Combat does not wait for the ready. It begins with a sudden, violent clash of intent. Initiative is decided by rolling a single 1d10 against the GM's 1d10. Add your Initiative bonus — derived from your skill investments — to the roll. The fastest player character's total is compared against the fastest adversary's total to determine who acts first.

The Predator's Edge (Surprise): If a party strikes from a hidden position, they seize the momentum, gaining Advantage on the initiative roll. If the ambushing party is entirely undetected before the strike, they gain Advantage (rolling 2d10 and dropping the lowest) alongside a flat +2 bonus to their final result.

During your party's turn, you may traverse the battlefield up to the maximum distance dictated by your bloodline. Movement is fluid — you may execute a partial move, unleash an attack, and then expend the remainder of your distance.

Sprint (1 AP): Push your muscles past their resting limit to move an additional 15 Ft. You may declare this multiple times in a single turn, provided you possess the Action Points to pay the toll.

The Toll of the Earth (Terrain Penalties): The world seeks to drag you down. Deduct distance for the following hazards: Uneasy ground (-5 Ft), Rough terrain (-10 Ft), or Risky environments (-20 Ft).

Patience is a weapon, and the world charges for only one kind of it. (The full rule, with the carrying of unspent AP, lives in Chapter I under Holding & Carrying Actions.)

• The Held Action (no cost, no penalty): On your turn you may hold an action rather than spend it — name a trigger ("I loose the moment the beast crosses the threshold") and the exact action held. It still costs its normal AP; you are timing it, not getting it free. When the trigger trips, you act instantaneously, resolving before the enemy completes their triggering action. Holding adds no fee and no penalty: foresight is never taxed.
• Initiative breaks the tie: when two held or reactive actions fire on the same instant, whoever won initiative resolves first. That is what initiative buys in a patient fight — not the first move of the round, but victory in contested timing.
• The Snap Reaction (−2): acting out of turn without having held — seizing a sudden opening in the chaos — imposes a −2 penalty to that To-Hit or To-Cast roll, ignored entirely by a mind forged with 6+ points in Discipline. Hold, and the moment is yours for nothing; react cold, and you pay for the chaos.
• The Fading Opportunity: a held action cannot be hoarded. If the trigger has not occurred by the dawn of your next turn, the held AP bleeds away into nothing.

To carve a wound into an enemy or to successfully force the arcane weave to obey your command, you roll a single 1d10. You must achieve a total score equal to or higher than the target's Defense value, or the spell's specific Target Number (TN). You apply your natural characteristic modifiers and accrued skill bonuses to this final result.

The Power of Three runs through the bones of this world. When you act against an unresisting task — scaling a wall, picking a lock, recalling a fact — you roll against a Difficulty Value the GM sets. But when you act against someone who pushes back, the contest takes a single, universal shape, the same on both sides of the struggle:

Each side rolls the die and adds the points it has trained into the relevant skill — usually two different skills, because the one who acts and the one who resists are doing different things. A thief picking a pocket rolls 1d10 + Sleight of Hand against the mark's 1d10 + Acute Senses. A commander forcing a command rolls 1d10 + Authority; the target who refuses rolls 1d10 + their resist skill. The characteristic does not enter a trained contest — it has its own jobs elsewhere (it shapes wounds, casting, and the untrained roll below), and folding it into every test inflated the whole curve. Skill, sharpened by training, decides the trained contest.

The untrained roll their nature, at a cost. If you have no points in the relevant skill, you do not lose by default — but you roll at a penalty, leaning on raw aptitude where you lack training: Disadvantage on the d10 (roll two, take the lower) + the governing characteristic. Training is what steadies the hand; without it the die is unkind, but a naturally gifted soul can still prevail on instinct. (This is the characteristic's place in a contest — the fallback of the untrained, not a bonus stacked atop skill.)

Two skills are the exception. Inspire and Performance still roll 1d10 + Skill + Characteristic. Both are uncontested projection — you radiate Charisma at allies or an audience against a flat Difficulty Value, never against a defender's bar — so the characteristic cannot distort an opposed contest there. For them, presence and craft combine.

On a tie, the defender holds — the status quo is not overturned by a dead heat. Advantage and Disadvantage, the Decisive Strike, and the Absolute Failure all apply to each side's d10 exactly as in any other roll.

Rolling a full opposed test for every side of every contest is right for a duel between two named souls — but no GM wants to roll a defence for each of a dozen charging beasts. So creatures defend by a pre-computed version of the same contest. A creature does not roll to resist; instead, you must beat its standing bar:

This is the creature's side of the contest — its defence already averaged into a fixed number, with the d10's swing folded into the margin you need to clear. The Resist bonus is drawn from the creature's Tier unless its Bestiary entry overrides it, so a TN 7 Willpower test forces a 7 from a mere Minion but demands a 10 from a towering Boss, all without rewriting a single ability.

This is why individual abilities need no special wording. When a Shieldsman's bash reads “the target must surpass Physique TN 8 + Resist bonus or fall Prone,” or a Light-Soul aura forces a Willpower TN, that is simply a contest resolved against a creature. Against a fully-statted NPC, the GM may instead let them roll the living opposed test — same rule, slower and more dramatic, reserved for foes who deserve it.

Every roll in the game is one of three shapes, and each resolves the same way whether you are trained or not. The die is always 1d10; what you add — and whether you roll at Disadvantage — depends only on whether you have trained the skill.

The Three Shapes

• Against a task (a wall, a lock, a riddle) — roll against the GM's Difficulty Value.
• Against a person who resists — opposed roll, higher total wins (ties favour the defender).
• Against a creature — roll against its Law of Resistance bar ([Characteristic] TN + Resist by Tier). The creature does not roll.

Trained vs Untrained — Universal

The same rule governs all three shapes. If you have trained the skill, you roll cleanly; if you have not, you roll at a penalty:

This untrained rule is universal — identical whether you face a task's DV, a person's opposed roll, or a creature's bar. Raw nature carries you where training does not, but the die is unkind without it. If both sides of an opposed contest are untrained, both roll Dis.d10 + characteristic, and a tie still favours the defender.

Trained-Only Skills

Some skills are pure learned craft — there is no raw-talent version of casting a spell or reading a dead language. With zero points you cannot attempt: Alchemy, Engineering, Medicine, Read/Write, Linguistics, Riposte, Precise Strike, any Combat proficiency (Melee / Mounted / Ranged), and any of the seven Disciplines (Devotion, Druidism, Wizardry, Ki, Shamanism, Vibhuti, Runecraft). For these, “untrained” is not a penalised roll — it is no roll at all. The knowledge, or the technique, is the price of entry.

Passive Skills

A handful of skills are never rolled — they grant a standing bonus (Fortitude's wounds, Iron Will's resilience, Hard as Nails' mitigation, and the like). They have no trained/untrained test; their points simply apply.

Control is powerful precisely because it steals a turn rather than wounds — and a foe stun-locked out of an entire fight is no fun for anyone at the table. So control has a built-in limit. Once a creature has been subjected to a control effect this encounter — forced compliance, a withdrawal command, Dominate, a fear-driven rout, or any effect that strips or dictates its action — it rolls with Advantage to resist every further control attempt for the rest of that encounter (and a creature defending by a static bar instead lowers the attacker's roll by Disadvantage).

The first domination lands on its own merits; the second fights uphill. A controller can still remove the most dangerous enemy from the opening exchange — that is the role — but cannot chain-lock a single key foe into permanent helplessness. The limit applies symmetrically: it protects the party's own champions from being locked down just as it protects the GM's. Damage has no such ceiling; control does, by design.

When the tactical reality of the battlefield shifts, the dice reflect the absolute advantage or the crushing pressure of the moment:

• Advantage: Roll an additional 1d10. Select the highest score as your absolute result.
• Disadvantage: Roll an additional 1d10. The world conspires against you; you are forced to take the lesser score as your absolute result.

If your final To-Hit roll (1d10 + To-Hit bonuses) meets or shatters the target's Defense and the physical d10 result displayed a natural 10, the strike finds an artery. Roll a second 1d10. No base To-Hit bonuses apply to this secondary roll — only dedicated points in the Precise Strike skill carry over.

• If this raw second roll (+ any Precise Strike points) meets or beats the target's Defense → you rip an extra 1d10 damage from the enemy on top of your original butchery.
• If it falls short of Defense → the chain of devastation ends. You still deal the original hit's damage normally.

The Endless Chain: If the secondary roll is itself a natural 10 and meets or beats Defense, you gain another extra 1d10 damage and immediately roll again. This chain continues unbroken as long as each successive natural 10 meets Defense. Precise Strike points apply to every roll in this bloody sequence.

If your d10 reveals a natural 1, the action fails — automatically and undeniably — no matter how much skill or power you bring to bear. A natural 1 is simply a failure: on an attack, a clean miss; on a test, a failed test, with whatever the situation naturally costs (you do not clear the pit, your grip slips, the lock holds). In the base rules nothing worse happens — there is no automatic fumble or self-injury. Luck cannot rescue a natural 1 — no point of Luck makes a 1 succeed or undoes its failure. Fortune, however, may reroll a natural 1, for a reroll does not nudge the result but replaces the die entirely. (Tables wanting more drama can adopt the optional Critical Miss & Fumble rules at the end of this book, where a natural 1 may trigger a consequence beyond mere failure. The one backlash that is always in force is not tied to the die at all — see Overreach, where reaching past your Max TN exacts its own price regardless of what you roll.)

If you are not currently fighting for your life against multiple opponents, you may take a clinical moment to find a lethal gap in your target's guard.

• The Opening: Gain Advantage on your next melee To-Hit roll.
• The Execution: Add your Physique characteristic to the total damage caused on a successful strike.

Proficiency is the foundation. You must declare a single weapon category (Blunt, Edged, Piercing, Polearm, or Ranged) when investing your first point in the Combat skill. Wielding a weapon you are not formally trained in is a fool's gamble — imposing Disadvantage on both your To-Hit and To-Wound rolls.

The Gateway to Mastery: Advanced specializations are not universal. You may only purchase an advanced mastery (such as Skewer or Linebreaker) if you possess a formal proficiency in the required weapon category and meet the specific characteristic requirements defined in your ledger.

• Weapon Stances: Stances like 2H-Weapon (doubles Physique modifier to wounds, 2 AP cost) are considered passive modifiers. They stack with active specialization maneuvers (e.g., using Skewer while wielding a 2H-weapon).
• The Action Economy: Maneuvers defined in your ledger (e.g., Blitz, Full-Weight) override standard attack AP costs. You pay the maneuver's cost; you do not pay for both.

• 1H-Weapon w/ Shield: The veteran's choice. Balanced defense and offense. Suffers no penalty To-Hit or To-Wound.
• 2H-Weapon: Both hands on the grip focus every ounce of your Physique into the blow. Your Physique modifier to damage is doubled. There is no To-Hit penalty for a proficient wielder — the weight demands commitment, not recklessness. Costs 2 AP per strike. Halflings cannot wield 2H weapons.
• Dual-Wield (Off-Hand): A flurry of steel. Grants 1 additional attack per turn with the off-hand weapon. The off-hand strike uses half your Physique modifier to wounds (finesse weapons use half Agility modifier instead). No To-Hit penalty for proficient wielders. (Requires two Small/Medium weapons, or one Large and one Small/Medium weapon).
• Unarmed: Desperate, brutal brawling. Grants 1 additional attack. Suffer Disadvantage To-Wound against any target wearing Leather armor or heavier.
• Mounted: The terror of the high ground. Gain Advantage on both To-Hit and To-Wound against smaller or equal-sized unmounted targets.

The Ambush (the opening strike): The deadliest blow is the one the victim never knew was coming. To attempt an Ambush you must be in a hidden, undetected position and striking before the fight is truly joined — this is the first blow, not a mid-melee maneuver. The target rolls Awareness vs your Stealth:

• Target fails → a true Ambush. Your damage bonus is tripled (the Power of Three) — you roll your weapon die as normal, but every flat modifier to that strike's damage (characteristic mod, Strength Conditioning, Size-Up, enchantments, and the like) is multiplied by three. A 1d10 + 9 strike becomes 1d10 + 27. The weapon die itself is never multiplied. This applies once, to the opening blow only.
• Target succeeds → they catch the threat in time and turn into it. The strike still lands from an unexpected angle, but it resolves as a Backstab (below) rather than a full Ambush. You are never left with nothing for the attempt.

