RULEBOOK

Real rules. Real consequences. Here’s how the system works.

01

How the Game Works

CrucibleRPG is a solo tabletop RPG powered by AI. You play a character in a living world with real mechanical rules: stats, skills, dice rolls, inventory, conditions. All of it managed by the server. The AI acts as your Game Master, narrating the world, playing NPCs, and resolving your actions through the rule system.

The Turn Loop

Each turn follows a simple pattern:

  • The GM describes what's happening around you
  • You see three suggested actions plus the option to write your own
  • You pick an action (or describe something entirely different)
  • The system resolves it using your character's abilities, the situation's difficulty, and a dice roll
  • The result shapes the story going forward

The three suggested actions cover different approaches (direct, subtle, resourceful), but you're never limited to them. If you can describe it, you can try it.

What Makes This Different

This isn't a chatbot. Every action you take passes through a mechanical engine with real numbers, real consequences, and real stakes. Your character can be injured, exhausted, or worse. Your inventory has weight. Your skills improve through use. The world remembers what you've done.

Talk to the GM

If you're unsure about a rule or want to understand something about the game, use the Talk to the GM button. It checks the rulebook first for a quick answer at no cost. If the rulebook doesn't cover your question, you can escalate to a live GM response, which costs a turn.

Briefing

If you need a full picture of where you are in the game, request a Briefing. It covers: the story so far, your current situation, open threads (including things NPCs have promised you and things you've promised them), your relationships, the state of the world, and your active objectives. No turn cost. This is the "catch me up on everything" button.

The GM has perfect memory, infinite patience, and a rulebook it actually follows every time.
02

Storytellers, Settings & Difficulty

Storytellers

Your Storyteller is the narrative voice of the game. The rules don't change, but the way the story feels does.

  • Chronicler - "The world as it is." Sparse, factual, precise. What a witness would remember.
  • Bard - "You are the hero of this story." Epic when earned, grounded the rest of the time.
  • Trickster - "The world has a sense of humor." Observational wit. Plays it straight, notices the absurd.
  • Poet - "Every victory has a cost." Lingering on what's lost. Specific, concrete images.
  • Whisper - "Everything is fine. Almost." Warm and cozy on the surface. Something wrong underneath.
  • Noir - "Nobody is clean." Hard-boiled. Reads people. Earned cynicism.
  • Custom - Define your own voice.

Can be changed at any time during play. No penalty, no cooldown.

Settings

Your setting defines the genre and world type:

  • Sword & Soil - Pre-gunpowder. Muscle, metal, and maybe magic.
  • Smoke & Steel - Gunpowder through early mechanization. Steam, revolution, empire.
  • Concrete & Code - 20th century through near-future. Guns, cars, computers, bureaucracy.
  • Stars & Circuits - Spacefaring, cybernetic, post-human.
  • Ash & Remnants - Post-collapse. Something ended. What's left is what you have.
  • Dream & Myth - Surreal, mythic, or strange. Reality's rules are suggestions.
  • Custom - Blend, twist, or build from scratch.

Difficulty Dials

Difficulty isn't a single slider. It's a set of independent dials you can adjust at any time:

  • DC Offset - Shifts all difficulty checks up or down. The global harder/easier knob.
  • Fate DC - How hard it is to survive a Fate Check. Separable from combat difficulty.
  • Survival - Toggle food/water tracking on or off.
  • Durability - Toggle item degradation on or off.
  • Progression Speed - How fast you grow. 0x (frozen) through 5.0x (rapid). Default 1x.
  • Encounter Pressure - How frequently you face threats. Low / Standard / High.
  • Fortune's Balance - Toggle the 2d20 system on or off. Off = straight d20, every check.
  • Simplified Outcomes - Toggle 6-tier results to binary pass/fail.
  • Recovery - How much conditions heal overnight. Forgiving clears almost everything; Brutal leaves significant residuals.

Presets for quick setup:

  • Forgiving - Easier checks, low death threshold, no survival/durability
  • Standard - Balanced baseline
  • Harsh - Harder checks, tough death threshold, full tracking
  • Brutal - Maximum challenge across the board

All dials can be changed mid-game. Changes apply to the next relevant event. Nothing is recalculated retroactively.

Scenario Intensity

When starting a new campaign, you choose how your story begins:

  • Calm - Time to explore and orient. Low immediate threat.
  • Standard - Clear hook with proportional stakes.
  • Dire - High pressure from turn one. Immediate danger, scarce resources, ticking clock.
03

Your Character

Your character is defined by their core attributes, a set of skills, and the backstory you create. Together, these shape what your character is good at, what they struggle with, and how the world responds to them.

Core Attributes

Every character has seven possible stats, rated on a scale from 1.0 (novice) to 20.0 (peak mortal). 21.0+ is supernatural territory.

  • STR - Physical power. Melee damage, forcing doors, carrying capacity.
  • DEX - Coordination and speed. Ranged accuracy, stealth, reflexes.
  • CON - Fortitude. Resisting disease, enduring exhaustion, staying alive. When this hits zero, you face a Fate Check.
  • INT - Reasoning and memory. Technical tasks, learning, crafting.
  • WIS - Intuition and perception. Reading people, spotting danger, willpower.
  • CHA - Social presence. Persuasion, intimidation, merchant dealings.
  • POT - Supernatural capacity. Magic, psionics, divine gifts, or advanced tech. Conditional: only present for characters with supernatural abilities.

Mundane characters have six stats. POT won't appear on their sheet and no supernatural rules apply. Characters with POT spread their capability across seven stats instead of six. Power always has a cost.

Effective Stat

Your base stat modified by any active conditions. A character with STR 9.0 suffering a -1.0 injury has an Effective STR of 8.0. This is what's used for rolls.

Backstory Tiers

Your backstory determines your starting power level:

  • Novice (stats ~3-6) - Untested, just starting out
  • Competent (stats ~5-9) - A capable adult with some experience
  • Veteran (stats ~7-11) - Seasoned and skilled
  • Legendary (exceeds normal ranges) - Exceptional, bordering on myth

These are starting points, not ceilings. You grow through play.

Character Creation

During creation, the GM proposes stats, skills, faction standings, and starting gear based on your backstory. You review everything and can adjust before confirming. The numbers should match the character in your head. If they don't, change them.

Species

Not every world is all-human. Depending on your setting, you may choose from non-human species created during world generation. Each species comes with a physical description, cultural context, and potentially innate traits.

  • Advantages that translate to "better at X" become Foundational Skills (a four-armed species might get Multi-Limbed Combat, a winged species might get Aerial Maneuvering)
  • Binary capabilities become innate traits: darkvision, elemental resistance, extra carrying capacity
  • Some species have drawbacks: sunlight sensitivity, environmental penalties, social stigma
  • Proposed by the GM based on your species and backstory, adjustable during character review

Not all settings have non-human species. If your world is all-human, this doesn't apply.

The GM proposes your stats based on your story. You get the final say. If the numbers don't match the character in your head, adjust them until they do.
04

How Rolls Work

When you attempt something where the outcome is uncertain and failure matters, the system rolls dice. Routine actions (walking, eating, opening an unlocked door) resolve through narration without a check.

The Basic Formula

Your total = Effective Stat + Skill Modifier + Equipment Quality + Die Roll

That total is compared against a Difficulty Class (DC). The margin between your total and the DC determines how well you succeeded or how badly you failed.

