the first action phase, groups take turn acting in initiative order. Members of the group can still take their turn in any order.

  6. End combat round. Resolve any effects that triggers at the end of a combat round. If there are no participants left on one side, the combat ends. Alternatively, either side may end the combat by disengaging or surrendering (see morale below). Otherwise, begin a new combat round.

6.2 Actions

The actions you can take during combat can be divided into a few main categories.

Free actions covers things that are done nearly automatically and require very little time or focus. This includes things like dropping a held item, grabbing an item from your belt, open container or other easily accessible location and exchanging a few words and/or gestures.

Simple actions are single, straight forward actions like striking an opponent, stowing or retrieving items from a backpack, casting a spell or vaulting through a window.

Complex actions lets you execute more complicated maneuvers. They require more commitment and focus than simple actions and take longer to execute, which can give opponents more time to react.

A character may for instance choose to move and attack as a single complex 
acton.

Reactions are simple actions that can be taken as a response to another characters action. While taking an action out of turn can be useful, it comes at a cost. In a turn where you take a Reaction, you can not also take a Complex Action, and vice versa.

Attack

The most typical action during combat. With this action you make a melee or ranged attack (see making an attack). This can be swinging a sword, firing a bow, or brawling with your fists. Spells attacks, while technically attacks, are covered under Spellcasting.

Focus

The Focus action is used to prepare your next move. This can be things like drawing on your mystical reserves to empower a spell, taking time to aim your bow, or using your martial experience to find an opening in your foes defence. You gain the Focused condition and may add two additional dice to the dice pool when performing your prepared action.

Shenanigans

This is a catch all action that encompasses a variety of tricks and maneuvers you can employ do gain an advantage for yourself or others. As the name implies it entails the unorthodox use of other actions. It can be any other action that involves a challenge, such as an attack, an ability, a skill or even a spell. Feel free to get creative. Used this way, instead of the normal effects, select an option from the list below. The range of the action is determined by the skill, spell or ability used.

Assist

Disrupt

Improvise

Move

You can move a distance up to your speed. If you move as a part of a complex action, you do not have to use all your movement at once. It can happen before, during and after other action, divided as you please.

Recover

This action lets a character regain their composure and can be used in a few ways. The Recover action requires deliberate focus and can not be used as part of a complex action.

Interact

While simple interactions with objects and the environment are covered under Free Actions, the Interact action is for when you want to do something more complex and demanding that is not covered by the Use Ability action. This may be breaking down a door, retrieving an item from closed container, operating a device or pulling an ally out of a pit.

Cast Spell

Characters and creatures that are spell casters can use an action to cast a spell. These rules are covered under Spellcasting.

Use Ability

Most characters and creatures have skills or abilities that can be used in combat. Unless stated in their description, natural or preternatural abilities take an action to use.

Defend

If you take the Defend action, you may add a number of dice equal to one of your primary abilities (as below) when using active defence.

Attacks/effects targeting Defence

Attacks/effects targeting Resolve

6.3 Making an Attack

While there are many forms of attacks, they all follow the same basic structure.

Attack Range

The weapon used determines the range of an attack. Mlelee weapons have a range of 5ft, unless otherwise noted. Ranged weapons have three ranges: short, medium and long, as listed in their profile. Bonuses or penalties may apply to your attack roll for targets at a certain range.

Dice pool

To determine the number of dice in the attackers dice pool, add up the dice from the following sources:


Example:
The attacker has a longsword, Strength of 2, Weapon skill (long blades) rank 1
and is attacking a target standing on a low stone wall. 
Dice pool woild then be: 2 + 1 - 1 (Stength + weapon skill - position)

Roll the dice

Once the dice pool has been determined, roll the dice. If you do not have enough dice to roll all at once, roll the ones you have and note the results, then roll again until you have rolled the determined number of dice.

Modify the dice

There are several effects that will let you modify the result of a dice roll, such as spells, abilities, stunts, allies actions, etc. See the corresponding section Modifying the Dice. Once the dice have been rolled, the attacker has an opportunity to modify the dice, if they can.