The bonus is tripled once, on the final assembled total — a stance that already doubles a modifier (such as 2H) is resolved first, then the whole bonus is tripled; sources do not compound separately. Ambush is a melee and ranged opener alike; the ×3 is the same. The mid-fight Backstab, below, is melee only.

The Backstab (mid-fight): Once the fight is joined, slipping a blade into a foe who is not tracking you grants +1 extra d10 of damage on that strike. You must either pass a Stealth vs Awareness test to be unseen in the moment, or strike a target already pressed by 3 or more melee attackers (one to the front and both flanks) — so beset they cannot track another blade, and no test is needed. Exception: a foe with Battle-Ready (or a comparable always-alert ability) is never overwhelmed this way; against them the Stealth vs Awareness test is always required. Backstab is purely melee — it is a matter of position, which range does not have.

Outnumbered: Swarming your prey. Outnumbering a single target at least 2-to-1 in melee grants Advantage To-Hit to the attackers.

Ranks: Disciplined formations wield weapons like spears, allowing To-Hit attempts from a 2nd-line rank with absolutely no penalty.

Disengage: Fleeing the fray is rarely safe. Roll 1d10 + Agility. This total sets the Defense Value (DV) the enemy must beat to land their free strike against your retreating back.

You take a steadying breath, ignoring the chaos of the fray to align your sights with absolute, lethal intent.

• The Clear Shot: Gain Advantage on your next ranged To-Hit roll.
• The Vital Organ: Add your Awareness characteristic to the total damage caused on a successful strike.
• The Long Vantage: Your maximum effective range is increased by 50% for this specific shot.

The Law of Iron: Ranged weapons bearing high action costs (2+) represent the grueling mechanics of reloading. A pre-loaded weapon demands only 1 Action to loose its first shot.

You must select a specific ranged proficiency when investing your first point in the Combat (Ranged) skill. Wielding an unfamiliar instrument of war imposes Disadvantage To-Hit.

• Bow: Shortbow (1 AP), Longbow, Recurve, Elven Bow (2 AP). Each requires its own proficiency investment.
• Crossbow: Hand Crossbow (1 AP), Standard Crossbow (2 AP), Heavy Crossbow (3 AP).
• Throwing: Knives, Throwing Axes, Javelins, Darts, Slings. Throwing weapons add your full Physique modifier to wounds — the weight of the projectile carries the force.
• Black Powder: Pistol (2 AP), Rifle (3 AP), Blunderbuss (3 AP, 15 Ft AoE).
• Entangling: Whip, Lasso. These weapons do not deal damage directly — on a successful hit the target must pass an Agility test or be Bound. The attacker chooses which limb is snared.

Concealment: Hiding behind timber or stone grants the target Disadvantage To-Hit against your incoming fire. Attempting to thread a shot to a specific individual within a clustered group imposes a -1 penalty for every obstructing body.

Firing into the Melee: Loosing a projectile into a tangled melee is a desperate gamble. Doing so imposes Disadvantage To-Hit, unless your intended target is at least twice the physical size of your ally. A missed shot under these conditions does not strike your ally; the penalty simply represents the hesitation of attempting a safe aim.

There is no purer ambush than the bolt the target never hears. A ranged attacker striking from a hidden, undetected position as the opening blow — before the fight is joined — may attempt an Ambush exactly as a melee assassin does. The target rolls Awareness vs your Stealth:

• Target fails → your damage bonus is tripled (the Power of Three): the weapon die is rolled as normal, and every flat modifier to the shot's damage is multiplied by three. The shot from the dark that no one saw coming.
• Target succeeds → they sense the danger an instant before it lands. The Ambush is lost, but you still had the drop on them: the shot is taken with Advantage. (Ranged has no Backstab to fall back to — “behind” means nothing at distance — so a sensed ambush degrades to a clean, advantaged shot instead.)

Backstab is melee-only; the ranged attacker’s in-fight equivalent is Aim (above) — the prepared shot, repeatable whenever the chaos allows. Thrown weapons (knives, axes, javelins) Ambush as ranged: a blade from hiding is a killing shot, but a thrown weapon never earns a melee Backstab.

You may burn additional Action Points beyond the base cost to gorge the spell with power. You may select the same enhancement multiple times, capped only by your Max d10s limit.

• ᛭ Empower: Add 1d10 + your Primary Characteristic to the sheer Wounds caused or flesh healed.
• ◎ Precision: Gain a flat +2 tactical bonus to the To-Cast or Invoke roll.
• ⛨ Piercing: The magic burns through defenses, ignoring 3 points of the target's Damage Mitigation.
• ⊞ Enlarge: The spell blooms, increasing its Area of Effect (AoE) by 10 Feet.
• ◎ Extend: The anomaly lingers, increasing the duration of the effect by +1 Turn.
• ↟ Vantage: The magic reaches further, increasing maximum range by +50 Feet.
• ⌁ Echo: Apply a non-damaging aura or buff to +1 additional soul.

Primary Characteristics Dictated By Blood: Intellect (Wizardry), Willpower (Shamanism & Vibhuti), Charisma (Devotion), Awareness (Druidism), or Physique (Ki). Every channelled discipline draws its Empower bonus and its Essence from its governing characteristic. (Runecraft alone stands apart — a crafting discipline, not a channelled one.)

Into the Meat-Grinder (Melee): There is no penalty to manifest magic when targeting souls actively engaged in the bloody press of melee.

Resisting the Weave: Targets may attempt to slip the magic (Agility test) or deny its reality (Willpower test) to reduce wounds or evade effects entirely. The Defense Value (DV) they must shatter is exactly equal to your total To-Cast roll.

A Natural 1 (Simple Failure): A natural 1 on a casting attempt is simply a failure — the working does not take hold, and the AP and any Tithe spent are lost. In the base rules it carries no backlash of its own; Luck cannot rescue it, though Fortune may reroll it (see The Absolute Failure). The catastrophic backfire of the Miscast / Wrath table is not triggered by the die — it is the price of Overreach (reaching past your Max TN), and is paid on a failed reach whatever the roll shows. (Tables wanting a botched cast to misfire on a natural 1 may adopt the optional Critical Miss rules at the end of this book.)

Damage Mitigation is the spine of every armoured build, and the rules guard it. Magic that bypasses all Damage Mitigation — ignoring armour, shields, and warded flesh alike — is the privilege of the highest workings alone. As a rule, only effects of TN 16 or higher may bypass all Mitigation; this is the tier where a spell is costly and rare enough that turning steel to paper is its earned reward.

Below that line, a working may still pierce defences, but only so far. A lower-TN spell that "burns through armour" bypasses mundane Damage Mitigation only — ordinary leather, mail, and plate yield, but magical wards, enchanted armour, and arcane Mitigation still hold. The named exception is when a spell is turned against a foe whose own nature has no defence against it (an Vraxxal unit struck by its own pre-world register, for instance) — there, the bypass may run full even at a lower TN, because no ward it carries is tuned against that frequency.

In short: total bypass is a capstone reward. Mid-tier magic makes armour worse, not irrelevant.

Heavy iron and steel actively suffocate the arcane weave. Each classification of armor bears a Tension Value (TN) that brutally penalizes To-Cast rolls.

• Wizard / Druid / Shaman: The clinical geometry of the weave, attunement to the earth, and the flow of spirits are all scrambled by restrictive steel — these traditions suffer the steepest interference of any caster. The penalty climbs with the armour: −1 in studded or chain, −2 in banded or splint, and −3 in any plate. Heavy iron does not silence them outright, but a mage who fights in plate has accepted that every spell is an uphill struggle.
• Devotion: The covenant flows through iron rings as readily as through linen. Furs, leather, studded leather, chainmail, banded, and splint mail impose no penalty whatsoever. Only the encasing rigidity of plate, field plate, and full plate disrupts the connection, imposing a flat −2 To-Cast. Iron may cage the flesh, but it cannot silence a covenant until it seals the body whole.
• Vibhuti: Furs, leather, and studded leather impose no penalty. Chainmail, banded, and splint mail halve the TN penalty. Plate and field plate also halve the TN penalty. Full plate imposes a flat −3 To-Cast — the same hard ceiling every arcane caster meets in plate; at that level the constriction of chest and throat is severe, but the penalty climbs no higher than any other tradition's. A Speaker in full plate is someone who has made a decision about which survival matters more.
• Ki: Furs, leather, and studded leather impose no penalty. Chainmail, banded, and splint mail halve the TN penalty. Plate and field plate also halve the TN penalty. Full plate imposes a flat −3 To-Cast — the same hard ceiling every other tradition meets in plate. Ki is born of the blood and bone, but it flows on breath and unimpeded motion; heavy iron that locks the chest and shortens the breath chokes the channel as surely as it scrambles a mage’s gestures. The monk who fights in plate has chosen the wall over the wellspring.
• Mithril: Bears a TN of 0. The ancient, perfect construction of this metal excises the interference entirely.

Those fluent in the weave can surgically dissect and snuff out enemy magic the moment it is birthed.

• The Cost of Readiness: You must already reside in a Reactive Stance (having burned 1 AP), and you must hold enough residual Action Points to perfectly match the incoming spell's AP cost.
• The Attacker Rolls: 1d10 + To-Cast bonuses + Primary Skill Points.
• The Defender Rolls: 1d10 + To-Cast bonuses + Primary Skill Points OR their Resist Bonus.

The Verdict:

• The Snuff (Defender Wins): The magic collapses instantly into harmless ash. All AP invested by the attacker is utterly lost.
• The Spell-Clash (A Perfect Tie): The violently opposed energies destabilize and detonate exactly at the midpoint between the casters. Both mages immediately suffer half of the spell's intended wounds, unmitigated.
• The Crushing Reversal (Defender Wins on a Nat 10): The attacker's mind is violently thrown back by the severed weave. They must pass a DV 10 Willpower test or immediately suffer 1 ⊛ Stunned condition.

Arcane Mastery: When a practitioner claws their way to 15 points in Wizardry, Shamanism, or Devotion, the world permanently acknowledges them. You may from that moment forward add your Spirit skill points as a flat, brutal bonus to all damage dealt or flesh healed by your incantations and blessings.

The life rushing from an open artery. Lose 1d10 Damage per stack at the dawn of your turn. Bleeding compounds infinitely — each distinct application adds another 1d10 to the inevitable per-turn loss.

The Clot: Bleeding cannot be ignored; it only ends through deliberate, magical intervention — a Mending skill application, a Devotion blessing, a Druidic weave, or an alchemical draught. Natural recovery is a myth here. (The Hard as Nails skill at 6 points grants 'Bloody Minded' — allowing the survivor to ignore the hemorrhage for a single turn).

Lesser Poison: The venom of beasts and cheap alchemy. Lose 1d10 Damage per turn. At the end of each turn, your body attempts to burn it out; surpass Physique TN 7 + Resist bonus to end the affliction.

Greater Poison: Rare, deliberate, and catastrophic. Lose 2d10 Damage per turn. The threshold to purge it is a brutal Physique TN 10 + Resist bonus.

Toxins and hemorrhage do not cancel one another out. Poison and Bleeding are distinct realities and stack independently.

A creeping, necrotic rot. Lose 1d10 Damage per turn. Furthermore, the infection eats away at your foundation, inflicting a -1 penalty to a random characteristic every 24 hours until eradicated. Disease cannot be resisted through sheer grit — only magical healing or dedicated Mending can excise it.

Concussive trauma that scrambles the senses. Each Stunned condition brutally strips 1 Action Point from your available pool for that turn. It stacks absolutely — two conditions rob 2 AP, three rob 3 AP. A survivor reduced to 0 AP is a paralyzed spectator to their own slaughter.

If Stunned is applied to a target already devoid of AP, the debt carries forward, robbing them on the dawn of their next turn.

To fall is to invite the butcher. The earth is an anvil, and while Prone, you are entirely vulnerable:

• You suffer Disadvantage on all offensive To-Hit rolls (melee and ranged).
• The enemy gains Advantage on all strikes against you.
• Your movement is halved.
• No Reactions are permitted. You cannot Dodge, Parry, or Riposte.
• Your Base Defense drops by a flat -2.