How a Roll Plays Out

Every check follows one sequence:

  1. The system evaluates your odds. It compares your total modifier against the DC to determine your Fortune's Balance category:
    • Outmatched (significantly below the challenge): The system gives you a shot.
    • Matched (in the ballpark): Standard conditions.
    • Dominant (you clearly outclass it): Consistency rewarded.
  2. Natural Extremes are checked. Every check has a flat 5% chance of a Natural 1 (automatic critical failure) and 5% chance of a Natural 20 (automatic critical success), regardless of your skill level. Nobody is immune to disaster. Nobody is denied a miracle. If a Natural Extreme hits, the result is locked. No further math.
  3. If no extreme, the dice resolve. How the dice work depends on your Fortune's Balance category:
    • Matched: Your d20 result (which already served as the extreme check) becomes your die value. Range: 2-19.
    • Outmatched: Roll two dice (range 2-19 each), take the HIGHEST. The system gives long shots a better chance.
    • Dominant: Roll two dice (range 2-19 each), take the LOWEST. Mastery means consistency, not guaranteed perfection.
  4. Margin determines the outcome. Your total is compared to the DC and placed into one of six consequence tiers.

Fortune's Balance can be toggled off in difficulty settings, making every check a straight d20.

The 6 Consequence Tiers

Results aren't just pass/fail. There are six levels:

  1. Critical Success - Everything goes better than planned. Extra reward.
  2. Success - Clean win. You did what you set out to do.
  3. Costly Success - You succeed, but accumulated strain builds toward periodic small debuffs. Individual costly successes carry no direct penalty — instead, they feed a hidden Strain counter. When Strain builds up, a small Break fires: a minor stat penalty reflecting fatigue, mental fog, or composure slipping. The cost never outweighs the win.
  4. Small Mercy - You fail, but something small goes right. A lesson, a clue, a partial result.
  5. Failure - Clean miss. It didn't work.
  6. Critical Failure - Something goes actively wrong. Extra penalty.

A Simplified Outcomes toggle is available in difficulty settings, reducing this to binary pass/fail.

Dual-Stat Actions

Some actions require two stats at once. Intimidation might use STR + CHA. A tricky repair might use INT + DEX. The two stats are averaged, and one skill modifier applies.

Voluntary Failure

You can choose to fail before a roll is made. Useful for social situations, feigning weakness, or tactical retreats. Must be declared before any dice are rolled. Voluntary failures don't count toward skill progression. The system only grows you through genuine challenge.

The Crucible Roll is named for what it is. The moment where even mastery meets chance. A 5% shot at glory. A 5% shot at disaster. Every time.
05

Skills

Skills represent specific training or experience. They add a bonus to relevant rolls, making you more effective at particular tasks.

Base Skill Modifiers

  • Derived from your backstory (a sailor has Navigation, a thief has Lockpicking)
  • Range from 0.1 to 10.0
  • Applied automatically when relevant. You don't choose when to use them. If you have Lockpicking and you try to pick a lock, it counts.

Organic Discovery

Successfully performing an unskilled task under genuine stress can discover a new skill, starting at 1.0. Available for use immediately.

Foundational Skills

Deep training set during character creation. These never change during play.

Three breadth categories:

  • Narrow (one specific thing: "one-handed swords," "lockpicking") - Cheaper to invest in, higher bonus cap (+3.0)
  • Broad (a whole domain: "all bladed weapons," "wilderness survival") - More expensive, lower cap (+2.0)
  • Knowledge (specialized info: "arcane theory," "military history") - Same cost as Broad, supports both INT checks (recalling facts) and CHA checks (arguing from authority)

Rules:

  • Stack with base skill modifiers. A Foundational "Longsword +3.0" and base "Swordsmanship 2.5" both apply to the same roll.
  • Only one Foundational Skill applies per check (the highest if multiple could apply)
  • Don't stack with other Foundational Skills

Skill Progression

Stats and skills grow through play, but only through genuine challenge. Routine repetition teaches nothing.

The system invisibly tracks a progression credit for every resolved action based on how well you performed relative to the challenge. These credits accumulate behind the scenes and are processed during End of Day Reflection at your next Long Rest.

How growth works:

  • The system selects your three best moments per skill each day — volume doesn't matter, quality does
  • Skill growth is capped at +0.5 per skill per Reflection. Overflow carries to the next rest.
  • Stat growth is derived from your best skill performances and capped at +0.2 per stat per Reflection. Overflow carries.
  • Quest completion grants bonus growth on top of normal credits
  • Progression speed is adjustable via difficulty settings (0x to 5.0x multiplier)

What earns the most growth:

  • Succeeding against a challenge that genuinely tested you (Matched difficulty)
  • Near-miss failures — almost succeeding teaches as much as barely succeeding
  • Critical successes against extreme odds
  • Surviving a Fate Check

What earns little or nothing:

  • Dominating easy challenges — coasting teaches nothing
  • Catastrophic failure while hopelessly outmatched — panic isn't education
  • Routine repetition of tasks you've already mastered

At the end of each Reflection, you see a narrative scene weaving together your day's most significant moments, followed by a table showing each gain and the event that earned it.

Skills don't grow in a vacuum. The system tracks whether you were actually tested. Picking easy locks a hundred times teaches you nothing. Picking the lock while guards approach? That's a lesson.
06

Active Skills

Active Skills are tactical abilities you unlock through exceptional performance under pressure. They emerge from play, not from a creation menu.

The Basics

  • Up to 10 per character
  • Each has an action cost (Swift, Primary, or Reaction), a cooldown, and a failure penalty
  • You don't pick them from a list. You earn eligibility through play, then choose from templates that match what you just did.

How You Unlock Them

Eligibility triggers during play when you:

  • Achieve a strong success while carrying significant conditions (excellence through adversity)
  • Achieve a strong success using Adrenaline Surge (transcending your limits)
  • Land a critical success that prevents a Fate Check (saving a life through skill)
  • Land a critical success on a creative custom action (innovation under pressure)

At the next natural pause (rest, travel, conversation), you're offered 2-3 templates that match the triggering action. You pick one.

The Templates

  1. Exploit Weakness - Read a flaw in an opponent's defense, creating an opening for your next attack. If you misread them, they exploit you instead.
  2. Defensive Gambit - React to an incoming attack and reduce its impact by one tier. Wastes your reaction if the attack was already missing.
  3. Precision Strike - Your hit bypasses armor entirely. Weapon takes durability damage if you miss.
  4. Battlefield Command - Inspire an ally, boosting their next action. Your social presence must match their capability. Their failure shakes your confidence.
  5. Controlled Retreat - Enhanced disengagement with tactical repositioning. Failure leaves you pinned.
  6. Adrenaline Focus (universal fallback) - Raw bonus to any check. You crash afterward regardless.
  7. Improvised Solution - Attempt something with no standard approach. The "I try something weird" valve. Your tool or environmental element takes damage.
  8. Surgical Strike - Target a specific weak point for a condition instead of raw damage. Bypasses armor. Overcommitting leaves you exposed.
  9. Desperate Inspiration - Give an ally a second chance after they fail. Morale hit if the reroll also fails.
  10. Last Stand - When a stat hits zero, ignite everything you have left. Three turns of power, then collapse. One-time ability.
  11. Assess - Read a target (person, object, environment) to extract mechanical information. Reveals hidden data about stats, conditions, weaknesses, or intentions.

Enhancement

After your 5th Active Skill, new unlock triggers can enhance an existing skill instead of adding a new one. Each skill can be enhanced once for stronger effects.

Cooldowns

  • Crisis Sequence - Resets when combat ends and at least one turn passes
  • Tactical Sequence - Resets after 10+ minutes without combat
  • Long Rest - Resets after a full rest
  • Charges - Refresh only at Long Rest

Retirement & Swap

Once per Long Rest, you can retire one Active Skill and pick a replacement. The retired skill is gone permanently.

07

Passive Masteries

Passive Masteries represent deep competence earned through repeated success in a specific domain. They alter how game systems interact with you. Unlike skills, they don't give flat bonuses. They change the rules slightly in your favor.