Calculate defence

The targets base defence is their Defence Secondary Ability score. Non-player characters use the corresponding value in their stat block. For inanimate objects, select an appropriate number from the Difficulty Table, based on the size, distance and movement of the object. Worn or held objects use the defence of their wielder.

There are a number of factors that can modify the targets defence. To get the final defence value, apply the modifiers from all applicable sources see Modifiers. Note that multiple identical instances does not stack. In these cases, use the highest modifier. The final result can not be lower than 0.

Determine the result

To determine the result of the attack, compare the remaining number of successes (ᚦ) generated by the attacker with the targets defence. If the attacker generates a number of successes equal to or exceeding the targets defence, the attack hits the target.

Calculate damage

All weapons, spells and abilities that can deal damage has a base damage value. Total damage from an attack is determined by adding the number of net successes (ᚦ) from the attack, as well as any extra damage from other sources, to the weapons base damage.

The size of the attacker versus the target matters. For every size category difference, add 1 to the damage of the attack if the target is smaller and subtract 1 if it is larger.

The damage dealt can be reduced if the target is resistant to the type of damage dealt, behind a barrier or wearing armour.

Armour

Armour comes in many shapes and forms, but all functions in the same way. The armours rating dictates how much protection it offers. Most varieties are tailored to provide protection from weapon attacks, but can offer at least some protection against sources of damage. See the section Damage Types below.

Resistances

Like armour, resistances reduces damage. It the target is resistant to the damage type dealt, reduce the damage by the resistance rating, or one if no rating is given. Resistance can stack with armour, as well as resistance from a different source. Simply add up the ratings.

6.4 Modifiers

Unseen targets

You cannot attack a target you cannot see, unless you can pinpoint it by some other means. Even then it is extremely difficult. When attacking an unseen target, any triumphs (ᛒ) rolled are counted as successes (ᚦ) on the attack challenge. All other results are are treated as blank results.

Conditions

If the attacker or the defender is affected by any conditions it may affect their combat ability. Refer to the Conditions section for details.

Position

There are a variety of variables that can affect an attack. If the circumstances favour the attacker, add one bonus die to the dice pool for the attack, and if it favours the target, instead subtract one die. If both participants are affected by the same circumstance, it cancels out.

Size

Small targets are harder to hit and large easier. For every two sizes the target and the attacker differ, modify the defence by one. A large creature would, for example have its Defence reduced by one when attacked by a small creature, while the small creature would have its defence increased by one when struck back. Neither of them would have any bonus or penalty to Defence when attacking or attacked by a medium creature.

Cover

Having something to hide behind greatly benefits the defender. Cover can be categorised as either half or full. Half cover increases the targets defence by one, and full cover increases it by two.

To get the benefit of half cover it needs to obscure more than half of the target and be of at least some substance. Examples include:

To get the benefit of full cover, at least three quarters of the target must be obscured and the cover must consist of something solid and sturdy. Examples include:

Note that you only gain the benefit of cover if it is between the attacker and the target in such a way that the attacker cannot simply lean over or around it to attack. Targets completely behind cover cannot be attacked unless you can somehow attack trough the cover. See the rules for Barriers and Unseen targets.

Active defence

In addition to the defence score, the defender has the option to exhaust dice from their prowess resource dice pool to try to mitigate the attack. Roll the selected number of dice and subtract the total of generated hits from the attackers hits.

6.5 Damage And Healing

Adventuring is dangerous business and player characters are likely to end up injured one way or another. Some injuries are life threatening while other merely an inconvenience. How bad an injury is depends on the nature of the damage and the characters sturdiness.

Damage Types

There are many ways to get injured and different attacks, spells, abilities or other effects can cause different types of damage. Their nature can divide them into the general categories, as per the table below.