Forcing yourself off the blood-slicked ground costs 1 AP.

Stripped of steel. You are reduced to unarmed strikes until the weapon is retrieved. Snatching it from the mud costs 1 AP if it lies within 5 Ft.

The Mechanics of Disarmament: Achieved through specific monster abilities, a called shot requiring a Natural 10 at Disadvantage, or the mastery of a 9-point Riposte. Two-handed weapons are heavily anchored; disarming one requires two consecutive natural 10 called strikes.

Pinned / Entangled: You cannot move. All attacks and casts suffer Disadvantage. You must tear free by spending 1 AP and shattering a Physique or Agility TN 8 + Resist bonus.

Frozen: The flesh is entirely locked. No physical actions are possible, only Willpower-based spellcraft or pure mental exertion. Requires external heat to thaw.

The mind breaking under the weight of the unnatural. You must surpass a Willpower TN equal to the creature's Fear Rating (X) + Resist bonus. Failure breaks your nerve entirely — you must burn every available action sprinting directly away from the horror. You cannot strike, cast, or advance until the panic subsides. Re-test at the dawn of each turn.

The lesser terror. The body functions, but the will is fracturing. You suffer a crushing -2 penalty to all rolls and cannot step closer to the source of your dread.

The terror of the dark. All attacks suffer Disadvantage. Your Defense value is stripped of its Agility and Awareness modifiers, leaving you protected only by the static weight of your physical armor's Damage Mitigation.

The mortal frame can only process so much agony before it simply stops responding. If you are ever crushed under the weight of three or more conditions simultaneously — of any kind, including multiples of the same condition, you are Overwhelmed.

While Overwhelmed, your nervous system is in shock. You cannot execute any Reaction Actions — no Dodge, no Parry, no Riposte — until at least one condition is purged. Three Bleed stacks, three Stunned conditions, or any combination that reaches three total — all trigger the Breaking Point equally.

The brink of the void. The moment your flesh reaches 0 Wounds you fall Unconscious and Prone, dropping whatever you hold. You are senseless and helpless: you cannot act, move, cast, or take Reactions, and all attacks against you are made with Advantage. You take no actions while Unconscious unless a specific magical ability or advanced skill expressly allows otherwise.

Surviving the drop. What happens next depends on Iron Will and whether you are Bleeding:

• With Iron Will: you linger Unconscious-but-alive for a number of turns equal to your Iron Will points before death takes you — a window for your companions to reach you. Each active Bleeding stack reduces this window by 1 turn. If your Bleeding stacks meet or exceed your Iron Will turns, your window has already closed to nothing — you die at the end of that turn (your own, or the group’s if you were the last to act), with no turns of grace remaining. Your companions may still snatch you back if any of them can reach you with a heal or stabilise before that turn ends.

• Without Iron Will, and Bleeding: you die at the end of the turn in which you dropped to 0 (your own turn, or the group’s if you were the last to act). Your companions may still save you if any of them have actions left that turn (an emergency heal, a stabilise); otherwise, you are gone.

• Without Iron Will, no Bleeding: you are Unconscious and may be stabilised or healed at leisure (unless the table uses the optional Dying Clock, below).

Healed back from the brink. If healing restores you to 1 or more Wounds while Unconscious from a Collapse, you do not leap to your feet. At the end of your party's turn you regain consciousness and may make up to half your movement. You may optionally attempt a Resolve test (DV 10) to also take a single 1 AP action that turn — but if you attempt it and fail, you gain the Shaken condition. On the following turn you act normally, unless still Shaken. (The Battlefield Clarity intervention overrides this — a patient revived by it acts normally from their next turn.)

Optional Rule — The Dying Clock. (GM's discretion.) For a tenser bleed-out, an Unconscious character instead loses 1 Wound at the start of each of their turns and dies if they reach the negative death threshold before being stabilised or healed. Tables that prefer a stable downed state may ignore this; a character at 0 without Bleeding is then simply Unconscious until roused.

In IronTithe, power is never granted by arbitrary milestones — it is dragged out of the earth. Characters earn Experience Points (XP) through the sheer grit of surviving trials, executing the profane, and navigating the consequences of their choices. A standard expedition yields between 25 and 75 XP, dictated entirely by the magnitude of the horrors overcome.

True mastery is a grueling, arithmetic climb. Skills operate on a Compounding XP Cost. The first step is cheap; true dedication demands absolute sacrifice.

• Rank 1: 15 XP
• Rank 2: 30 XP
• Rank 3: 45 XP
• Rank 4: 60 XP

*Specialized vocations or high-tier Masteries carry steeper base tolls, but mirror this brutal, compounding logic.

Your six Core Characteristics are the architecture of your flesh, and they are not static. For every 3 Skill Points poured into the disciplines belonging to a specific characteristic, that parent stat permanently increases by 1 point. You do not buy raw power with gold or prayers; you build it through relentless, specific trauma.

There are no classes here, only the choices you make to stay alive. Advanced Skills demand a foundation (you cannot master Wizardry without first grasping Knowledge). But you are never chained to your past. A scholar who survives a massacre may spend their next 100 XP entirely on the blade. You are whatever you have bled to become.

The body as instrument — trained to move through space with precision that looks effortless and is anything but. Acrobatics covers the gap between what the battlefield gives you and where you need to be: vaulting obstacles, running across surfaces that shouldn't hold weight, threading gaps that shouldn't fit a person. Roll 1d10 + Acrobatics Points against the GM's DV for all tests involving dynamic movement, balance, and precision athletics. Every 3 points increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Fluid Movement: You suffer no movement penalty for difficult terrain that can be vaulted, climbed over, or navigated dynamically. You treat unstable surfaces (ship decks, icy slopes, rooftops) as firm ground for the purposes of movement and attack.
• At 3 points — Wall Run: Once per turn, you may run along a vertical surface for up to 15 Ft as part of your movement — crossing a wall face or scrambling over a sheer obstacle through momentum alone. This is lateral or upward travel across the surface, not inverted movement; you cannot run along ceilings. You must end your movement on a surface that supports weight, or you fall.
• At 6 points — Aerial Strike: When you attack an enemy after vaulting or dropping from height, add +1 To-Hit and +1d10 damage to the attack — the momentum translates directly into killing force. Once per turn.
• At 9 points — Perfect Form: Falling damage is reduced by half (you land rolling, never quite right but never broken). Additionally, once per encounter you may use Acrobatics to move through an occupied space — passing through enemy lines or over a target — as a 2 AP action without triggering opportunity attacks, provided you succeed on an Acrobatics test against the highest enemy Awareness in the path.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

The body is the ultimate weapon, forged not in the armory but through exhaustion, sweat, and sheer physical exertion. Each point improves jumping and running distances. Every 3 points increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Each point improves jump distance and sprint capacity. Roll 1d10 + Skill Points for physical feat tests.
• At 3 points — Physical Force: Ranged weapon wounds are increased by your Awareness modifier — your conditioning translates directly into throwing and firing power.
• At 6 points — Sure-Footed: Ignore all movement penalties from difficult terrain — rough ground, mud, rubble, shallow water. You move through it at full speed.
• At 9 points — Burst: Once per encounter, double your movement distance for one turn — a sudden explosive sprint that carries you across the battlefield before anyone can react.

Identity is a costume worn over a skeleton, and you have learned to change costumes faster than most people change their minds. Disguise is not merely prosthetics and dye — it is posture, gait, voice, and the specific quality of confidence that makes an assumed identity feel inevitable rather than performed. Roll 1d10 + Disguise against a scrutineer's 1d10 + Insight (untrained: Dis.d10 + Awareness) when maintaining a disguise under scrutiny. Every 3 points increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Second Skin: Maintaining a passive disguise (moving through a crowd, conducting routine business) requires no roll — only active scrutiny or prolonged close interaction triggers a test. You know how to make your disguise survive the glance.
• At 3 points — Voice Work: Your disguise now extends convincingly to voice, accent, and mannerism. Impersonating a specific known individual requires a Disguise test against observers' Awareness + 1; impersonating a type (a guard, a merchant, a clerk) is a standard test. Written documents, signatures, and official seals can be forged with a Disguise test against a DV the GM sets by the forgery's complexity and the scrutiny it will face.
• At 6 points — Field Kit: You can construct a functional disguise from available materials in 10 minutes with a DV 8 Disguise test rather than requiring specialist supplies. A natural environment with clothing and basic tools is sufficient. The disguise is good enough to withstand casual inspection and a single roll of scrutiny.
• At 9 points — Perfect Mirror: Once per session, after observing a target for at least 10 minutes, you may assume their identity so precisely that people who know them well require an Awareness test against DV 12 to detect the deception. You replicate their speech patterns, movement habits, and social rhythms. The disguise holds until the target themselves appears in the same space.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

The study of restraint — not how to apply it, but how to refuse it. Manacles, rope, grapples, nets, magical binding, and the grip of something three times your size: none of these are permanent if you know where the give is. Escapology is half anatomy, half engineering, and half the cold certainty that you will find the weakness before your captor realises you're looking. Roll 1d10 + Escapology for all escape and slip attempts; against a living captor it is opposed by their 1d10 + Brawling (untrained: Dis.d10 + Physique). Every 3 points increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Read the Bind: When restrained by any means, you immediately gain a mental assessment of the restraint's weakest point. The GM must tell you the type of restraint and its approximate difficulty to escape — you cannot be kept ignorant of what holds you.
• At 3 points — Slip: Once per encounter, when successfully Grappled, spend 1 AP as a reaction to immediately attempt an escape roll against the grappler's Physique + 1. On success, you are free and may move up to 5 Ft. On failure, the grapple continues normally.
• At 6 points — Patience: Given time and no active supervision, you can attempt to escape any non-magical restraint — chains, manacles, rope, locked rooms — over the course of minutes to an hour depending on complexity, with an Escapology test at +3 against a DV the GM sets by complexity. You may retry as time allows. With supervision, you escape as soon as the supervisor's attention lapses.
• At 9 points — Counter-Lock: Once per encounter when an enemy attempts to Grapple you, you may counter-grapple as a reaction — turning their attempt into your grapple at no AP cost. Make an opposed Physique test; on success, they are now Grappled by you. On failure, they complete their grapple normally.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

Tactical flexibility in combat — the difference between a blade that bites and one that meets empty air. You read where the strike is going before it arrives, slipping just enough to turn lethal into survivable. Your Evasion bonus applies to both Defense and Damage Mitigation, reduced by your armor's Agility penalty.

• Passive: Every 3 points adds +1 Defense and +1 Damage Mitigation against physical attacks. This bonus is reduced by your armor's Agility penalty for the Defense component, but always applies fully to Damage Mitigation.
• At 3 points — Dodge: Once per encounter, spend 1 AP as a reaction to completely negate all wounds from one physical attack that hits you. Declare after the hit is confirmed but before wounds are applied. Does not work against spells.
• At 6 points — Roll Clear: Whenever you are caught in an AoE effect, you suffer only half damage — your instinct carries you to the edge of the blast.
• At 9 points — Impossible to Pin: Your dodge reaction now applies to spells targeting you directly. When a spell hits, spend 1 AP as a reaction to suffer only half damage as you twist clear. Does not apply to AoE spells.

Mastery of rapid movement — fluid, economical, terrifyingly fast. Every 3 points increases your Action Pool by 1 and your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive: +1 AP per 3 points invested. Swap weapons or drink a potion for 1 AP rather than a full action.
• At 6 points — Fluid Motion: Once per turn, swap weapon or drink a potion as a free action — your hands move faster than the cost of thought.
• At 9 points — First Blood: You always act before any enemy of equal or lower Initiative — ties in Initiative always resolve in your favour. This extends to contested held actions: when your hold and a foe's trigger on the same instant, you win the timing, because you win the tie (see Holding & Carrying Actions).