How They Form

  • Unlock through consistent success in a specific domain over time
  • The exact threshold is hidden and randomized per character per domain, preventing grind
  • Anti-grind protection: 6+ identical actions in a 10-turn span freezes mastery progress in that domain

The Templates

  1. Efficiency Gain - Reduced resource consumption in a specific domain
  2. Armor Breaker - Reduce a target's armor effectiveness with a specific weapon type
  3. Sensory Edge - Automatically detect a specific hazard type before triggering it
  4. Medical Mastery - Choose at unlock: improved triage results (stronger reductions) OR improved overnight recovery for patients you treat (Long Rest threshold shifts one severity bracket in their favor)
  5. Environmental Adaptation - Reduced severity from a specific environment type's conditions
  6. Social Leverage - Bonus to social checks against a specific faction or social group
  7. Tactical Synergy - Bonus when coordinating with a specific ally. Dormant if that ally isn't present.
  8. Craft Excellence - Items you create start at one quality tier higher. Items you repair gain bonus durability.

You can have any number of Passive Masteries, but each must be in a separate domain.

08

Combat

Combat uses the same core resolution as everything else. There's no separate "combat mode." When violence breaks out, the pacing tightens, consequences become more immediate, and positioning matters.

Temporal Scales

The game operates on three speeds:

  • Narrative Scale (hours/days) - Exploration, travel, downtime
  • Tactical Scale (minutes) - Tense but non-combat situations, field repair, careful navigation
  • Crisis Scale (seconds) - Active combat, life-or-death moments

The system shifts between these automatically based on what's happening. Combat always runs on Crisis Scale.

Turn Structure (Crisis Scale)

Each turn you get:

  • Movement - One free zone transition (or forfeit it)
  • Primary Action - Attack, cast, disengage, use a major item, or other significant action
  • Swift Action - Off-hand attack, shield bash, defensive commitment, draw/stow weapon, use a consumable, activate a swift-cost Active Skill, careful withdrawal, or rush (second zone move)

Conditions tick down at the start of your turn, before you act.

Attacking

  • Roll your relevant stat (STR for melee, DEX for ranged) + skills + equipment vs the enemy's Defense DC
  • Damage = tier base + weapon damage modifier + stat scaling
  • Armor reduces incoming damage (flat reduction based on armor type)
  • Critical hits (Tier 1) bypass armor entirely

Stat Scaling on Damage

Your STR (melee), DEX (ranged), or POT (supernatural) adds a damage bonus based on thresholds. Higher stats hit harder, but it scales in steps, not smoothly. The system shows your bonus in the attack preview.

Defending

  • When attacked, you roll defense using an appropriate stat vs the enemy's Attack DC
  • POT can defend against supernatural attacks (disrupting a spell with your own power) but not mundane physical attacks

Defensive Commitment

Spend your swift action to brace for defense:

  • Bonus to your next defense roll
  • Blocks targeting conditions (like Hobbled or Concussed) from enemy attacks
  • Costs your movement for the turn. Must be declared before moving.
  • Can't combine with any other swift action

Targeted Attacks

You can aim for specific body parts at higher difficulty:

  • Legs/Arms - Moderate DC increase. Success imposes movement or weapon-use conditions.
  • Head - High DC increase. Success disorients or concusses.
  • Weapons with the precise tag reduce the penalty.
  • Defensive Commitment blocks targeting conditions regardless of the defense roll outcome.

Combat Positioning: Zones

Battlefields are divided into zones, not grid squares. Each zone is a discrete area (behind the overturned table, the treeline, the narrow bridge).

Range states:

  • Engaged - Same zone, in active melee
  • Near - Adjacent zone
  • Far - Two or more zones apart

Zone tags affect tactics: cover helps stealth and ranged defense, elevated gives ranged bonuses, difficult slows movement, chokepoint limits how many combatants can engage at once, dark hinders vision, exposed penalizes stealth, hazard tags impose environmental conditions.

Movement in Combat

  • Leaving a zone while engaged in melee provokes an opportunity strike (the enemy gets a free hit)
  • Spend your swift action on careful withdrawal to avoid the opportunity strike
  • Full Disengage (flee combat): costs your primary action, contested DEX check. From an escape-tagged zone, success ends combat entirely.
  • Failure to disengage means you stay, and you lose your next action.

Stealth-Initiated Combat

  • Ambushing an enemy: their Defense DC drops (calculated without their DEX)
  • NPC ambushing you: your first defense uses WIS instead of DEX

Initiative

Players always act first. In multiplayer, players go in DEX order (highest first).

Enemy Capabilities

Enemies aren't just stat blocks. They have their own durability pools (tracked health), trained combat techniques, and innate traits. The GM telegraphs when an enemy is wounded, staggered, or near defeat — you won't be left guessing whether your attacks are landing.

Powerful enemies may use techniques similar to Active Skills: targeted strikes, defensive gambits, or area attacks. The system warns you when an enemy is preparing something dangerous, giving you a chance to react.

Combat is dangerous by design. Even skilled fighters can be taken down by bad luck or poor positioning. Avoiding fights you don't need is often the smartest play.
09

Stealth

Stealth isn't just an ambush opener — it's a sustained state you can maintain across turns, zones, and encounters.

Entering Stealth

To go hidden, you need:

  • Not to be in active melee (disengage first)
  • Some form of concealment: cover, darkness, a crowd, distance, or a physical obstruction
  • No NPC currently focused on you (mid-conversation, being pointed at)

You roll DEX against the highest Awareness DC among nearby NPCs. Success means you're hidden. Failure means you're spotted — and nearby NPCs become suspicious or alert depending on how badly you failed.

Entering stealth costs your primary action. In combat, that means giving up your attack for the turn.

Staying Hidden

Once hidden, you stay hidden until something breaks it. You don't re-roll every turn just for existing in stealth. New checks are triggered by movement (entering a new zone), noisy actions (forcing a door, drawing a large weapon), or an NPC actively searching your zone.

You can move one zone per turn while hidden. Rushing (two zones) automatically breaks stealth — you can't sprint silently. Drawing or readying a concealable weapon doesn't require a check. Drawing anything else does.

NPC Awareness

NPCs have three awareness states:

  • Unaware - Normal routine. Only passive detection.
  • Suspicious - Investigating a disturbance. Better at spotting you. Decays after a few turns with no further events.
  • Alert - Actively hunting. Best detection. Doesn't decay on its own — requires the situation to resolve.

Near-miss stealth failures (almost spotted) push NPCs to Suspicious. Direct detection or loud events push them to Alert. Suspicious NPCs who find nothing eventually return to Unaware.

Ambush from Stealth

Attacking from stealth gives you graduated benefits:

  • Full Ambush (first strike against an unaware target): Their Defense DC drops significantly (calculated without their DEX)
  • Fade Strike (subsequent attacks from stealth, or against suspicious targets): Flat bonus to your attack

After attacking, you're revealed. You can attempt to re-enter stealth on a later turn if conditions allow — creating hit-and-fade tactics — but it costs your primary action and the NPCs will be on higher alert.

Environmental Factors

The environment is assessed as one of three tiers:

  • Favorable (dark zones, distance, heavy cover): Easier to hide
  • Neutral (partial cover, adjacent zones): Standard difficulty
  • Unfavorable (exposed zones, same zone as an NPC, carrying a light source): Much harder to hide

Terrain matters too: difficult terrain (rubble, swamp, branches) makes stealth maintenance checks harder because of the noise.

Group Stealth

If you're sneaking with companions, the group uses the weakest member's stealth roll. Choose your infiltration team carefully.

10

Conditions & Status Effects

Conditions are the system's way of tracking injuries, ailments, and ongoing effects. They reduce your Effective Stats, making everything that uses that stat harder until the condition clears.

Condition Format

Every condition has: a name, a penalty, target stat(s), a duration, and sometimes an escalation path.