Type Category Examples
Acid Physical Corrosive fluids or gases
Bludgeoning Physical Falling, crushing, blunt weapons
Cold Elemental Extremely cold environments or objects, cold elemental spells or abilities
Fire Elemental Burning areas or objects, fire elemental spells or abilities
Force Physical Shockwaves, kinetic spells and abilities
Lightning Elemental Electricity, lightning (natural or magical)
Necrotic Special Disease, frostbite, festering wounds, wasting spells and abilities
Piercing Physical Arrows, spikes and stabbing weapons
Poison Special Various drugs and toxins
Radiant Special Radiation, rare spells or abilities
Slashing Physical Sharp objects, cutting weapons

Armour

Wearing armour is an effective way of avoiding injuries, or at least mitigating them. Armour comes in many different varieties. See the Armour section in the Equipment chapter for detail on how they work.

Lethal vs. Strain Damage

Not all injuries result in open wounds and broken bones. Pain, fatigue, and psychosomatic effects will also affect your character’s health, even if it’s not directly fatal. Exhaustion, extreme heat, cold or other environmental conditions are typical sources of strain damage. As are a variety of poisons and deceases. There are also weapons designed to subdue rather than to kill. Sources that deal strain damage will note this in their description. In some cases a source that normally deals lethal damage can be used to deal strain damage instead, at the GMs discretion. This represents things like deliberately striking a non-vital or armoured parts of an opponent, or a strike with the flat of the blade rather than the edge.

Strain damage differs from lethal damage in a few ways and should be marked differently from lethal damage on the health track. Use a [/] for strain and an [X] for lethal. Keeping them separate is important for a number of reasons.

True damage

In rare instance a source of damage can be stated as dealing true damage. This in effect means that the damage is recorded directly on to the damage track. True damage cannot be reduced or prevented. In all other aspects it is treated normally in regard to damage type and whether it is lethal or strain.

Tracking Damage

The health condition of a creature is represented by a health track. The track has 4 levels (minor, moderate, severe and critical), each with a number of boxes. For player characters the number of boxes equals the characters Constitution plus two. When a character receives damage, a corresponding number of boxes are marked in their health track, starting from the lowest level. If the damage is greater than the remaining boxes of the current level, simply continue marking boxes on the next level, until all damage has been recorded.

Damage Penalties

Pain and injury affects a characters ability to fight. Every time one of the following occurs, the character receives a penalty.

The player selects a penalty from the category corresponding to the damage track they are on, after the boxes have been marked. Even if both criteria above apply, if it is from the same injury, the player still selects only one penalty.

A player can only select a penalty from a category once, but can select the same penalty from another category, in which case they stack.

Conditions and penalties gained from injuries will persist until all marked boxes have been cleared from level of the damage track where they were gained. Exhausted and depleted dice recover as normal. Minor and major Scars are covered in the Scars section

minor - Exhaust one Prowess die - Exhaust one Ether die - Gain slowed

moderate - One die penalty to all action challenges - Exhaust one Prowess dice - Exhaust one Ether dice - Gain hobbled

severe - Deplete two Prowess dice - Deplete two Ether dice - Gain a Minor Scar - Gain weakened - Gain dazed

critical - Knocked Out - Fall unconscious - Maimed! - Gain a Major Scar - Dead!

Bleeding Out

If at least one box at the critical level is marked with lethal damage, the character starts to bleed out. At the end of a combat round, a character that is bleeding out must make a Constitution challenge against a target number equal to the number of marked boxes in the critical level or mark one additional box. If one or more triumphs (ᛒ) are rolled this way, the character is stabilised and no longer bleeding out.

You can also attempt to stabilise a critically wounded creature by taking a Recover action and making a Wits challenge against the same target number. If the challenge succeeds, the character is stabilised. If the last box of the critical level gets marked, the character dies.

Healing

Recovering from injuries takes time.

7 Exploration

7.1 Traveling

A large part of exploration is travelling in some capacity. The rules for explorations covers all kinds of travel. Going from one place to another can be anything from easy and comfortable to exhausting and dangerous.

