Characters

Your character has three Attributes: Body, Mind, and Spirit.
Each is a pool of points that’s reduced with relevant damage.

• Body (ha) measures your physical form, and determines how many items you can carry.
• Mind (ba) measures your personality, and determines how many Skills you can learn.
• Spirit (ka) measures your soul, and determines how many Spells you can memorize.

You also have Skills: free-form named expertises, hobbies, talents, etc. rated +1 to +5. These increase your threshold for success when applicable.

You will gain XP regularly over sessions or story arcs. XP is spent to upgrade Attributes (5 XP for +1), Skills (1 XP for +1), and possibly Powers. You start with 20 Attribute points, and 5 XP.

Tasks

To attempt an interesting Task, roll a d20 with a Target number of Attribute + Skill (if any). You succeed the Task by rolling equal to or under the Target. If it’s relevant to the Task, rolling exactly the Target results in a Critical.

A Task can be assigned a Difficulty: you need to roll greater than the Difficulty to avoid any complications. The GM never rolls; they instead set Difficulties, and PCs roll for reactions.

On failure, you can spend Spirit points to adjust your result one way or another, ±1 per point, for success. This cannot result in a Critical.

Powers

Special Powers (devices, spells, techniques, etc.) are defined by aspects rated at different “degrees”:

• Range: how far away the effect can be targeted.
• Target: how the effect is placed or felt.
• Impact: the strength of effect, as damage/protection, bonus, etc.
• Duration: how long the effect lasts, or how many times it affects.

The Cost of activation is a number of Attribute points—based on the type of Power—equal to one half of the total degrees (rounded down), but can vary by quality of the power’s source.

Spells

Casting a Spell is a Spirit Task, and costs Mind points. Effects from the same spell don’t stack.

Devices

Using an archaic Device is a Mind Task, and costs Body points.

Custom Powers

Create a custom Power by spending XP: 1 point grants a Power with the first degree in each aspect. Each further point spent grants two more degrees. XP can be spent to lower the Cost of activation 1:1.

Conflicts

A Conflict is any scene where characters are in opposition and it’s clearer to take turns. Each round, PCs roll to act, against their most relevant Attribute (default Mind) + Skill: successful PCs can act before NPCs.

Every round, each character can perform one focused Task and one simple action or basic movement.

Weapons reduce target’s relevant Attribute by a dice amount. Its damage type determines the effect of a Critical hit.

• Blunt (Default): additional die of damage.
• Blasting: double damage within radius.
• Piercing: maximum damage.
• Periodic (Burning, Cutting, Poison, etc.): roll damage each round until dealt with or a 1 is rolled.

Armor reduces incoming damage by a static number. Some armor have tags:

• Fragile: damage reduces its protection.
• Heavy: agility moves gain +1 Difficulty.

When an Attribute is reduced to zero:

• Body: the character falls unconscious and is incapacitated.
  • Within one hour, first aid (Mind Task) can restore d4 points (4 on Critical).
• Mind: the character becomes incapable of acting sanely.
• Spirit: the character panics and becomes incoherent.

Recover:

• d4 Body points (2d4 if well fed) for every day resting,
• d4 Mind points (2d4 if well fed) for every full night sleeping, and
• d4 Spirit points every week, or when you meditate somewhere holy.

NPCs

Non-player characters have the same three Attributes as player characters, and are assigned a Level that suggests their scale of Difficulty, total Attribute points, and relative severity of Complications.

Conversions