Example: [Hobbled: -1.0 DEX | 2 Turns | ↓]

Severity Ladder

Cosmetic (no penalty) · Minor (-0.5) · Moderate (-1.0) · Severe (-1.5) · Critical (-2.0) · Catastrophic (-3.0+)

Duration Types

Turn-counted · Until Scene End · Until Long Rest · Until Triage/Treatment · Time-based · While a condition persists (e.g., While Over Capacity) · Permanent

Escalation

Some conditions worsen over time if untreated:

  • ↓ = scheduled escalation (it will get worse at a set time)
  • ⚠ = triggered escalation (specific actions or events make it worse)

Stacking

  • Identical conditions stack upward: Minor + Minor = Moderate
  • Different conditions on the same stat stack independently
  • Some condition pairs interact: cancellation (both clear), transition (one dominates), or catalytic (both clear, something new takes their place)

Condition Domains

  • MOBILITY - Legs, movement (DEX)
  • DEXTERITY - Hands, arms, coordination (DEX)
  • ENDURANCE - Torso, vitality (CON)
  • COGNITION - Head, senses, focus (INT/WIS)
  • PRESENCE - Social standing, visible state (CHA)
  • COMPOSITE - Multiple stats at once

Psychological Conditions

Triggered by specific events: facing something vastly stronger than you, witnessing an ally's death, being ambushed, supernatural horror, being vastly outnumbered.

  • Resisted with a WIS check. Success means you shrug it off.
  • Characters who have faced the same trigger type 3+ times become resistant (reduced severity). Experience hardens you.

Environmental Conditions

  • Minor conditions from background exposure (drenched, windblown, footsore) can apply automatically
  • Moderate or worse environmental conditions always require a check first
11

Inventory & Gear

Everything you carry has weight, condition, and purpose. Your inventory is limited, so you'll need to make choices about what's worth hauling around.

Carrying Capacity

Total inventory slots = your base STR + 5

Key rule: equipped items (what you're wearing and wielding) don't count against capacity. Only carried, stowed, and packed items use slots.

Item Sizes

  • Micro (0.1 slots) - Rings, individual arrows, small keys
  • Small (0.5 slots) - Daggers, potions, coin pouches
  • Standard (1.0 slot) - One-handed weapons, rations, basic tools
  • Heavy (2.0-3.0+ slots) - Two-handed weapons, heavy armor

Readiness

  • Ready - Use instantly
  • Obstructed - Minor delay or penalty to access
  • Stowed - In your pack. Takes time to retrieve.

Encumbrance

If carried items exceed your capacity:

  • Encumbered - DEX and STR penalties. Clears as soon as you drop below capacity.
  • Overburdened - Worse penalties, can't sprint or dodge

Equipment Slots

  • Hands (2) - Weapons, shields, implements, held items. Shields take one hand.
  • Armor (1) - Worn body protection
  • Standard Slots (4 named positions):
    • Head (helms, goggles, masks)
    • Hands (gloves, gauntlets)
    • Feet (boots, greaves)
    • Worn (cloaks, belts, bandoliers, badges, backpacks)
    • Each provides minor situational bonuses. One item per position.
  • Trinket Slots (5) - Small passive-effect items (rings, charms, anklets). Max +0.5 effect each. Must all be distinct.

Backpacks

+3.0 inventory slots, but everything inside counts as Stowed. One backpack max.

Your inventory isn't just a list. It's a tactical consideration. Carrying too much slows you down. Carrying too little leaves you unprepared.
12

Weapons & Armor

How Weapons Work

Every weapon has a Damage Modifier (how much it hurts on hit) and may have Tags (unlock tactical options). Hit chance comes from your stats, skills, and equipment quality, not the weapon itself.

There are 14 genre-neutral weapon archetypes. The names change by setting (a longsword in fantasy, a saber in Smoke & Steel, an energy blade in sci-fi), but the mechanics don't.

Weapon Tags

Tags are tactical options, not flat bonuses:

  • armor-effective - Reduces the target's armor protection. Extra armor durability damage. Maces, warhammers, crossbows.
  • reach - Attack enemies in adjacent zones without entering their zone. Greatswords, spears, polearms.
  • fast - Use the better of STR or DEX for melee attacks. Special dual-wield rules. Daggers, short swords.
  • defensive - Bonus to defense while equipped. Longswords.
  • precise - Reduced penalty for targeted attacks. Daggers, rapiers, sniper rifles.
  • conduit - Cast spells through the weapon without switching grip. Enchanted weapons for spellblades.
  • concealable - Can be hidden on your person. Harder for others to detect. Daggers, derringers.
  • loud - Alerts all enemies in the area. Firearms, explosions.
  • reload(X) - Requires X swift actions to ready after firing. Crossbows, bolt-action rifles.
  • melee-capable - This ranged weapon works at melee range. Pistols, holdout blasters.

Stat Requirements

  • Heavy weapons (1.5+ slots): require STR/DEX 9
  • Very heavy weapons (2.0+ slots): require STR/DEX 11
  • Below the requirement: penalty to attack rolls, but the weapon still functions

Armor

Flat damage reduction on every hit. Fixed by type, doesn't change with durability.

  • Unarmored - No reduction
  • Light - Small reduction, 1.0 slots
  • Medium - Moderate reduction, 2.0 slots
  • Heavy - Best reduction, 3.0 slots

Critical hits bypass armor entirely.

Shields

+1.0 defense at the cost of one hand slot. Not a weapon, not armor.

  • Shield Bash (swift action) - Contested STR check to disrupt the enemy's swift action next turn. Spiked shields deal damage on bash.
  • Hunker Down (full turn) - Significant defense bonus, incoming damage halved, but you can't move, attack, or react until your next turn.

Dual Wielding

Hold a one-handed weapon in each hand. Use your swift action for an off-hand attack.

  • Off-hand attack has a -3.0 penalty and deals weapon damage only (no stat scaling, no tier resolution)
  • fast weapons ignore the penalty but require a Tier 2+ result on your primary attack to trigger
  • Tradeoff: extra damage, but you give up defensive options (no Defensive Commitment)

Two-Handed Dual Wielding

If either weapon has a slot cost of 2.0 or more, a -3.0 penalty applies to ALL attack rolls, primary and off-hand, for as long as both items are held. Failing to meet a weapon's stat requirement stacks an additional -2.0 on top. Technically possible, heavily penalized.

Weapon Switching

  • Drawing or stowing a weapon: swift action
  • Dropping a weapon: free (lands at your feet, retrievable later)
  • Quick swap: drop the current weapon (free) + draw a new one (swift) in one turn

Ranged Combat

  • Weapons with reload or two-handed aiming can't fire at melee range. melee-capable weapons can.
  • Distance affects difficulty: close range is standard, long range adds difficulty, extreme range adds more.
  • Ammunition is tracked as a supply pool (10-20 shots), not per arrow.
  • No friendly fire when shooting into melee.
13

Item Quality & Durability

Material Quality

Set at creation, never changes. Determines the item's max durability and quality bonus.

Crude · Rough · Common · Superior · Masterwork

Higher quality = higher max durability, better quality bonus (weapons hit more often, armor responds better, implements cast more accurately), higher price.

Durability

Items degrade with use through four states:

  • Intact (76-100%) - Full quality bonus
  • Worn (51-75%) - Quality bonus reduced
  • Damaged (26-50%) - Quality bonus further reduced
  • Failing (1-25%) - Quality bonus heavily reduced
  • Broken (0%) - Unusable (weapons) or zero protection (armor)

Important: quality bonus affects accuracy (hit chance), not raw damage. A Damaged masterwork sword hits less often but cuts just as deep.

Durability can be toggled off entirely in difficulty settings.

What Causes Degradation

  • Armor - Loses durability when hit. armor-effective weapons cause extra degradation.
  • Weapons - Lose durability on critical fumbles or when used for improvised tasks (prying open a door with your sword)
  • Implements - Lose durability on critical casting fumbles

Repair

  • Field repair (basic tools, anywhere) - Restores up to 50% of max durability
  • Professional repair (full workshop) - Restores up to 100%
  • Both take multiple checks over time
  • Craft Excellence mastery grants bonus durability beyond the repair result
14

Enchantments & Magical Items

Depending on your setting, items may carry effects beyond the mundane: magic, cybernetic enhancements, advanced technology. All use the same framework.