The hand is faster than the eye, and the eye sees what it expects to see. Sleight of Hand is the discipline of misdirection — making the audience look at the wrong thing while the interesting event happens somewhere they aren't watching. In combat, it translates to concealed weapons, palmed items, and the ability to introduce objects into spaces that should be impossible to reach undetected. Roll 1d10 + Sleight of Hand against an observer's 1d10 + Acute Senses (untrained: Dis.d10 + Awareness) for all concealment, palming, and misdirection tests. Every 3 points increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Always Prepared: You may conceal up to 3 items smaller than dagger-size on your person that cannot be found by a standard search — only a thorough strip-search with at least 1 minute of inspection discovers them. A single concealed weapon of up to shortsword size can be drawn as a free action once per combat.
• At 3 points — The Pass: Transfer an item to or from another person within arm's reach as a free action without detection. Both parties must be willing for a transfer; a forced extraction from an unwilling target (picking a pocket in combat) requires a roll against their Awareness.
• At 6 points — Poisoner's Touch: During melee combat, you may apply a contact poison, a picked pocket, or swap an object within an enemy's reach as a 1 AP action alongside an attack. The target must succeed on an Awareness test against DV 8 + your Agility modifier to notice.
• At 9 points — Now You See It: Once per encounter, you may cause a weapon, potion, or small object being held or worn by an enemy to simply vanish from their possession — transferred to your own — during a moment of contact. The target does not notice until they reach for the item. No test required if the target is currently engaged in combat with another creature; a test is required if you are their primary focus.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

Locks are puzzles waiting for a solution and pockets are temporary storage for gold that hasn't found a better home. Roll 1d10 + Thieving for all larceny. Against locks and traps this is set against a GM difficulty; against a living mark (pick pocket, cut purse) it is opposed by their 1d10 + Acute Senses (untrained: Dis.d10 + Awareness). Every 3 points increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive: All thieving actions use 1d10 + Skill Points. Pick Pocket is an opposed test vs the target's Acute Senses (untrained: Dis.d10 + Awareness).
• At 3 points — Nimble Fingers: Gain +1 bonus to all lock picking attempts and halve the time required to pick any lock — your hands know where the pins sit before you find them.
• At 6 points — Arcane Deft: Gain +2 bonus to disarm magical traps. This bonus only applies if you possess at least 1 point in Wizardry, Devotion, or Runecraft — understanding the magical signature is half the work of neutralising it.
• At 9 points — Lift: As a 2 AP action, attempt to steal one equipped item from a target. Opposed test: your Thieving roll vs their Awareness + Agility modifier. On success the item is in your hand. On failure they notice immediately.

The art of controlled falling and dynamic evasion — rolling clear of danger before it arrives, landing without losing your footing, and denying the battlefield the satisfaction of putting you on the ground. Where Evasion avoids a targeted strike, Tumble handles the chaos: explosions, knockbacks, grapples, and every force that tries to rob you of your position.

• Passive Resistance: Each point in Tumble grants +1 to any test made to avoid being knocked Prone, Pushed, or Grappled.
• At 3 points — Emergency Roll: Once per turn, spend 1 AP as a reaction to roll clear of any AoE effect, moving up to 10 Ft in any direction before it resolves.
• At 6 points — Sure Footing: Falling no longer knocks you Prone. You ignore the first Prone condition applied to you each encounter.
• At 9 points — Death Roll: Once per encounter, when reduced to 0 wounds by a physical impact, make a Tumble test against TN 12. On success, remain at 1 wound on your feet.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

The world speaks in whispers, shifting shadows, and the metallic tang of drawn steel. While others are blind to the subtle warnings of the environment, your instincts are honed to a razor's edge. Roll 1d10 + Skill Points for all sensory detection tests. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Gain +1 bonus to all sensory detection tests per point invested — spotting hidden threats, detecting ambushes, noticing concealed objects.
• At 3 points — Sharpened Edge: Gain an additional +1 bonus to all sensory tests on top of your existing skill points — your senses have crossed a threshold beyond the merely attentive.
• At 6 points — Combat Awareness: Gain Advantage on all tests made to detect or resist an ambush attempt — and when you succeed at detecting one, you learn its specifics: the number of attackers and their positions. Where instinct only whispers that something is wrong, your trained senses read the whole trap. You read the stillness before the strike.
• At 9 points — Predator Sense: You can sense the direction and approximate distance of any living creature within 60 Ft even through walls and darkness — not sight, but a primal awareness of presence that no concealment fully blocks.

Something moves wrong in the corner of your vision. The silence is the wrong quality. The air smells like iron half a second before anyone has bled. Danger Sense is not prophecy — it is the body's accumulated experience compressed into a signal faster than conscious processing, and the discipline of trusting it. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Threat Radar: You are never caught flat-footed. Even when surprised, you act in the surprise round at half initiative rather than being locked out entirely. Your instincts register the threat before your mind does.
• At 3 points — Ambush Instinct: Your instincts sound a silent alarm near prepared ambushes within 50 Ft — the GM must tell you that something is wrong, but never what, where, or how many. This is a gut-warning, not a sighting; reading the trap's specifics is the work of Acute Senses. It triggers before you enter the kill zone. In addition, you are never the target of an automatic flanking bonus — your Danger Sense registers the flanker's movement before it completes.
• At 6 points — Sixth Sense: Once per encounter, when an attack would reduce you to 0 wounds, you may spend 1 AP as a reaction to interpose — throwing yourself aside and reducing the damage by Danger Sense pts × 2. This triggers on instinct: you do not need to declare it in advance.
• At 9 points — Precognitive Edge: Your initiative is permanently increased by +Danger Sense pts. Additionally, once per session, you may declare that your Danger Sense has screamed loudly enough to stop you doing something catastrophic — walking into a lethal trap, opening a cursed container, drinking a poisoned drink. The GM must confirm the threat was real. You learn nothing beyond the fact that stopping was correct.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

Unlocks the Druidic magical discipline. Each point allows you to learn one spell. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1. At 6 points, you must choose a specialized Path.

The world narrows to a single point. The frantic rhythm of the melee slows as your pulse steadies. You do not merely strike — you choose exactly where the blade will bite. Your total Focus points form a pool you distribute between Potency (flat wound/heal bonus) and Penetration (armor pierce) when you take the Focus action for 1 AP. Every 3 points grants +1 To-Hit whenever you use Focus and increases your Awareness by 1.

• Passive: Every 3 points grants a passive +1 To-Hit on any action that follows a Focus action. Distribute your pool freely between Potency and Penetration each use.
• At 6 points — Instant Focus: Once per encounter, use the Focus action as a free action at no AP cost — your mastery allows one moment of perfect clarity without breaking your rhythm.
• At 9 points — Total Commitment: When you Focus before an attack or spell, you may apply your entire Focus pool to both Potency and Penetration simultaneously rather than splitting — your concentration so complete that the full force of your mind bears down on both wound power and armor denial at once.

Every face is a ledger of small tells, and you have learned to read the entries others think are private. Insight is the counter to the social blade: when a target attempts to Deceive, Charm, Intimidate, Seduce, or Disguise against you, add your Insight points to your opposed test to see through it. You also sense hostile intent a beat early — a hand drifting to a hilt, the wrong kind of smile. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Add +1 per point to any opposed test made to resist or detect a social skill used against you.
• At 3 points — Read the Room: Once per scene, the GM tells you whether a specific statement made to you is a deliberate lie (not the truth behind it, only that it is false).

Mouths are a second ledger kept by the inattentive. What people say aloud is the version they've decided to share — what their lips form when they think no one is watching is closer to the truth. Lip Reading extends your intelligence range across a room without requiring proximity, letting you attend two conversations simultaneously: the one happening in front of you and the one happening thirty feet away. Roll 1d10 + Lip Reading against a GM difficulty for unclear or fast speech; a target deliberately concealing their words opposes with 1d10 + Stealth. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Silent Read: You can read the lips of any speaker you can clearly see within 50 Ft who is speaking a language you know. In standard lighting and calm conditions this requires no roll. Poor light, a beard, or a speaker turned partially away increases DV by 2–4.
• At 3 points — Cross-Language: You may attempt to lip-read speakers of languages you do not know fluently — extracting individual words, names, or numbers on a DV 10 test. On a natural 10 you reconstruct the grammatical structure of the sentence. Over time and repeated exposure, this can serve as functional language acquisition for spoken languages.
• At 6 points — Double Audience: You may conduct a conversation normally while simultaneously lip-reading a different conversation across the room with no penalty to either — your attention splits cleanly. This is the skill at full function: you become the room's second pair of ears without being audible in either channel.
• At 9 points — The Unguarded Moment: Once per session, when you observe a target at an unguarded moment — speaking to themselves, reacting silently, mouthing words in thought — the GM must give you one truthful piece of information the target has not consciously chosen to reveal. What a person says when they think no one is watching is the most honest thing about them.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

Deadly accuracy that extends your explosion chain on melee and ranged attacks. Precise Strike points apply to the second and all subsequent explosion rolls — replacing the To-Hit bonus that does not carry over to those rolls.

• Explosion Roll Bonus: Add all Precise Strike points to each explosion roll, allowing you to meet or beat high Defense values a raw d10 alone could not reach.
• Passive — To-Hit: Every 3 points adds +1 To-Hit on your initial attack roll.
• Passive — Wounds: Every 3 points adds +2 bonus damage on every confirmed hit.
• Advanced Skill Triggers: Any Advanced Skill that activates "on a natural 10" still requires the explosion roll to meet or beat Defense. Precise Strike points count toward that threshold.

The ability to extract information faster than it can be hidden. A document left on a desk, a letter being sealed, a ledger opened during a tense negotiation: Swift Read is the skill of consuming text at a rate that turns a glance into a complete briefing. In a world where information is power and most powerful people do not expect to be read in real time, this is a weapon that never runs out of ammunition. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Speed of Comprehension: You read at Swift Read pts × 3 times normal speed with full retention and comprehension. At 1 point, a ten-page document takes two minutes. At 9 points, you can absorb a full legal document while it is being passed across a table.
• At 3 points — Photographic Glimpse: On a successful Awareness test against DV 9, you may retain the full, word-for-word content of any written text you have seen — even briefly. This functions as perfect recall: the text is stored in memory as if you had it in front of you, and can be recalled and transcribed accurately later.
• At 6 points — Structural Analysis: When reading any document, you automatically identify redactions, forgeries, substituted pages, added marginalia, or alterations — anything that was not part of the original composition reads to you as a discordant note. You cannot be fooled by sophisticated document manipulation without an opposed test against your Swift Read + Awareness.
• At 9 points — Living Archive: Your reading retention is now absolute and permanent. Any text you have ever fully read can be recalled and reproduced verbatim, in full, at any time — every book, every contract, every intercepted letter. Additionally, once per session you may cross-reference your stored information to produce a connection between two texts you have read that yields a piece of intelligence the GM confirms as accurate.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

Some lead by the grace of kings, but you lead by the absolute weight of your presence. To force a command, roll 1d10 + Authority against the target's resist roll of 1d10 + their resist skill (Zealotry for the strong-willed; an untrained target rolls Dis.d10 + Willpower). If your total wins, they must comply with your demand. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Your command forces a single target to comply with your demand on a failed Willpower resist test.
• At 3 points — Voice of Command: Your authority can now affect up to 3 creatures simultaneously with a single action — your presence fills the room rather than targeting one soul.
• At 6 points — Crushing Weight: Any target that fails their resist test not only complies but also suffers 1 Shaken condition — the psychological weight of your command rattles them beyond mere compliance.

Natural social influence and magnetism — weaving words and presence into a subtle snare. To charm a target, roll 1d10 + Charm against their resist roll: the target defends with 1d10 + Zealotry to shrug off the emotional sway, or 1d10 + Insight to spot the manipulation (defender's choice). An untrained defender rolls Dis.d10 + the relevant characteristic. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive: On a success, the target is immediately charmed — they regard you as a trusted acquaintance and are unlikely to act against your obvious interests.
• At 3 points — Lingering Allure: A successfully charmed target suffers a cumulative -1 penalty to their resist test each subsequent round — the longer you hold their attention the harder it becomes to shake. The effect ends when they finally succeed or the encounter ends.
• At 6 points — Willing Hand: A charmed target will perform one reasonable task for you before the charm wears off — carry a message, open a door, vouch for you to a guard. The task cannot be obviously suicidal or deeply against their interests.