Depending on the environment and the mode of transportation, adventurers may need to take great care in preparing adequately. Access to food, water and shelter is essential.
When travelling by a large passenger ship or by beast-drawn cart along busy roads you usually have ready access to most necessities. Roadside inns, trading posts or settlements of various sizes will inevitably spring up along well used routed. When moving along less travelled paths, however, you frequently need to bring whatever supplies you will need along with you. Depending on when, where and how you travel, you may have the opportunity to hunt or forage for food and other along the way.

Survival note: air 3min water/sleep 3 days food 3 weeks

7.2 Foraging

The prevalence of edible flora and fauna, as well as drinkable water will vary with both the environment and seasons, but there is usually at least some food to be found, if you have the skills and experience.

While the main drive for foraging and hunting is obtaining food, water and firewood, crafty individuals can also try to gather various herbs or crafting materials. Just be mindful of the fact that foraging of any kind will make travelling a lot slower.

7.3 Resting

When involved in tiring mental and physical activities, like trekking, fighting or dungeoneering, taking breather is important. The longer and more strenuous the activity, the greater the need. To get any benefit from a rest, you need some uninterrupted time to unwind, put down your gear and maybe get drink and a bite to eat. A small break to get some stamina back constitutes a short rest, while a longer rest with a proper meal and a extended time to relax adds up to a long rest

Short rest

At the end of a short rest you gain the following benefits:

Long rest

To get the full benefit of a long rest you need the three staples: food, water and shelter. If any of these components are missing, you only get the benefits of a Short rest.

Recovery and Healing

A body requires time to heal. After completing a long rest, you may roll a number of dice equal to your Constitution for every success (ᚦ) rolled, change one box of lethal damage to strain damage, with a minimum of zero boxes. Converted boxes cannot also be recovered during the same rest.

Recovering from Strain damage is a lot quicker. After taking a long or short rest, you may roll number of dice equal to your Constitution. For every success (ᚦ) rolled, recover one box of strain damage if it was a short rest and twice as many if it was a long rest. You always recover at least one box.

8 Social Interactions

8.1 Meeting People

A large part of role-playing is simply existing in the world, with all its wonders. When travelling in the wild, visiting a city or venturing into dungeons, the player characters will inevitably come across and interact with a large and varied number of creatures. Depending on

Low stake interactions, encounters and general socializing needs very few rules, if any. Options and suggestions are covered under Downtime.

When interacting with parties who have conflicting interests or objectives, violence is not always a workable solution. Some situations require wits, guile and charm to navigate. This is where it turns into a Social Encounter.

8.2 Downtime

Trading

Crafting

Carousing

8.3 Social Encounters

Entering a conflict in the social arena is no less a battle, albeit one with overt weapons. Both engaged parties are trying to resolve the situation to their own benefit, whatever that may entail. Even in the case where the goals of the parties align, there is always the chance to squeezing a little extra something out.

Setup

Establish Goals

When initiating a social conflict, the first step is to establish what each side wants to accomplish.

Trigger points

Trigger points are are things the player characters can say or do that will elicit a strong response from the opposing party, pushing the conflict in a favourable or unfavourable direction. What trigger points the opposing party has is determined by their beliefs, disposition and current circumstances. There should be at least 3 each of positive and negative trigger points. Hitting a positive trigger point will move the progress marker towards the players goal, while hitting a negative one will move it away from it.

Progress Marker

To keep track of how the conflict is going the GM can use a 5 x 5 square grid. The grid is kept secret from the players. The X axis represents the current state of the conflict and has the best outcome for either party at opposite ends. The Y axis represents the patience of the opposing party. The GM places a marker on the grid to mark the starting conditions. In most starting position will be the middle of the grid, but this can be affected by a number of factors. Every time the opposing party loses patience, move the marker one stem down on the Y axis. When the marker reaches either the bottom row, or the last square on either side of the X axis, the conflict ends. When the conflict ends, the markers position on the X axis determines the outcome.