Enchantment Slots

  • Standard tier: One enchantment per item
  • Rare tier: Up to two effects, one may exceed standard limits
  • Artifact tier: Unconstrained. Pre-authored story anchors, never randomly generated.

Eight Categories of Enchantment

  1. Stat Modifier - Passive bonus. Broad (+1.0 to an entire stat) or Narrow (+2.0 to a specific check type).
  2. Element Tag - Adds elemental damage type (fire, ice, lightning, shadow, psychic, kinetic). Applies secondary conditions on hit.
  3. Tag Grant - Adds a weapon tag the item doesn't normally have.
  4. Condition Resistance - Reduces incoming severity from a specific condition type or element.
  5. Threshold Modifier - Shifts a system threshold slightly (e.g., +0.5 armor mitigation).
  6. Triggered Effect - Fires automatically on a specific event (critical hit, combat start, etc.).
  7. Passive Utility - Binary on/off effect with no magnitude (darkvision, detect magic, etc.).
  8. Activated Effect - Usable ability with limited charges, refreshed at Long Rest.

Elemental Damage

Elemental weapons and spells apply secondary conditions based on how well you hit:

  • Fire - Burns (CON). Damage amplification over time.
  • Ice - Chills and freezes (DEX). Slows and restricts.
  • Lightning - Jolts and shocks (DEX/INT). Burst disruption.
  • Shadow - Unsettles and dread (WIS). Awareness degradation.
  • Psychic - Dazes and scrambles (INT). Caster disruption.
  • Kinetic - Staggers and knocks back (STR). Anti-melee.

Identification

Enchanted items you find may be unidentified. You can see basic properties but not the enchantment. Ways to identify:

  • Use it and discover properties through play
  • Have it examined by a knowledgeable NPC
  • Research it yourself

Some items may be deliberately misidentified, showing false properties.

Suppression Fields

Some areas dampen, suppress, or nullify enchantments and powers:

  • Dampening - All enchantment bonuses reduced by half
  • Suppression - Passive bonuses weakened, active abilities disabled
  • Nullification - Everything shut down

You're always warned before entering a nullification zone, and you always have options: alternate route, preparation time, or retreat. Items are never damaged by suppression. Effects resume when you leave.

Crafting Enchanted Items

Requires supernatural or tech capability, relevant skills, materials, and workspace. Enchantments can be transferred between items, but at real risk of losing the enchantment entirely.

15

Supernatural Abilities

This section applies only to characters with POT. Mundane characters can skip it entirely.

How Supernatural Actions Work

Same resolution system as everything else: POT + skill + equipment quality + die roll vs DC. The setting determines what "supernatural" means: magic in fantasy, psionics in sci-fi, divine gifts in religious settings. The mechanics are the same regardless.

Your magical domain (defined by your skills) determines which elements your offensive spells can produce. A character with Fire Magic produces fire effects. A character with a broad skill like Elemental Magic has wider options.

Spell Output Types

  • Damage - Inflicts CON severity + elemental rider. Armor applies (except on crits).
  • Control - Imposes conditions directly (entangle, blind, slow). Bypasses armor entirely.
  • Hybrid - Reduced damage + reduced condition. Costs more strain. Both effects at reduced power.
  • Healing - Reduces condition severity on a target.
  • Enhancement - Temporarily grants an enchantment effect: coat a weapon in fire, grant darkvision, boost an ally's strength, grant flight. One effect per cast.
  • Transformation - Temporarily replace your mechanical identity with a creature form. Stats change, equipment suspends, you gain natural weapons and form abilities.
  • Conjuration - Summon a group of creatures under your control. One active group at a time.

Cantrips

The lightest supernatural actions. Three tiers:

  • Cosmetic - No roll needed. Light a candle, chill a drink, make a small sound. Purely narrative.
  • Chip Damage - Roll required. Small damage that scales with your POT and implement.
  • Minor Disruption - Roll required. Brief, weak condition on a single target (1 turn). Creates tactical openings without swinging fights alone.

Cantrips can be used as a primary or swift action. The first 5 per rest period are free. After that, each additional cantrip inflicts minor POT strain (-0.2). This is a soft brake, not a hard stop.

Mental Strain: The Cost of Power

Every supernatural action drains your Potency:

  • Cantrips - Free (first 5 per rest, then -0.2 POT each)
  • Standard spells - Immediate POT reduction (-0.5 per cast, stacking)
  • Major spells - Larger reduction (-1.0 per cast)
  • Legendary - POT drops to zero + Fate Check. Campaign-defining, last-resort power.

When POT runs low, cascading fatigue kicks in:

  • POT below 3.0: penalty to all supernatural action rolls
  • POT below 1.0: penalty to ALL actions

Both fatigue conditions clear at the end of a completed Long Rest, even if your POT hasn't fully recovered yet.

Mental Strain Recovery: The Wellspring Model

Mental Strain cannot be healed by magic or medical care. Recovery is time-based:

  • Long Rest - Proportional recovery based on how much POT you're missing. A nearly-empty mage recovers a large chunk overnight; a nearly-full mage recovers a small amount. Your highest mental stat (INT, WIS, or CHA) provides a small additional bonus. On Standard difficulty, a mage who went nova (0.0 POT) recovers to roughly 7.0 after one night's rest.
  • Short Rest - Flat +0.5 POT, once per day. Stacks with Long Rest recovery. The Arcane Recovery mastery doubles this to +1.0.
  • No passive recovery - You must actually rest. There's no slow trickle during the day. A safety valve fires only if you go a full 24 hours without any rest at all, providing a tiny +0.3 to prevent a dead end.

The difficulty dial affects how much of your deficit you recover overnight: Forgiving recovers nearly everything, Brutal recovers about two-fifths.

Implements (Casting Focuses)

All non-cantrip spells require either an implement in hand or a free hand. Cantrips have no hand requirement.

Implements boost casting damage through a Channel Modifier:

  • No focus (bare hand): +0.0
  • Wand: +0.5 (one-handed, concealable)
  • Rod: +1.0 (one-handed)
  • Staff: +1.5 (two-handed, can double as a melee weapon)

Conduit weapons let you cast through your weapon without any equipment juggling. A spellblade with a conduit longsword and shield can attack one turn and cast the next.

Supernatural Defense

When defending against supernatural attacks, you pick the stat that fits the fiction:

  • DEX to dodge a fire bolt
  • WIS to resist a mental intrusion
  • CON to endure a life drain
  • POT to disrupt the spell directly (requires POT > 0.0)

Saying "I disrupt their spell with my own power" is a valid defense using POT.

Enhancement: Temporary Enchantment

Enhancement spells temporarily grant a single enchantment category effect. One cast, one effect. If you want darkvision and fire resistance, that's two separate spells.

What you can grant:

  • Stat boosts (+0.5 to +1.5 to one stat)
  • Element coating on a weapon (coat your sword in fire for the duration)
  • Tag grants (give your fists the reach property, make your weapon armor-effective)
  • Condition resistance (fire resistance, poison resistance)
  • Passive utility (darkvision, water breathing, flight)

Enhancement effects stack on top of equipment enchantments on a separate layer. Recasting the same effect refreshes the duration but doesn't stack the magnitude. Each cast costs strain and requires a roll that can fail.

Flight is a Major-tier Enhancement. While active, you ignore ground hazards and difficult terrain, are immune to melee from grounded enemies without reach weapons, and have an elevated position. When flight expires in a dangerous position, the system warns you one turn early, then forces a DEX check for landing.

Enhancement effects can be dispelled by enemies (contested POT check). Equipment enchantments can only be suppressed, not stripped. This is the key difference: spell effects are more flexible but more fragile.

Transformation: Becoming Something Else

Transformation temporarily replaces your stats, suspends your equipment, and gives you a creature form with natural weapons and potentially special abilities. Everything reverts cleanly when the form ends.