Where the Light-Souled burn the corrupt, the Dark-Souled have let the corruption in and learned to wield it. A spirit marked by the void — by the Vraxxal register, by the Titan-Blood that unmade Birn Uluhm, or simply by a will that chose the shadow — becomes a conduit for profane power. The pure recoil from you; the holy struggles to find purchase on a soul already given over. Every point grants +1 damage against the pure and the consecrated by any means — melee, ranged, or magical. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Deal +1 damage per point to Good-aligned and consecrated creatures — celestials and the divine (Archangels, Seraphim, Cherubim), the faithful (paladins, clerics, the blessed), and the sacred-natural (treants, fey, unicorns, Pyreborn, woodland spirits, and others bound to the light or the living order) — by any means of attack. As Light burns the corrupt and unnatural, the void in you burns the pure and the hallowed. (Ordinary unaligned mortals and spiritually-neutral monsters are unaffected — the bonus strikes the sacred, not the merely living.)
• Corruption Resource: Dark-Soul is the prerequisite that gates the fallen path. Profane blessings, necrotic leeching, and command of the lesser undead draw on your Dark-Soul points the way the Crusader's powers draw on Light-Soul.
• At 3 points — Profane Dread: Once per encounter as a free action, exude the wrongness of the void. All Good or consecrated creatures within 20 Ft must surpass Willpower TN 6 + Resist bonus or become Shaken — your unmade soul is a physical affront to them.
• At 6 points — Profane Ward: Gain +1 Damage Mitigation per 3 points specifically against attacks from Good and consecrated creatures — the righteous blow meets a soul already burned, and finds less to catch. (Mirrors Light-Soul’s Sanctified Bastion, which wards against the attacks of Evil creatures.)

The Sundered Soul (Light & Dark are mutually exclusive): A soul cannot be both pure and corrupt. Your effective Light-Soul is reduced by your Dark-Soul points, and your effective Dark-Soul is reduced by your Light-Soul points (to a minimum of 0) for all purposes — bonus damage, prerequisites, Wards, and the encounter powers. A character who invests in both holds only the difference between them; one who splits evenly holds neither. Choose a side, or be nothing to either.

The lie that lands is the one that contains more truth than the target can immediately verify. Deception is not the art of fabrication — fabrications unravel under pressure. It is the art of constructing narratives that feel real because they are adjacent to something real, told by someone who believes them in the moment. Roll 1d10 + Deception against the target's 1d10 + Insight (untrained: Dis.d10 + Awareness) for all deceptive social interactions. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Baseline: You never reveal tells under passive social observation — nervous habits, micro-expressions, vocal stress, tells that betray lying. A target can only detect your deception through active scrutiny and an opposed Awareness test.
• At 3 points — The Confident Lie: Once per encounter, you may state a falsehood as an absolute fact with such conviction that the target must beat your 1d10 + Deception with their own 1d10 + Insight (untrained: Dis.d10 + Awareness) or act on it as if it were true for 1 turn. This functions even in combat — a false call of "Cease fire!" or "They're retreating!" can redirect enemies for a turn.
• At 6 points — Plausible Deniability: Retroactively, once per session, you may decide that something you said earlier in the session was deliberately misleading rather than simply wrong — reframing a statement you made in good faith as intentional misdirection. The GM must allow the retroactive interpretation if it is narratively plausible.
• At 9 points — Deep Cover: You may construct a false identity so thoroughly that even magic designed to detect lies finds nothing — the deception has been internalised to the point where it is not a lie to you in the moment of speaking. This does not protect against abilities that read thoughts rather than words, but defeats all aura-based and verbal truth-detection effects while the identity is active.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

Unlocks divine blessings. Each point allows you to learn one blessing. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

The ability to rally the weary and drag the dying back to the fight. A successful Charisma test grants bonuses to all allies within 25 Ft. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

Fear is the oldest currency and you have learned to spend it efficiently. Intimidation is not rage, not size, and not the volume of your voice — it is the specific quality of presence that makes a target run an internal calculation and conclude the math does not favour them. The most effective practitioners barely raise their voice. Roll 1d10 + Intimidation against the target's resist roll of 1d10 + their resist skill (Zealotry for the resolute; untrained targets roll Dis.d10 + Willpower) for all intimidation attempts. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Weight of Reputation: Any target who has witnessed you successfully Intimidate someone this session suffers −2 Willpower on their own resist test against your Intimidation — the demonstration is its own argument. This stacks once.
• At 3 points — Stand Down: As a 1 AP action in combat, you may direct a single Intimidation attempt against one enemy within 30 Ft: roll 1d10 + Intimidation against their 1d10 + resist skill (untrained: Dis.d10 + Willpower). On success, they must spend their next action on a withdrawal action rather than attacking — they cannot be compelled to flee entirely, but they cannot advance toward you. This has no effect on mindless creatures or creatures immune to Fear.
• At 6 points — Break the Line: Once per encounter, direct your Intimidation at all enemies within 20 Ft simultaneously. Each must make a Willpower test against DV 8 + your Intimidation points or suffer the Ψ Shaken condition for 1 turn. A result of natural 1 on the resist roll causes Ψ Fear instead.
• At 9 points — The Last Offer: Once per session, you may make an Intimidation attempt against a single target that functions as a binding ultimatum — if they fail the resist, they comply completely with one demand you state, provided compliance does not mean their certain death. They know what will happen if they refuse. So do you. So does everyone watching.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

The darkness does not merely fear your blade — it fears the light that guides it. Your consecrated spirit burns the corrupt, turning your very presence into a ward against shadow. Often found in the devoted, but the divine light recognises no prerequisite beyond genuine conviction — a warrior who has faced enough darkness develops their own. Every point grants +1 wound against Evil creatures by any means — melee, ranged, or magical. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Deal +1 wound per point to Undead, Daemons, Beastmen, Chaos Beasts, and Cultists by any means of attack.
• At 3 points — Holy Light: Once per encounter as a free action, radiate divine light. All Undead within 20 Ft must surpass Willpower TN 6 + Resist bonus or become Shaken — the purity of your soul is a physical force to them.
• At 6 points — Sanctified Bastion: Gain +1 Damage Mitigation per 3 points specifically against attacks from Evil creatures — their blows meet something more than flesh.

The crowd is a single creature with a hundred eyes and Performance is the art of feeding it exactly what it wants before it knows what that is. Music, theatre, oratory, storytelling, religious ceremony, political address — the mechanism is the same in all of them: a calibrated emotional transfer from practitioner to audience that leaves the audience feeling what you intended rather than what they arrived with. Roll 1d10 + Performance Points + Charisma modifier against the GM's DV for all performance and oratory tests. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Command the Room: In any social situation involving more than five people, you automatically draw attention — you are the focal point of any space you inhabit when you choose to be. All Charisma-based tests made while performing or addressing a crowd gain Advantage.
• At 3 points — Cover: A performance in progress provides active concealment for other party members operating in the area — the audience's attention is locked onto you. Other party members gain Advantage on all Stealth and Thieving tests made while your performance is active. The moment the performance ends or you are interrupted, the cover evaporates.
• At 6 points — Crowd Reading: Over the course of a performance, you can assess the emotional state, hidden concerns, and likely behaviour of your audience with the precision of a political survey. After 10 minutes of performance, the GM provides you with one significant piece of accurate intelligence about the crowd — who the powerbroker is, what the room is afraid of, what they want to hear that would move them.
• At 9 points — The Rally: Once per session, you may deliver a performance of sufficient force to alter the morale state of all allies within earshot. All allies who hear you gain +2 To-Hit, +2 Damage Mitigation, and immunity to Fear effects for 3 turns. This requires 1 full turn of uninterrupted performance to activate and ends if you are Silenced, Stunned, or Unconscious.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

Desire is the oldest lever and Seduction is the art of finding it in people who believe they do not have one. This is not primarily a romantic skill — it is the skill of making a target want to give you what you need because giving it to you is the most appealing option available. A merchant seduced toward a bad deal. A guard seduced toward inattention. A commander seduced toward confidence. The application is negotiation, intelligence gathering, distraction, and access. Roll 1d10 + Seduction against the target's resist roll of 1d10 + Zealotry (untrained: Dis.d10 + Willpower). Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Read the Want: You automatically identify what a target most desires within the first minute of interaction — not a specific object, but the category: recognition, security, power, belonging, relief, escape. The GM tells you the type. You choose how to present yourself as the source of it.
• At 3 points — The Opening: A successful Seduction test creates a Receptive state in the target for the rest of the scene — they are favourably disposed, lower their guard, and answer questions without suspicion. This is not compulsion; they will still resist requests that conflict with their values, but the initial social barrier is gone.
• At 6 points — Exploit: Against a target already in the Receptive state, you may make one request that they would normally refuse — extract a secret, gain access to a restricted area, receive a significant material favour. Roll 1d10 + Seduction against the target's 1d10 + Zealotry (untrained defender: Dis.d10 + Willpower; the GM may have the target add situational resolve for a request that cuts hard against their interests). On a success they comply and do not realise the request was unusual until later, if at all.
• At 9 points — Loyal Tool: Once per session, after at least one hour of interaction with a non-hostile target, you may attempt a full Seduction: roll 1d10 + Seduction against the target's 1d10 + Zealotry, with Advantage — the hours of groundwork tilt the odds in your favour. On success, the target becomes a reliable social asset — providing information, access, or cover on request for the remainder of the session without requiring further tests. This creates a genuine temporary alignment of interest rather than mind control; the target believes the arrangement benefits them.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

Chemistry applied to lethality, healing, and the grey space between them. Alchemy is not magic — it does not require a tradition or a mark or the Church's tolerance. It requires access to materials, a stable workspace, and the specific kind of patience that does not flinch when something explodes. Roll 1d10 + Alchemy Points against the formula's DV when crafting compounds. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Identification: You can identify any alchemical compound, poison, or reagent by inspection. You know whether a substance is magical in origin, its general class, and its approximate potency. This requires no test for compounds of DV 8 or below; higher complexity requires a roll.
• At 3 points — Field Synthesis: Given basic reagents (available in any market or most wilderness environments), you can craft Alchemist's Fire, basic Antitoxin, Acid Flask, or Healing Draughts (restoring Alchemy pts × 2 wounds) over 30 minutes. The crafted item functions identically to purchased versions. You can produce up to 3 items per long rest.
• At 6 points — Advanced Compounds: You can craft complex formulas: contact poisons (Physique TN 9 or Poisoned + one condition of your choice), sleep agents (inhaled, Willpower TN 8 or Unconscious for 1 hour), and alchemical grenades (2d10 fire or acid in a 10 Ft AoE on impact). Crafting advanced compounds takes 1 hour and requires specific reagents the GM determines are available in the region.
• At 9 points — Masterwork Formula: Once per long rest, you may craft a Masterwork compound — a single-use alchemical item of significant power. Examples: a Philosopher's Draught that restores all wounds and clears all conditions; a contact compound that renders a target unconscious on skin contact for 8 hours; a hardening agent that grants +3 Damage Mitigation to armour for one encounter. The GM determines appropriate DV for each Masterwork (typically DV 12–16).

Crafting Table. A crafting attempt is a single Alchemy test against the listed DV, given appropriate reagents and an hour of work (combat items can be thrown as a 1 AP action once made). You may only craft items whose tier you have reached. On a failed test the reagents are wasted; on a natural 1 a volatile batch affects the crafter instead.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

Structures do not fail at random — they fail at precisely the point where load exceeds design, and the engineer is the person who can read that point in advance. Engineering covers construction, demolition, trap design, siege mechanics, and the structural analysis of anything built by human or inhuman hands. Roll 1d10 + Engineering Points against DV for all construction and analysis tests. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Structural Eye: You automatically identify the structural weaknesses of any building, bridge, wall, or constructed surface within your line of sight — the GM tells you the load-bearing points, the collapse sequence, and the minimum force required to trigger a failure. In dungeons and underground spaces, you sense instability in ceilings, floors, and tunnels before anyone else does.
• At 3 points — Rapid Construction: You can construct functional field fortifications — barricades, palisades, covered positions — in half the time of an unskilled crew, and your constructions provide double the standard cover bonus to those behind them. Traps you design grant Advantage to the opponent's roll to detect them and deal an additional Engineering pts damage on activation.
• At 6 points — Controlled Demolition: Given access to a structure's foundation or a key load-bearing point — and the appropriate tools, charges, or equipment for the job — you can bring down a building, collapse a tunnel, or breach a wall in a controlled manner — directing the collapse with Engineering pts × 5 Ft of precision. Uncontrolled collapse creates a 30 Ft AoE of debris; controlled collapse can target a specific area as small as 10 Ft across.
• At 9 points — Master Siege: You understand every siege weapon, fortification design, and military engineering application in the known world. You can command siege operations at full effectiveness, design fortifications that add +Engineering pts to the effective Defense of any position you have had 24 hours to prepare, and analyse any magical or mundane barrier to identify whether it can be physically bypassed and how.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

The trained eye that reads history, craftsmanship, and arcane signatures in every object. Roll 1d10 + Skill Points against the GM's DV to identify items, assess value, and detect enchantments. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Removes Disadvantage when identifying or appraising obscure and magical objects. Your first point alone is the difference between guessing and knowing.
• At 3 points — Curse Sight: On a successful test, detect whether an object is cursed or carries a negative enchantment — the malignant resonance is visible to your trained eye before anyone touches it.
• At 6 points — Arcanist's Eye: Identify the full magical properties of any item without a test — inspection alone is sufficient. What others need rituals to discover, you read in the construction.