Social Turn

Each turn, all players gets to take an action. They are free to act in any order and may discuss their intentions before deciding what actions to take and in what order. The different actions can either try to move the conflict along, or try to tip the odds in the players favour.

Actions

Posture

Posturing entails a verbal or non-verbal display of intent, or some type of virtue, with the intent to influence the opposing partys perception and disposition. This could be things like a show of piety, a demonstration of knowledge, a gesture of kindness or intimidation tactics. The player states what they intend to convey and how they go about it. Based on this, make a challenge roll using dice from an appropriate attribute and any applicable skill, trait, etc. against a derived target number (se table). If successful, prevent the next loss of patience.

Inquire

When taking the Inquire action, the player tries to gain insight into the motivations and dynamics of the opposing group. This can be done with keen knowledgable observation, innocuous conversation or even blunt questions.
The player details what they do and how they go about it. Based on this, make a challenge roll using dice from an appropriate attribute and any applicable skill, trait, etc. against a derived target number (se table). If successful, the GM gives the players a clue to one of the opposing partys trigger points

Contend

A clash of wills to move the conflict towards a resolution. It is a challenge roll against a target number based on the difficulty of the goal in relation to the disposition of the opposing party. (Se examples in table below). Depending on the nature of the conflict, different ability/skill combinations can be appropriate for this roll, at the discretion of the GM. If successful, the players may move the marker one step on the X axis.

Abstain

If you are unable or unwilling to participate for one or more rounds, you may abstain your turn.
Note that if all players Abstains, the conflict ends unresolved.

hostile adverse neutral favorable amicable

Easy

Average

Hard


9 Appendix

9.1 Index

Start of the thingy

9.2 Traits

Caster Traits

Arcane recovery

When your dice pools refreshes, or when take the Recover action, you restore an extra die to your Ether pool.

Overchannel

You can push the power of your spells at the cost of draining your mental resources. When you cast a spell, you may choose to deplete dice from your ether pool. For each die you deplete you may add one ᚦ to the spell challenge result.

Reckless caster

You can disregard your natural sense of self preservation and channel ether beyond what your body can safely handle. You may choose to use dice from your ether pool, even if they are exhausted or depleted. Doing so takes a toll on both your mind and body, leading to exhaustion and symtoms like headaches or even burst blood vessels.

Martial Traits

Graceful failure

You recover quickly from your mistakes and can even use them to your advantage. When you miss an attack, you gain the focused condition.

Unarmed defence

Your training lets you perform unarmed strikes against hard surfaces with full force without damaging yourself. In addition, you can dodge and parry melee weapons while unarmed. Your opponents does not gain weapon or reach advantage against you.

Racial Traits

Fey Blood

The strong connection to glamor of the Feywild makes inherently resistant to magic that tries to alter your form, mind or perceptions. Your Resolve is increased by one when subjected to spells and effects with any of the illusionism , enchantment or transmutation keywords.

Fey Magic

Your affinity to beguiling magic increases your effectiveness with certain types of magic. When spending at least one die from your ether pool to use a spell or ability with the illusionism or enchantment keywords, you may add one additional die to the dice pool for the spell challenge.

9.3 Conditions

Conditions are effects that affect creatures in various ways. A creature cannot suffer multiple instances of the same condition. If an effect applies a condition that the creature is already affected by, use only the one with the most impact.

While conditions themselves do not stack, penalties from different conditions do. In these cases, penalties are additive. A creature that is both Hobbled and Chilled, for instance, has their movement reduced by 3⁄4. Fractions are rounded down. Penalties cannot lower a value below 0. When a condition includes another condition, the same rules applies. If a creature that is already Chilled also gets Frozen, the increased damage it takes from Chilled is only applied once, but it stacks with the damage increase from Frozen, for a total of two extra damage to physical attacks.

Some conditions have special interactions with each other. In these cases, the effects are included in the conditions description.