Seven archetypes:

  • Beast (Agile) - Fast, high DEX. Wolf, panther, hawk.
  • Beast (Brute) - Strong, high STR. Bear, gorilla, boar.
  • Beast (Scout) - Utility form. Minimal combat. Flight or swim for scouting.
  • Elemental - Caster's combat form. Attacks carry your element. Vulnerable to the opposing element.
  • Monstrous - Apex combat form. Highest stats, most powerful abilities. Dragon, hydra, basilisk.
  • Hybrid - Retains all your capabilities (casting, speech, weapons) with moderate stat boosts. The "half-wolf" or "dragon-blooded" form.
  • Swarm - Collective form (insects, rats, nanites). Can't be grappled, resistant to physical damage. Exotic problem-solving form.

Two cost tiers:

  • Major (-1.0 POT) - Beast and Hybrid forms. Lasts until you dismiss it. The POT spent can't recover until you revert.
  • Legendary (POT drops to zero) - Elemental, Monstrous, and Swarm forms. Fixed duration (6-8 turns). Fate Check triggers when you revert, not when you transform.

Damage taken in form carries over proportionally when you revert. A bear's toughness absorbs most of the impact, but you'll still feel it in your original body. The system warns you when the gap between your form's health and your real body's health becomes dangerous.

Hostile Polymorph: Being Transformed Against Your Will

An enemy caster can attempt to transform you into a helpless creature. If they succeed, your stats are replaced with the diminished form's stats (very low), your equipment suspends, and you can't cast, speak, or fight effectively.

But you're not helpless:

  • Each turn, you choose how to resist: Willpower (WIS), Power (POT), Endurance (CON), or Reason (INT)
  • Each failed attempt gives you a cumulative +1.0 bonus to the next try
  • You can take struggle actions after a failed attempt: Flee, Hide, Distract an enemy, or Resist (sacrifice your action for an extra +1.0 on your next break-free)
  • Hard cap: 8 turns maximum. The polymorph auto-ends at turn 9.
  • Your polymorphed form is invulnerable. No damage, no wound carryover. This is a time prison, not a death sentence.
  • Breaking the caster's concentration (allies hitting the caster) or counterspelling can also free you

When you break free, you return at your pre-polymorph health with all equipment restored. After any reversion, you gain 5 turns of polymorph immunity.

Spell Pattern Crystallization

As you repeatedly cast the same type of spell under pressure, the magic becomes instinctive. The system invisibly tracks your casting patterns — a fire bolt cast again and again in genuine combat, a shadow binding used under stress — and when a pattern has been practiced enough, it crystallizes into a named spell.

When a pattern crystallizes:

  • The GM narrates a breakthrough moment — the magic clicks, what was improvisation becomes instinct
  • You're offered a narrative name for the spell (you can suggest your own)
  • The crystallized spell gains a permanent modifier bonus that stacks on top of your existing casting skills
  • The spell appears on your character sheet under "Spell Patterns"

After crystallization, the spell's modifier grows through the same End of Day Reflection system that governs all skill growth. Crystallization doesn't gate access — you can always attempt any spell your domain permits. It rewards consistency and practice with a mechanical edge.

Conjured Groups: Summoning Allies

You can summon a group of creatures that fights alongside you. The system tracks the group as one entity with one action per turn and a shared health pool.

Three modes at casting:

  • Single - One powerful entity. Higher tier, access to special combat techniques.
  • Pack (2-4 entities) - Coordination bonus to attacks. Vulnerable to area damage.
  • Horde (5-8 entities) - Larger coordination bonus. Vulnerable to area damage. Takes two turns to cast (can be interrupted).

Summoned groups inherit your element domain. A fire mage's skeletons have fire-element attacks.

Sustaining a magical group locks a portion of your POT. That locked POT counts as spent for everything: other spell costs, Fate Checks, effective stat calculations. You're trading sustained magical investment for a persistent combat ally.

Physical groups (tamed animals, constructs built through crafting) require no POT. They're acquired through backstory or Extended Tasks with the right skills. Constructs are permanent and repairable. Tamed animals are permanent but their loss is genuine, not just a tactical setback.

You can have one conjured group and one companion at the same time, for a maximum of two allied entities.

Mind-Affecting Compulsions

Supernatural characters with the Dominion discipline can attempt to magically influence NPC behavior. There are four tiers, each more powerful and costly than the last:

  • Charm - The target treats you as a trusted acquaintance. They'll share information and give you the benefit of the doubt, but won't betray their faction or violate their core values. Ends if you or your allies act hostile. Cheapest option, social in nature.
  • Command - Speak a single immediate action: "Drop your weapon," "Open the gate," "Flee." One action, one chance, done. The target carries it out on their next turn. Won't work if the command would be self-destructive or violate their deepest values.
  • Domination - Sustained behavioral control. The target acts on your commands using their own capabilities. Extremely costly (Major or Legendary strain), requires your concentration, and the target gets increasingly strong resistance checks each round. Cannot target the player character.
  • Terror - The target must flee from you. They can defend but can't attack or approach. If cornered with no escape, they become Shaken instead (heavy penalty to all actions). Lasts up to 3 rounds with resistance checks each round.

All compulsions respect NPC personality. An NPC's core values, deepest loyalties, and hard boundaries cannot be overridden by any spell — at most, a compulsion can push against them, giving the NPC a strong chance to break free. NPCs remember being compelled, and repeated compulsion on the same target becomes increasingly difficult and damages your relationship.

When an NPC attempts a compulsion on you, it never overrides your choices. The effect is purely mechanical — stat penalties and movement restrictions — while you decide your own actions.

The specific abilities available depend on your setting. A dark fantasy world might offer blood magic with serious consequences. A sci-fi setting might give you cybernetic implants that strain your body. The system adapts to the genre, but the cost is always real.
16

Survival & Recovery

Your character needs food, water, and rest. Neglecting these basics has real consequences.

Food & Water

On Standard, Harsh, and Brutal difficulty, you consume 1 water + 1 ration daily.

  • Miss a meal: [Malnourished: -0.5 CON] that escalates to [Starving] after 48 hours, then eventually becomes fatal
  • Can be toggled off entirely in difficulty settings (Forgiving, or Survival dial set to Off)

Rest & Long Rest

Long Rest requires:

  • 6+ hours of uninterrupted rest
  • Having eaten that day (difficulty-dependent)
  • Max one Long Rest per 24 hours

Long Rest is when most recovery happens. It also triggers End of Day Reflection (your stats and skills grow) and refreshes Active Skill cooldowns and item charges.

Short Rest

A few hours of focused rest. Reduces each condition's penalty by 0.3 — enough to fully clear Minor conditions. Also restores +0.5 POT for supernatural characters. Once per day, doesn't replace Long Rest.

Safe vs Unsafe Rest

  • Safe locations (towns, secured camps, player property): rest completes automatically
  • Unsafe locations (dungeons, enemy territory, wilderness): contested check. Failure means interruption — reduced or no recovery benefits, and on Harsh/Brutal difficulty, your daily rest window is consumed.
  • You'll get a qualitative signal before committing: "The area feels tense" vs "This place seems secure."

Recovery: The Threshold Model

When you sleep, conditions don't heal completely — they're capped down to a threshold based on how bad they got.

  • Minor and Moderate conditions (-0.5 to -1.0): Gone after one Long Rest.
  • Severe and Critical conditions (-1.5 to -2.0): Reduced to Minor (-0.5) after one Long Rest. The residual clears on the next Long Rest. Two days total.
  • Catastrophic conditions (-3.0): Reduced to Moderate (-1.0) after one Long Rest. Two days total.
  • Catastrophic+ (-4.0 or worse): Reduced to Severe (-1.5). Three days total for the worst injuries.

The difficulty dial shifts these thresholds. On Forgiving, even Severe conditions clear overnight. On Brutal, Critical conditions wake as Severe and require multiple days.

Active Triage

Medical treatment for when you need something fixed right now, mid-dungeon, before the next fight.