A sword can be shattered and gold can be stolen, but a secret once learned is a weapon that never dulls. Each point represents deep expertise in one specific field — Bestiary, History, Lore, Magic, Races, or Religions. Roll 1d10 + Points in that field against the GM's DV. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Each point purchased must be assigned to a specific field. Roll 1d10 + field points to recall information, identify weaknesses, or translate texts.
• At 3 points — Total Recall: Once per session, recall one obscure fact within your field as a free action with no roll required.
• At 6 points — Authority: Within your field of Knowledge, gain +2 to all related tests.

Every script is a lock, and every language a key cut to a different age. Where Read/Write grants fluency in living tongues, Linguistics is the deeper study of decipherment — codes, ciphers, dead languages, and writing that predates the current Age. Each point lets you attempt progressively older and stranger scripts, rolling 1d10 + Linguistics points against the GM's DV to wring meaning from the unreadable. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Attempt to decipher unknown languages, codes, and ciphers; higher point totals unlock older and more alien scripts.
• At 6 points — Tongue of the First Age: You may attempt scripts that no living scholar has cracked — though some things were written to stay unread, and the GM decides what answers back.

The body is a system, and systems have known failure modes. Medicine is the empirical discipline of understanding those failure modes well enough to interrupt them — setting bones, managing infection, identifying disease, and extracting foreign objects from places they were never supposed to be. Where Mending is field instinct, Medicine is methodology. Roll 1d10 + Medicine Points against DV for all medical diagnosis and treatment tests. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Diagnosis: On examination of a patient, you immediately and accurately identify all injuries, diseases, and conditions — their cause, severity, and progression. You know exactly what is wrong and what is required to address it. You never waste resources treating the symptom instead of the cause.
• At 3 points — Clinical Treatment: Out of combat, you restore Medicine pts × 3 wounds to a patient over 10 minutes of treatment. This can be repeated once per long rest per patient. You can also remove any non-magical Disease or Poison condition with a Medicine test against DV 8 — the treatment takes 30 minutes and basic medical supplies.
• At 6 points — Surgery: With 1 hour, appropriate tools, and a stable environment, you can address injuries that would otherwise be permanent — restoring lost function, repairing internal damage from massive wounds, or counteracting the secondary effects of extreme physical trauma. A successful Medicine test against DV 12 allows a patient to recover from injuries that the standard wound system would treat as permanent consequences of 0-wound events.
• At 9 points — Battlefield Clarity: Once per encounter, you may spend 2 AP to perform emergency medicine on an adjacent ally at 0 wounds — restoring them to Medicine pts × 2 wounds and removing the Unconscious condition. This is not standard stabilisation; it is emergency intervention. The patient can act normally from their next turn. This functions even in active combat.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

The world has a geometry if you know how to read it — stars, currents, prevailing winds, the angle of shadows, the way moss grows and rivers cut. Navigation is the translation of environment into position, and position into direction. At its highest levels it extends beyond physical space into the reading of political geography, trade routes, and the kind of situational awareness that tells you which direction threat comes from before it arrives. Roll 1d10 + Navigation Points against DV for all orientation, charting, and route-planning tests. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1. Navigation is domain-specific: you must hold the relevant Knowledge for the environment you are navigating (e.g. Knowledge: Seas for ocean voyaging, Knowledge: Forests for wildwood travel, Knowledge: Skies for aerial routes). Without the matching Knowledge, you can read a compass and follow obvious landmarks but gain no Navigation bonus in that domain.

• Passive — Orientation: You are never lost. In any environment — underground, at sea, in magical obscurement, or in an unmarked city — you maintain accurate awareness of your position and direction. You always know which way north is. You can always retrace a path you have travelled.
• At 3 points — Route Planning: Given a destination and basic geographic information, you identify the optimal route with regard to speed, safety, or concealment — your choice. Your travel time for any overland journey is reduced by 25% through efficient path selection. You automatically identify ambush-prone terrain, chokepoints, and positions of tactical advantage along any planned route.
• At 6 points — Dead Reckoning: At sea or in completely unmapped territory, you can determine your precise position through environmental observation alone — star angle, water temperature, wind direction, geological markers. You can produce an accurate sketch-map of any area you have moved through. Your estimates of position are accurate to within 5% of actual distance, regardless of how long you have been without landmarks.
• At 9 points — The Long View: Your Navigation extends into strategic cartographic intelligence. Given 24 hours of study of any region — maps, reports, locals' accounts, aerial observation — you can identify the three most likely invasion routes, the two most defensible positions, the single most critical supply chokepoint, and the location any army would most plausibly establish as a headquarters. This is strategic military intelligence extracted from geography, and it is accurate.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

The ability to see through lies, illusions, and the subtle currents of magic. Perception serves both the warrior's eye and the caster's instinct. (This is a combat and casting precision skill — it sharpens spell, blessing, and ranged output. For sensory detection — spotting threats, hidden objects, and ambushes — see Acute Senses.)

• Casting Explosion Chain: When a To-Cast roll (any of the six disciplines) is a confirmed success and the d10 showed a natural 10, roll a second 1d10. No casting bonus applies to this roll — only Perception points. If the raw roll + Perception points meets or beats the TN, you gain an extra 1d10 wounds or healing. Chain continues on each subsequent natural 10 by the same rule.
• Passive — Cast Wounds: Every 3 points adds +1 bonus wound to all offensive spell and blessing output.
• Passive — Ranged To-Hit: Every 3 points adds +1 To-Hit on ranged attacks.
• Passive — Intellect: Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic.
• Counter Charm/Illusion: Roll 1d10 + Perception points to resist or see through social manipulation and magical deception.

To speak is to ripple the air — to write is to carve your will into history. Each point represents full proficiency in one language: reading, writing, and speaking. This skill is a prerequisite for most advanced academic and magical studies. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Each point purchased grants fluency in one language of your choosing. You can accurately copy scrolls, translate documents, and author original works in any language you know.
• At 3 points — Ancient Script: You can decipher ancient, damaged, or partially destroyed texts that would defeat others entirely — piecing together meaning from fragments, archaic script, and deteriorated parchment.
• At 6 points — Scroll Scribe: Transcribe a magical scroll accurately enough that it can be cast once by any character with the relevant discipline — your understanding of the written form is precise enough to preserve the enchantment.

The study of the arcane threads. Each point allows you to learn one spell. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

The oldest form of combat — no weapons, no rules, and the deeply practical understanding that most fights happen in spaces too small for a sword. Brawling is the skill of making your body itself into a weapon: elbows, knees, headbutts, improvised grips, and the specific economy of violence that operates in taverns, alleys, and anywhere else that combat becomes immediate and close. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Always Armed: Your unarmed strikes deal 1d10 + Physique modifier + Brawling pts wounds. Against an unprepared or unarmed-untrained opponent, your attacks impose Disadvantage on their defence — though this edge is lost against any opponent wearing armor, whose protection blunts the close-quarters tricks that work on the unguarded. You suffer no penalty for fighting in confined spaces where weapons cannot be freely swung — tight corridors, grapples, and crowd situations are your natural habitat.
• At 3 points — Opportunist: Whenever an adjacent enemy fails an attack roll against you, you may spend 1 AP as a reaction to immediately deliver one unarmed strike against them. The missed attack opened a gap. You fill it.
• At 6 points — Dirty Fighter: Once per turn, alongside your normal attack, you may attempt one of the following as a 1 AP action: eye gouge (target suffers −2 To-Hit for 1 turn), kidney shot (target loses 1 AP on their next turn), or leg sweep (target must make a Physique test against a DV the GM sets by the target's footing and size — roughly DV 8 for a typical humanoid on even ground, higher for the braced, heavy, or many-legged — or be Prone). No roll required on your part — only a test for the target.
• At 9 points — Brawler's Finish: Once per encounter, when an enemy is Prone, Stunned, or Grappled by you, you may make a Brawling attack as a 2 AP action that deals 3d10 + your melee damage bonus (the physical Damage figure shown in your Combat Mastery) wounds bypassing all mundane Damage Mitigation. This is not a finisher — it is simply what happens when you have someone where you want them and no reason to stop.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

Gravity is the most democratic of opponents. Climbing is the art of refusing to acknowledge its authority over you — reading surfaces for purchase, distributing weight across holds that would crumble under anything but expert technique, and covering vertical distance that tactical planning always fails to account for. Roll 1d10 + Climbing Points against DV for difficult ascents. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Vertical Movement: You move vertically at half your standard movement speed without a test in standard conditions — rough stone, timber framing, cliff faces with natural features. Sheer surfaces, wet stone, or extreme angles require a test. You are never surprised while climbing — you always have at least one free hand available.
• At 3 points — Free Climber: You can ascend surfaces that offer minimal purchase — smooth stone, brick walls, worked marble, ship hulls — with a Climbing test against a DV the GM sets by how little purchase the surface offers. The surfaces listed here sit around the middle of that band (roughly DV 9); a flawless marble face or a slick, weathered hull climbs harder, a brick wall with deep mortar lines easier. On success you move at half speed. Ropes, pitons, and climbing gear give you Advantage on all tests and allow normal movement speed on any climbable surface.
• At 6 points — Combat Climber: You may attack and cast spells at full effectiveness while climbing. You no longer need to find a stable platform — a wall hold is sufficient. In addition, you may drop from any height as a free action to land adjacent to an enemy and immediately make one attack as part of the same action, adding Climbing pts as bonus wounds from the impact.
• At 9 points — The Impossible Wall: No surface is unclimbable. You can scale surfaces that offer zero natural purchase — glass, ice, water-soaked stone — by reading micro-variations in texture, pressure, and thermal differential that are invisible to everyone else. Tests against these surfaces are never at Disadvantage. You automatically identify the fastest and most tactically useful climbing route in any environment.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

Every point grants +1 permanent Wound. The body that doesn't stop is the body that wins. Endurance is not strength — it is the systematic refusal of the nervous system to register that stopping is an option. The practitioner runs further, fights longer, absorbs more, and continues operating in conditions that have already rendered everyone else non-functional. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Iron Constitution: +1 wound per point. You require half the normal recovery time between encounters to recover to full wounds — your body's baseline repair rate is elevated. Exhaustion conditions that would remove AP or impose Disadvantage take one additional stack to apply against you.
• At 3 points — Second Wind: Once per encounter, as a free action, recover Endurance pts × 2 wounds. This does not require any action expenditure and can be used even at 0 wounds before collapsing — it functions as the body's emergency reserve kicking in.
• At 6 points — Sustained Effort: You may maintain peak physical performance indefinitely without fatigue penalties. Forced marches, extended swims, sustained combat, and any other activity where other characters accumulate Exhausted conditions over time do not stack on you until the activity has continued for twice the normal threshold. When they do begin, they stack at half rate.
• At 9 points — Tireless: You can no longer be Exhausted. The ⊛ Exhausted condition cannot be applied to you from any source — forced marches, sustained combat, sleeplessness, magical fatigue, or otherwise — and any existing Exhausted stacks are cleared the moment you reach this mastery. Where lesser practitioners merely resist or delay the body's collapse, yours has forgotten how.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

Deep wells of physical stamina that most people simply do not possess. Every point grants +10 permanent Wounds. These wounds are added before Size Multipliers are applied. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive: +10 wounds per point invested. Size Synergy — a Large creature gains +20 wounds per point, Giant +30, and so on.
• At 6 points — Immovable: Ignore the first Stunned condition applied to you each encounter — your body absorbs the impact and keeps functioning through sheer mass.
• At 9 points — Last Stand: Once per session, when you would be reduced to 0 wounds, you instead remain at 10% of your total wound threshold (rounded down, minimum 1). Your body simply refuses to go down when it matters most.