Slowed. Slowed targets have their movement reduced by 1⁄4. The affected creature can take a Recover action to end the condition.

Hobbled. A hobbled creature has its movement halved. Flying creatures will lose 15ft of altitude per turn until they land or end the condition. The affected creature can take a Recover action to end the condition.

Prone. A prone creature has its Defence lowered by one against attackers in melee range and ranged attackers within short range of their weapon. Against ranged attackers at long range and beyond, the targets Defence is instead increased by one. Movement is restricted to crawling at 1⁄4 of walking speed. The affected creature can take a Recover action to get up and end the condition.

Deafened. A deafened creature cannot hear and automatically fails any challenge that requires hearing.

Blinded. A blinded creature cannot see and automatically fails any challenge that requires sight.

Focused On the next challenge roll, you may cancel any number of your dice results. For every two results canceled, you may add one success (ᚦ) to the total.

Incapacitated. An incapacitated creature can’t take actions, has its defence reduced to 0 and cannot use any active defences.

Unconscious. An unconscious creature falls prone, is incapacitated and unaware of its surroundings.

Staggered. A staggered creature has its Defence lowered by one and can’t take reactions.

Stunned. A stunned creature has its Defence reduced to 0 and can’t take reactions. In addition, the only action it can take is the Recover action, to end the condition.

Restrained. A restrained creature cannot take the Move action.

Rooted A rooted creature is Restrained and cannot move or be moved until the effect that causes the condition has been removed.

Charmed. A charmed creature is Dazed. In addition, the creature that caused the condition can add two dice to the dice pool on any attempt to influence the charmed creature through the use of skills, spells and abilities.

Invisible. An invisible creature cannot be seen. When trying to go unnoticed from creatures that relies mainly on sight, the invisible creature can add two dice to the pool for the challenge roll, or add two to the target number for the creature searching for it. It also gains the benefits from unseen attacker/defender in combat.

Frightened. A frightened creature suffers a one die penalty to all challenges involving the source of its condition.

Panicked. A panicked creature will do its best to flee from the source of the condition. It cannot take any voluntary actions unless they serve to get further away. If escape is impossible, the panicked creature will faint or freeze, becoming Incapacitated.

Frenzied. While frenzied, a creature is immune to the conditions Frightened and Panicked. It will pursue and attack the last creature that provoked it. Otherwise, it will target the closest, conscious creature it is aware of (other than itself). If there are no eligible targets, it will instead bash or throw around objects.

Sickened. A sickened creature suffers a one die penalty to all challenges.

Weakened. Physical attacks by a weakened creature have their damage reduced by one, and physical attacks against it have their damage increased by one.

Dazed. A dazed creature has its Resolve reduced by one and suffers a one die penalty to all challenges for spells and abilities.

Chilled. Chilled targets are Slowed. In addition, physical attacks have their damage increased by one. If a Chilled target is affected by Smoldering both conditions cancel out and are removed. If a Chilled target is affected by Ablaze, Chilled is removed and Smoldering is applied instead.

Frozen. A frozen target is Chilled and Restrained. In addition, physical attacks have their damage increased by one. If a Frozen target is affected by Smoldering, both conditions are removed and Chilled is applied instead. If a Frozen target is affected by Ablaze, both conditions cancel out and are removed.

Smoldering. At the start of the combat turn (or every 6 seconds), roll a die. On a success (ᚦ) or triumph (ᛒ), the creature suffers a one point of fire damage. If a Smoldering target is affected by Chilled both conditions cancel out and are removed. If a Smoldering target is affected by Frozen, Smoldering is removed and Chilled is applied instead.

Ablaze. At the start of the combat turn (or every 6 seconds), roll two dice. For each success (ᚦ) or triumph (ᛒ), the creature suffers one point of fire damage. If a target that is Ablaze is affected by Frozen, both conditions cancel out and are removed. If a target that is Ablaze is affected by Chilled, both conditions are removed and Smoldering is applied instead.