  • Success reduces a condition's penalty by 0.5. Critical success reduces by 1.0.
  • Failure wastes supplies. Critical failure worsens the condition.
  • One attempt per condition per Short Rest window
  • Self-triage is allowed at higher difficulty
  • Triage does NOT improve overnight recovery — it's purely for immediate relief
  • Triage does NOT work on Mental Strain (POT conditions)
  • Medical Mastery improves triage results significantly

CHA Counseling

Same mechanics as triage, but for mental and psychological conditions (targeting INT, WIS, or CHA). Uses CHA instead of medical skills. No supplies required. Gives social characters a meaningful role during downtime. Does not work on POT/Mental Strain.

The Abyss of Zero

If any stat hits 0.0:

  • Voluntary actions using that stat are forbidden
  • Involuntary actions (crawling, shivering, survival instinct) still work
  • Stats below 0.0 impose the Debt of Effort: the absolute value of the negative stat is subtracted from your die roll on any check using that stat
  • Recovery: +0.1 every 4 hours if you're in relative safety

Secure Respite

If you're deep in the Abyss of Zero at a safe location, you can fast-forward through rest and recovery without playing through each day. The system simulates day-by-day rest cycles, applying Long Rest thresholds and Short Rest reductions, until you're back on your feet.

Adrenaline Surge

Once per day, if any stat is at 0.0 or below, you can force it to 1.0 for one single action. Afterward, that stat takes a -1.0 penalty until Long Rest. Your one desperate shot when everything has gone wrong.

17

Death & Fate

Death is rare, dramatic, and always your choice.

The Fate Check

When your CON hits 0.0, the system makes a Fate Check:

D20 + your highest mental stat (INT, WIS, or CHA) vs Fate DC

The Fate DC is set by your difficulty level. Higher difficulty means harder to survive. If all three mental stats are also at or below zero, the bonus is 0 (never negative).

  • Success: You survive with a major setback. Capture, theft, a permanent scar. But you live.
  • Failure: Your character dies.

The Death Choice

When your character dies, the AI narrates the death in full. Then you choose:

"Rewind the threads of fate"

The death is undone. Narrated as a premonition, a flash of instinct, a moment where fate seemed to bend. State resets to just before the fatal event. The threat that caused the death still exists. Handle it differently this time.

"Let the story flow"

The death stands. Your character's story ends. You choose:

  • New character, same world. Everything persists: factions, NPCs, consequences, history. Your dead character becomes part of the world's memory.
  • End campaign. The story is over.

This choice is always available regardless of difficulty settings. There is no pre-commitment to permanent death. You decide in the moment.

New Character After Death

  • Clean Start - No connection to the dead character. Fresh stats, fresh gear.
  • Legacy Connection - Narratively linked (relative, apprentice, avenger). Inherit ONE of: a single item from the dead character, a faction standing boost, or a discovered skill at 1.0.

The new character is mechanically fresh. Legacy provides a narrative thread and one small advantage, not a power transfer.

Rewinds are tracked. The AI may weave it into the narrative: recurring premonitions, NPCs commenting on your uncanny luck. This is narrative weight, not mechanical penalty.

Death is always your choice. The game gives you the full weight of the moment, then asks what you want to do with it.
18

The World

The world you play in is built during character creation based on your choices: genre, setting, storyteller. Once created, it's a persistent place with its own geography, factions, history, and logic.

World Persistence

The world remembers. Actions you take in one place can have consequences elsewhere. NPCs form opinions about you. Factions track your allegiances. The story evolves based on what you've done, not on a predetermined script.

Every world is unique to your playthrough. Even if two players pick the same genre and setting options, the specifics will differ: different towns, different NPCs, different conflicts.

Factions & Reputation

Factions are persistent organizations: guilds, governments, criminal networks, religious orders, military units. Your standing with each ranges from hostile to exalted.

  • Nemesis / Hostile - Attack on sight. No services.
  • Distrusted / Wary - Limited services, unfavorable prices.
  • Neutral - Standard interaction.
  • Recognized / Respected - Better prices, information shared, access to faction services.
  • Trusted - Exclusive objectives offered, safe harbor in faction territory, faction-specific rare items.
  • Honored / Exalted - Leadership access, faction acts as active ally, political influence.

What moves your standing: completing tasks for them, offending them, helping their rivals, public actions that affect their interests. Faction relationships ripple. Helping one faction's ally helps you with both. Hurting a faction boosts their enemies.

Standing drifts toward Neutral over time if you have no contact with a faction. Extreme standings (Nemesis, Exalted) don't fade.

NPCs

Tracked by the system with their own dispositions, memories, and agendas. Personal disposition is separate from faction standing. An NPC can personally warm to you even if their faction is skeptical (within limits). How you treat them matters. Word travels.

Social Encounters

When you talk to NPCs, the quality of your argument matters, not just your CHA score.

  • A strong argument (addresses the NPC's real concerns, uses known leverage) makes the check easier
  • A generic or irrelevant argument keeps the difficulty standard
  • A weak argument (misreads the NPC, wrong tone, wrong leverage) makes it harder
  • A dealbreaker (insults their core values, touches a hard boundary) fails automatically

The system classifies your approach from your dialogue. You don't select "Intimidate" from a menu. You talk, and the system figures out the mechanics:

  • Charm/Persuade uses CHA
  • Intimidate uses STR + CHA
  • Reason/Argue uses INT + CHA
  • Empathize/Read uses WIS + CHA
  • Deceive uses CHA vs the target's WIS

Some NPCs have hard boundaries: things they will never concede regardless of your skill. No roll bypasses them. You discover these through conversation, through Assess, or by running into them.

Objectives

The game doesn't hand you a quest log with checkboxes. Objectives emerge from the story: things you've committed to, problems you've encountered, threads you've chosen to follow.

Two types appear in your Objectives panel:

  • Server-tracked objectives arise from the world: someone asked for help, a mystery presented itself, a faction offered work
  • Player-defined objectives are ones you set yourself: find better gear, learn a new skill, settle a grudge

There's no wrong way to play. Follow the obvious hooks, ignore them and go exploring, or create your own goals entirely. The world responds to whatever you choose to do.

Discovery

As you explore, locations are added to your map and glossary. The world contains things that aren't obvious: hidden paths, buried secrets, things that only reveal themselves if you're looking. Exploration rewards curiosity.

19

Companions

Some NPCs will travel and fight alongside you. A companion is a narrative ally with their own personality, capabilities, and opinions — not a second character for you to manage.

How Companions Work

  • The GM controls their dialogue, reactions, and combat decisions
  • Each companion has a specialty (soldiering, field medicine, court diplomacy) that provides a passive bonus in their domain
  • They have their own wound state: healthy, wounded, critical, or dead
  • Their loyalty to you changes based on how you treat them and whether your actions align with their values

What You Don't Manage

You don't control their inventory, stats, or turn-by-turn actions. You give general direction ("cover the door," "tend to the wounded") and they act according to their personality and capability. A cautious medic won't charge into melee. A loyal sellsword won't abandon you under fire.

Companion Limits

You can have one companion traveling with you at a time, plus one conjured group if you're a supernatural character. Two allied entities maximum.

Companion Loss

Companions can be wounded, incapacitated, or killed. Their loss is genuine — a companion who dies is gone. The world remembers them. You may encounter new potential companions through play, but they aren't replaceable parts.

Companions add depth to your story. They're people with their own stakes, not extensions of your character sheet.
20

Exploration & Travel

Moving through the world takes time and resources. Travel isn't instant: distance matters, terrain matters, and what happens along the way matters.

Routes & Distance

Distance is measured in travel days, not miles. A travel day is roughly 8 hours of walking at a sustainable pace. Routes have a terrain type, a climate, and a danger level.