Some men bleed at the first sign of steel. You simply refuse to acknowledge the pain. Every point grants +2 permanent Wounds and +1 Damage Mitigation against physical attacks for every 2 points invested. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

• Passive: +2 wounds per point. +1 Damage Mitigation vs physical attacks per 2 points invested.
• At 3 points — Iron Constitution: Your body begins resisting the arcane as stubbornly as steel resists rust. You gain Damage Mitigation against spell and blessing damage equal to half your Hard as Nails points (rounded down). Stacks with your physical WM separately.
• At 6 points — Bloody Minded: Once per encounter, ignore all Bleeding damage for 1 turn — you grit through it and keep moving, dealing with it after the immediate threat is handled.

Channeling the spirit through the body. Each point unlocks one Ki power. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

The mountain does not move because the wind asks it to. Steadfast is the discipline of the planted foot — the counter to every shove, charge, grapple, and arcane shunt that would move you against your will. Add your points to any test made to resist forced movement, knockback, push effects, grapples, or being knocked Prone. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Add +1 per point to all tests to resist being moved, shoved, pushed, pulled, grappled, or knocked Prone.
• At 6 points — Immovable: Forced movement against you is halved (round down) before any test is rolled.

Physical power training that translates raw strength directly into lethality. Every point grants +2 permanent Wounds. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1 and grants +2 bonus to all melee weapon wound rolls.

• Passive: +2 wounds per point. Iron Grip: every 3 points adds +2 to all melee wound rolls. Advantage on all Bending Bars, Breaking Doors, and Grapple tests.
• At 6 points — Wrestler: Grapple attempts cost only 1 AP instead of a full action, and you have Advantage on the grapple test — your training makes seizing control of a body feel effortless.
• At 9 points — Slam: While grappling a target you may move with them at half speed, dragging or carrying them. If you drive them into an obstacle — wall, pillar, or another creature — they take 1d10 + Physique modifier impact damage in addition to any other effects. The obstacle's occupant (if any) takes the same.

Water is not a barrier — it is a medium, and those who have trained in it treat it accordingly. Swimming covers open water, rough seas, strong currents, underwater navigation, and the specific combat applications of a three-dimensional space where most opponents have stopped thinking tactically. Roll 1d10 + Swimming Points against DV for difficult water conditions. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Water Competency: You move through water at Swimming pts × Ft per AP (minimum your standard land speed at 5 points). You can hold your breath for Swimming pts × 2 minutes and suffer no panic or disorientation while submerged. Armour penalty to Swimming: worn armour drags in water and applies a penalty to all Swimming tests and to swimming speed — Mithril/Elven, Padded, or Gambeson −1; Leather or Studded −2; Chain −3; Plate −5. A character in Plate who fails a Swimming test risks sinking; the GM may require the armour be shed to continue.
• At 3 points — Subsurface Combat: You fight underwater without penalty. Standard attacks, spells with audible components (where relevant), and tactical positioning all function normally while submerged. Enemies without Swimming skill suffer Disadvantage attacking you underwater — the medium is alien to them and familiar to you.
• At 6 points — Powerful Current: In rough water, currents, or tidal conditions that would sweep an unskilled swimmer off course, you move freely. Additionally, once per encounter when in water or an adjacent water source, you may drag a creature into the water as a 2 AP grapple action — the target is Grappled and must contend with water conditions while you operate freely. A target without Swimming skill is immediately Stunned by the transition.
• At 9 points — Aquatic Predator: In water, your movement speed is doubled and you may move in three dimensions at full speed. Any creature without Swimming skill that is Grappled by you in water must make a Physique test against DV 10 + your Swimming points each turn or gain one Exhausted condition from the effort of fighting the water and you simultaneously. At 3 Exhausted conditions, they begin drowning.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

Mental tenacity so dense it borders on the physical. Grants +2 permanent Wounds and allows you to survive, while Unconscious, for a number of turns equal to your Iron Will points when reduced to 0 Wounds before death takes you — each active Bleeding stack reducing this window by 1 turn (see Unconscious & The Collapse). (Designer note: this 1-point-per-turn survival window may be revisited for scaling.) Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

Every point grants +1 permanent Wound. The disciplined mind holds its shape under pressure that scatters an untrained one. Meditation is the systematic discipline of the inner space — sustaining a working's structure across the breath between turns, recovering from the toll of exertion, and reaching, at its peak, a focus so total the world itself seems to pause. Where other skills resist the mind being broken, Meditation governs the mind's capacity to hold. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

• Passive — Composure: Your trained stillness is the bedrock on which the later disciplines are built — the longer you hold the inner space, the more the mind can carry without slipping. (Resisting fear and mental coercion is the province of Zealotry and Resolve; Meditation no longer duplicates that save.)
• At 3 points — Meditative Recovery: During a short rest (10 minutes of undisturbed quiet), recover Meditation pts × 2 wounds and clear one mental condition — Fear, Shaken, Confused, or Exhausted. This requires genuine stillness; combat situations prevent it.
• At 3 points — Channeling: You are the disciplined exception to the No Channeling Iron Constraint. You may carry AP into a multi-turn spellcasting sequence — beginning a working whose AP cost exceeds a single turn's actions and completing it on the next turn (e.g. a 4-AP cast when you have only 3 AP available). The standard Two-Turn limit still applies: the carried AP must be spent on the immediately following turn or it bleeds away, and the working fails. Only one cast may be channeled at a time.
• At 6 points — Unbroken Focus: A cast you are channeling across turns is not easily knocked loose. When you take damage, suffer fear, or are otherwise disrupted while channeling, add Meditation pts to the test to hold the working together. (This protects an in-progress, banked cast — distinct from Willpower Reserve, which guards already-active sustained effects.) Additionally, if the optional Essence rule is in play, your pool is increased by +1.
• At 9 points — The Eye: Once per encounter, as a free action, you may enter a state of absolute concentration for 1 turn. During this turn: you are immune to all conditions, your next action costs 0 AP, and any test you make is rolled with Advantage. The Eye cannot be maintained — it lasts exactly one turn and then the ordinary world rushes back in.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

Every point grants +1 permanent Wound. An oath is an anchor, and an anchor holds against current. Oathkeeper is the discipline of binding oneself to a stated commitment — a pledge, a vow, a covenant — and deriving mechanical power from the act of maintaining it. The character who has sworn does not fight the same fight as the character who merely intends. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

• Passive — The Sworn State: +1 wound per point. At character creation or with GM approval, declare one active Oath — a specific obligation, prohibition, or commitment. While the Oath is intact, you gain +Oathkeeper pts bonus to all Willpower resist tests and +1 To-Hit per 3 Oathkeeper pts when acting directly in service of the Oath. If the Oath is broken, all bonuses are lost until the Oath is renewed or a new Oath is sworn.
• At 3 points — Oath-Bound Strike: Once per encounter, when attacking a creature or in a situation that directly violates your Oath, your attack deals an additional Oathkeeper pts × 2 damage — the conviction behind the blow makes it land differently.
• At 6 points — Unbreakable: While your Oath is active, you are immune to compulsion effects — Dominated, Charmed, and mind-control effects that would cause you to act against your Oath fail automatically without a test. Your sworn intent is a structural barrier that external will cannot navigate around.
• At 9 points — Martyr's Force: Once per session, when you would be reduced to 0 wounds while acting in direct service of your Oath, you instead remain at 1 wound. Additionally, all allies who can see or hear you witnessing this moment gain +2 To-Hit and +2 Willpower resist for the remainder of the encounter — the sight of someone who will not fall for a reason they believe in changes the arithmetic for everyone around them.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

Every point grants +2 permanent Wounds. Pain is data. Pain Tolerance is the training that separates the signal from the noise — allowing the body to continue functioning under conditions where the nervous system's interrupts have fired and most organisms have stopped. This is not numbness; it is the precise calibration of what requires stopping for and what does not. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive — High Threshold: +2 wounds per point. The wound total at which you suffer mechanical penalties (Disadvantage, AP reduction) is increased by Pain Tolerance pts × 3. The body's protest is registered and set aside. You fight at full effectiveness until significantly closer to 0 than most characters.
• At 3 points — Ignore It: Once per turn, negate the mechanical effect of one Stunned condition — the AP cost is not applied this turn. You register the hit; you simply refuse to give it the attention it is demanding.
• At 6 points — Tectonic: Conditions that impose wound penalties — Bleeding, Poison dealing ongoing damage, and burns — deal half their stated damage per turn against you. The ongoing damage mechanism still functions, but your body processes it at reduced rate. Additionally, you add Pain Tolerance pts to all tests made to resist torture, interrogation, or prolonged physical duress.
• At 9 points — Won’t Stay Down: Once per session, when you reach 0 wounds, you do not become Unconscious. Instead you remain at 1 wound for one full round — acting normally and ignoring all incoming wounds during this time — before the damage catches up and you collapse unless healed. You cannot be killed during this round by direct damage; only by effects that state “cannot be saved from death” or equivalent. The body has not consented to being finished yet.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

When the mind screams to surrender and the soul feels the cold pull of the void, it is Resolve that holds the line. Not training — stubbornness. The bedrock refusal to be moved. Resolve guards the will: it endures the magic that tries to seize or break your mind — the dread a spell presses into you, the compulsion that would bend you, the Dominate that would steal your very agency, the magical despair that hollows lesser souls. Every point grants +1 permanent Wound, and the sheer refusal to fall grants +1 additional Wound for every 3 points invested — a body that outlasts what should have broken it. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1. (Resolve guards the mind, not the body: magical damage is turned aside by Spirit, and mundane coercion — being talked, charmed, or pressured by people — is the province of Zealotry. To be broadly magic-hardened is to invest in both Resolve and Spirit; the will and the soul are warded separately.)

• Passive: +1 wound per point, plus +1 wound per 3 points (stubborn toughness). To resist Fear, Terror, magical compulsion, Dominate, and other hostile mind-magic, roll 1d10 + Resolve against the effect (untrained: Dis.d10 + Willpower). The will refuses what the spell demands.
• At 3 points — Shake It Off: Remove the Shaken condition from yourself as a free action once per turn. Where Discipline prevents it, Resolve recovers from it — the reactive iron rather than the proactive steel.
• At 6 points — Unbiddable Mind: Gain a flat +2 bonus to all rolls made to resist magical compulsion and Dominate effects. A will the arcane cannot redirect.
• At 9 points — Iron Bulwark: Once per turn as a free action, extend your full Resist bonus to one adjacent ally until the start of your next turn — your presence alone steadies those beside you against the arcane.

Your body is not a closed vessel but a cathedral of the soul — open to the restorative currents of the world and warded against the arcane forces that would burn, corrupt, or unmake the flesh. Spirit guards the soul and body: where Resolve refuses what magic asks of your mind, Spirit blunts what magic does to your substance. Every point grants +1 wound whenever healed by any Blessing. You gain +1 Damage Mitigation against Blessings and Spells per 2 points invested, and every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1 (the Power of Three). Spirit is the sole home of magical damage mitigation — the soul’s resilience against arcane harm. (Magical mind-control and fear are turned aside by Resolve, not Spirit; the broadly magic-hardened invest in both.)

• Passive: Gain +1 wound on every Blessing heal. Gain +1 Damage Mitigation against magical damage (Blessings and Spells) per 2 points invested.
• At 3 points — Arcane Sensitivity: You can sense the presence of active magic within 30 Ft — a subtle awareness of the weave, not its details. You know something magical is present, not what it is.
• At 6 points — Resonant Vessel: Once per encounter, the next Blessing that heals you grants +Willpower modifier additional damage on top of the normal roll — your spirit draws the healing deeper than flesh alone allows.

The wilderness does not care for your titles. You have lived where others perished — wringing water from stone and warmth from wind. Every point grants +1 permanent Wound and resistance to natural extremes. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1 and grants +1 Damage Mitigation against magical damage.