  • 1 day: short trip, arrive by nightfall
  • 2-3 days: multi-day journey
  • 4-7 days: significant expedition
  • 8+ days: major undertaking

Terrain Types

Nine terrain types, each with its own profile:

  • Road - Safe, no navigation needed. Fast and reliable.
  • Trail - Mild navigation check. Standard travel.
  • Wilderness - Harder navigation, fatigue accumulates. Anything can happen.
  • Swamp - No carts or mounts. Disease, quicksand, toxic gas. High fatigue.
  • Desert - Dehydration risk, sandstorms, mirages. Extra water consumption.
  • Mountain - Rockfall, altitude, avalanche. Restricted mount access. High fatigue.
  • Water - Watercraft only. Drowning, storms, sea creatures.
  • Underground - Dark, confined. Collapse, flooding, gas. No mounts.
  • Urban - Easy navigation, crowd and social hazards.

Climate

Routes can have a climate tag that modifies conditions: temperate (no effect), hot, cold, extreme hot, or extreme cold. Extreme climates increase fatigue, ration consumption, and can damage equipment.

Travel Methods

  • On foot - Default. No restrictions.
  • Mounted - Faster (roughly two-thirds travel time), requires animal upkeep. Terrain restrictions.
  • Cart/Wagon - Moderately faster, roads and trails only.
  • Ground Vehicle - Fast, modern/sci-fi/steampunk settings. Roads and trails.
  • Watercraft (river) - Fast downstream, slow upstream.
  • Watercraft (sea) - Open-water voyaging. Harder navigation.
  • Aerial - Flying mounts or airships. Bypasses terrain penalties but not climate. Rare and expensive.
  • Magical/Tech Transit - Teleportation, portals, maglev. Very fast, no fatigue, requires infrastructure at both ends. Setting-dependent.

Some routes have rail infrastructure, making ground vehicle travel even faster.

Resolution Modes

How much the system cares about your journey depends on the route and your difficulty setting:

Montage Mode (fast travel) - Time and rations consumed, brief narration, arrive at your destination. Used for safe routes and lower difficulty settings.

Structured Mode (leg-by-leg) - Journey divided into legs with checks each day: navigation, encounters, survival. Between legs you decide: press on, camp, change route, or turn back.

On Forgiving difficulty, almost everything is fast travel. On Brutal, every journey is an expedition. The same road, the same distance: your difficulty setting determines how much the system engages.

Navigation

Known routes need no check. Unknown routes require navigation. Failure means detour, lost time, or stumbling into something you weren't prepared for.

Travel is a meaningful part of the game, not a loading screen. Things happen on the road. Some of the best stories start between destinations.
21

Traps, Locks & Puzzles

Locks

DEX + relevant skill vs the lock's difficulty. Tool quality matters — masterwork lockpicks give a significant bonus, improvised tools impose a penalty. Critical failure may snap your pick in the mechanism, making the lock harder to attempt again.

Traps

Traps have a single difficulty that governs both detection and disarm. You may spot a trap passively as you enter a zone (the system silently checks your WIS), or actively by using Assess to scan the environment.

If you spot a trap, you can attempt to disarm it (DEX check). Clean success recovers components. Critical failure triggers the trap on you.

If a trap triggers, you defend against it using an appropriate stat — DEX to dodge projectiles, CON to resist poison. Defensive Commitment doesn't help against traps; they're environmental hazards, not attacks.

Puzzles

Puzzles are player-first: the GM describes the puzzle, and you can solve it directly by typing your answer. Correct answer = no roll, no time cost. The dice system is the fallback when you're stuck, not the default.

If you're stuck, you can request hints:

  • First hint (free, costs a few minutes of game time): Reframes the puzzle from a different angle. Opens a WIS-based approach at reduced difficulty.
  • Second hint (costs more game time): Reveals a physical or mechanical approach. Opens a DEX or STR pathway at further reduced difficulty.

There's no auto-solve. You must either figure it out or pass a check on one of the available pathways. But puzzles should feel like the clever path, not the only path — the GM will include alternate options (bash the door, climb the wall, find another way) when they make sense.

22

Crafting & Extended Tasks

Some objectives can't be resolved in a single check. Forging a weapon, studying an ancient text, fortifying a camp, decoding a cipher: these require sustained effort across multiple attempts.

How Extended Tasks Work

  • Each attempt: roll your relevant stat + skills + equipment vs the task's difficulty
  • Better results = more progress. Critical success = breakthrough. Critical failure = setback or regression.
  • Even failed attempts where you learn something contribute small progress
  • Conditions from failed attempts carry into future attempts, creating natural escalating difficulty
  • Time between attempts varies: crafting might be hours, emergency repair might be minutes
  • If a relevant stat enters the Abyss of Zero during an Extended Task, you can't make further attempts using that stat until it recovers

Crafting

  • Requires appropriate materials, tools, and often a workshop
  • Output quality is capped by input material quality (Crude iron can't produce a Masterwork sword)
  • Field crafting (no workshop): penalties and quality caps
  • Craft Excellence mastery bumps output quality one tier above your materials

Repair

  • Field repair (basic tools) - Up to 50% durability restoration
  • Professional repair (full workshop) - Up to 100%
  • Broken items are harder to repair and risk permanent destruction on a critical fumble

Research & Study

  • Study creatures to reveal elemental weaknesses, anatomical vulnerabilities, and behavioral patterns
  • Study texts for new skills, recipes, or lore
  • Safe research: wasted time is the worst outcome
  • Dangerous research (cursed texts, volatile magic): real risk of harm to your character or destruction of the source material

Knowledge as Power

Research doesn't make you hit harder. It lets you fight smarter.

  • Reveals elemental weaknesses (your fire attacks become more effective against that creature type)
  • Reveals weak points (reduced penalty for targeted attacks)
  • Reveals behavioral patterns (new tactical options using existing mechanics)

Field experience counts too. Three critical successes against a creature type in combat reveals one piece of knowledge without any studying.

23

Economy & Trade

How Money Works

Every region has a Local Baseline (LB): the daily cost of common living in that area. All prices scale from this number. A frontier village has a low LB; a capital city has a high one.

Currency denominations change by setting (gold and silver in fantasy, credits in sci-fi, dollars in modern), but the underlying math is the same.

Standard of Living

  • Squalid (very cheap) - Increases health risks
  • Common (1x LB) - Covers food and lodging
  • Wealthy (10x LB) - Comfortable, social access

Buying & Selling

Prices are affected by:

  • Item quality (Crude through Masterwork)
  • Regional scarcity (a trade city vs a besieged fortress)
  • Your faction standing with the merchant's organization

Selling looted gear: base value reduced by merchant disposition. You can improve the deal with social skills. Faction standing affects the starting point.

Scarcity

Supply varies by region and changes over time. A war cuts off steel supply, weapon prices rise. A merchant caravan arrives, prices drop. The economy reacts to what's happening in the world.

Currency Weight

  • Coins (medieval/fantasy) - Each coin takes 0.1 slots. Pouches consolidate them.
  • Paper (modern) - Nearly weightless.
  • Digital (sci-fi) - Zero weight.

Your setting determines which system applies.

24

Saving & Sharing

All save and share features are accessed through the settings menu in-game.

Checkpoints

Manual save points you can create and restore to. Up to 3 at a time. Drop a checkpoint before a risky decision, restore if things go sideways.

Full Export / Import

Download your entire game as a file. Load it back later. Useful for backups or moving between devices. Integrity-checked to prevent corruption.

World Snapshots

Save your world in two modes:

  • Fresh Start - Captures the world (factions, locations, NPCs, history) but resets NPC relationships and unresolved story threads. Start a new character in an established world.
  • Branch - Captures the current state exactly. Fork your game to try a different path.

Snapshot Sharing

Share a world snapshot with other players. They can start their own campaign in a world you built.

Session Recap

When you load a saved game, a "Previously On..." summary brings you up to speed on where you left off and what was happening.

## Every Hero Needs a Crucible.

Yours is waiting.

[START PLAYING]

© 2026 CrucibleRPG · Every hero needs a crucible.

Every Hero Needs a Crucible.

Yours is waiting.