• Passive: +1 wound per point. Gain Advantage on all tests to resist extreme Cold, Heat, or Hunger. Gain +1 WM vs magical damage per 3 points invested.
• At 3 points — Efficient: You require only half the standard rations to survive and avoid Exhaustion — your body has learned to run lean.
• At 6 points — Trail Rest: You gain full rest benefits in half the normal time — your body recovers with the efficiency of something that has done it under far worse conditions.
• At 9 points — Death's Patience: Once per encounter, when reduced to 0 wounds, you may take 1 additional turn before collapsing — acting normally on that turn before succumbing. Your survival instinct simply will not let you fall yet.

Every point grants +1 permanent Wound. The trained mind holds more than it needs for ordinary circumstances — a reservoir that exists for the moment when ordinary circumstances have ended. For a disciple of any tradition, that reservoir is what lets the casting continue after the body and will should have given out. Willpower Reserve does not make spells stronger; it determines how long you can keep casting when everything else has run dry. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1. (Its higher tiers benefit only those who can cast a discipline — Wizardry, Ki, Druidism, Devotion, Shaman, or Vibhuti. A non-caster still gains the Wounds and the Composure-style resilience of the passive.)

• Passive — Deep Well: You add Willpower Reserve pts to any test made to resist losing concentration on a sustained effect (from damage or disruption). (Resisting fear itself is the province of Zealotry and Resolve.)
• At 3 points — Sustained Efficiency: You weather the toll of casting better than most — the per-turn AP upkeep of your sustained spells and blessings is reduced by 1 (minimum 0).
• At 6 points — Push Through: Once per encounter, when a To-Cast roll fails, you may immediately re-roll it, drawing on the reserve to force the working into being. If the re-roll also fails, you suffer the ⊛ Fatigued condition. This works for any discipline you can cast.
• At 9 points — The Last Cast: Once per session, you may cast a single spell or blessing whose TN you would normally be unable to meet — treat your To-Cast result as automatically equalling its Target Number (a bare success, never a critical). The reserve provides exactly enough and no more. Immediately afterward you suffer the ⊛ Exhausted condition for the remainder of the encounter and cannot cast again until you have rested.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

Conviction is its own armour. Where Resolve endures the supernatural, Zealotry is the fire that makes the mind unbreakable against people — faith, fanaticism, or sheer ideological certainty that leaves no purchase for a silver tongue or a raised fist. Zealotry is the counter to mundane coercion: the charmer finds no vanity to flatter, the bully no fear to seize, the seducer no want to exploit. Every point grants +1 permanent Wound. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1. (Magical fear and compulsion are endured with Resolve; seeing through a social lie is Insight’s work — Zealotry is the refusal to be moved by ordinary persuasion.)

• Passive: To resist mundane Charm, Intimidation, or Seduction — any non-magical attempt to sway, frighten, or entice you — roll 1d10 + Zealotry against the attempt (untrained: Dis.d10 + Willpower). Conviction offers persuasion nothing to hold.
• At 3 points — No Purchase: Mundane Intimidation and Seduction attempts against you are made at Disadvantage. The threat and the temptation both break on a will already spoken for.
• At 6 points — Unshakable: The first mundane coercion attempt against you each encounter — Charm, Intimidation, or Seduction — automatically fails; the approach simply finds nothing to hold.
• At 9 points — Conviction’s Banner: Once per turn as a free action, extend your Zealotry resist to all allies who can see or hear you, until the start of your next turn — they add your Zealotry pts to their own rolls against mundane coercion. Faith held openly steadies everyone who shares the field with you. (The mundane-social mirror of Resolve’s Iron Bulwark.)

The foundation of the butcher's work. Removes the Disadvantage penalty when using specific melee weapon proficiencies. You must purchase this for each weapon category (Swords, Axes, Hammers, etc.) to attack without penalty.

Advanced, punishing training for fighting from horseback. Enables lance charges while moving and removes the Disadvantage penalty for attacking while stationary on a mount.

The discipline of death from afar. Removes the Disadvantage penalty when using specific ranged weapon proficiencies (Bows, Crossbows, Slings, etc.).

The favour of the gods or the blind chance of the universe. Each point grants one Reroll per game session. Fortune points refresh only at the start of a new adventure.

The mind commands and the flesh obeys. Through rigorous meditation and unbreakable habit, you have forged your will into a tool that does not bend when the world pushes back. Every point grants +1 permanent Wound and +1 slot for Blessings, Spells, or Ki powers. Every 3 points increases your Willpower characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Each point grants +1 wound and +1 magical or spiritual resource slot. Holding Actions costs 0 AP to declare — readiness is your natural state.
• At 3 points — Unshaken: You are immune to the Shaken condition. Your mental training does not permit panic to take root.
• At 6 points — Steeled Against Fear: Gain a flat +2 bonus to all Fear tests. Fear is not erased — it is measured, acknowledged, and set aside.
• At 9 points — Mastered Economy: Once per encounter, cast one Blessing or Spell of TN 6 or lower at no AP cost. One working flows from pure habit.

Field medicine: stabilising the dying, stemming bleeding, and restoring wounds through skill and steady hands rather than magic. Your base healing value is Mending Points × 2. Every 3 points increases your Charisma characteristic by 1.

Out of combat — with time and no immediate threat, Mending simply works: restore Mending Points × 2 wounds and clear conditions per your tier, no test required. The trembling hand is steadied by the quiet.

In combat, or under real pressure — you may still work, but the wound fights you. Roll 1d10 + Mending points against a Difficulty Value set by the wounds the patient has suffered, on the Power of Three: DV 3 (light) · DV 6 (moderate) · DV 9 (heavy) · DV 12 (severe) · DV 15+ (critical).

• Success: restore Mending Points × 2 wounds and clear conditions per your tier.
• Failure (a conscious patient): the wound is stubborn under fire — no wounds restored, no conditions cleared. The action is spent.
• Failure (a dying patient at 0 wounds): you cannot close the wound or stem the Bleeding, but you hold death off a moment longer — extend their Iron Will survival window by 1 turn, buying the table another chance to reach them.
• Natural 1: your hands slip at the worst moment. A conscious patient takes 1 damage; a dying patient instead loses a beat of grace — reduce their Iron Will survival window by 1 turn (never an instant death, only one fewer turn before the dark).

• Passive: Stabilise a character at 0 wounds, preventing death for 1 turn. Reduce Bleeding damage by 1 wound per turn per point invested.
• At 3 points — Triage: Stabilise a dying character as a free action instead of costing 1 AP — your hands move to the wound before your mind has finished deciding.
• At 6 points — Clean Hands: Remove one non-magical condition from the target whenever you successfully heal them — Bleeding, Poison, or Disease cleared alongside the wounds.
• At 9 points — Steady Under Fire: The chaos of battle no longer reaches your hands. Gain Advantage on all in-combat Mending tests — you work in the storm as calmly as in the tent.

The first lesson is to not attack. The amateur strikes; the master waits. Every committed blow opens a door, and Riposte is the discipline of seeing the door swing before it has finished moving — and stepping through it with a blade. Where Parry blocks and Dodge avoids, Riposte answers. It is patience taught the language of violence, and once it has been spoken in earnest, the conversation rarely lasts long. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Riposte is a Reaction Action. When an adjacent enemy attacks you in melee and misses, you may spend your Reaction to immediately make a single melee attack against them with +Riposte points to-hit and +Riposte points wounds on a hit. Costs your Reaction for the turn — the same resource as Dodge or Parry.
• At 3 points — Read the Tell: Once per turn, when an enemy declares an attack against you but before the roll is made, you may force them to roll their To-Hit at Disadvantage. You see the strike forming in their stance before they commit. Does not consume your Reaction.
• At 6 points — Doubled Edge: When your Riposte attack lands a natural 10, you may immediately make a second attack against the same target with your standard To-Hit (no Riposte bonus). The first opening always reveals a second. Resolves before the target's next action.
• At 9 points — The Disarming Cut: Your Riposte may target your attacker's weapon hand directly. On a successful hit, the target must surpass Physique TN 8 + your Awareness modifier or suffer the Disarmed condition — their weapon clatters to the ground within 5 Ft. Two-handed weapons require two consecutive successful Disarming Cuts on subsequent turns to dislodge.

Every 3 points invested permanently increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

The projection of cosmic force as spoken frequency — a lost pre-Empire discipline the Church of the Radiant Compact systematically burned. A Speaker cannot be trained; they must find surviving Bija, a living transmission, or contact with something ancient enough to remember when the Vibhuti was practiced openly. Each point unlocks one Vibhuti from the Primordial Lexicon. The Vibhuti advances Willpower — +1 per 3 points invested, by the Power of Three, like the other casting disciplines. Elves, who regard the Vibhuti as a crude and primitive precursor that their Wizardry and Druidism have long since surpassed, find the Bija difficult to integrate — not because they lack capability, but because their contempt for the tradition makes it resist them.

• Governing characteristic: Willpower. Add your Willpower modifier to all Vibhuti To-Cast rolls. The force does not respond to intellect or faith — it responds to the absolute intent carried in the Speaker's Bija.
• Iron penalty: Studded leather or lighter — no penalty. Chainmail through field plate — roughly half the armour's TN penalty. Full plate imposes a flat −3 To-Cast — the constriction of metal against chest and throat disrupts the precise breath control invocation demands, but the penalty is capped at the same ceiling every arcane caster meets in plate.
• Advancement: Cannot be atrophied. Cannot be transferred. The forces the Vibhuti invokes do not forget those who have spoken their Bija.

A shield is not merely a wall of wood and iron — it is a weapon that never reloads and a sanctuary that never falters. Each point invested grants +1 Damage Mitigation while a shield is equipped. Every 3 points increases your Physique characteristic by 1.

• Passive: +1 Damage Mitigation against all melee and standard ranged attacks while a shield is equipped. Declare your stance at the start of each turn.
• At 3 points — Shield Bash: As a 1 AP action, drive your shield into an adjacent target dealing 1d10 + Physique modifier wounds and pushing them back 5 Ft. The target must surpass Physique TN 8 + Resist bonus or suffer Prone.
• At 6 points — Cover: While holding position (movement 0 this turn), one adjacent ally benefits from your full Damage Mitigation bonus as you interpose your shield between them and incoming attacks.

The body's capacity to keep running when everything else has stopped. Not toughness — endurance. The engine inside that refuses to seize, the lungs that keep drawing air when others have given out. Every point increases your maximum Wound threshold by 1 and extends how long you can function before collapsing. Every 3 points increases your Awareness characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Gain +1 wound per point and +1 turn before Exhaustion per point invested.
• At 3 points — Iron Lungs: The duration of any Exhausted condition is halved — your body recovers faster than it has any right to.
• At 6 points — Relentless Recovery: You require only half the normal rest time to gain full recovery benefits.
• At 9 points — Second Wind: Once per encounter, spend 1 AP to immediately remove any one physical condition — Bleeding, Exhausted, Prone, Stunned, or Bound.

The art of remaining unseen — moving without sound, holding without breath, becoming part of the background before anyone thinks to look. The discipline that enables both the Ambush (the devastating opening strike from concealment) and the Backstab (slipping a blade into a foe mid-fight) — see The Geometry of Violence for how each resolves. Every 3 points increases your Agility characteristic by 1.

• Passive: Roll 1d10 + Stealth against an observer's 1d10 + Acute Senses (untrained: Dis.d10 + Awareness) for all hiding, shadowing, and ambush tests. A strike from an undetected position enables an Ambush or Backstab (see The Geometry of Violence for the full two-tier rule).
• At 3 points — Vanish: Spend 1 AP to attempt a Stealth test with Advantage to disappear mid-combat. Requires at least partial cover, shadow, or crowd nearby. On success, enemies must re-locate you before targeting you. On failure you remain visible but the AP is spent.
• At 6 points — Shadow Step: While hidden, you may move up to 10 Ft as a free action once per turn without breaking stealth — slipping between shadows faster than the eye can follow.
• At 9 points — Ghost Strike: Once per encounter, make one attack from stealth without breaking your hidden status. You remain concealed regardless of whether the attack hits or misses. The target knows they were struck — they just cannot find you.

Whether it is the snap of a twig, a tuft of fur on a thorn, or the faint scent of woodsmoke on the wind — the world is a book, and you are one of the few who can still read it. Tracking is not merely sharp eyes but sharp reasoning: assembling scattered signs into a conclusion, inferring weight from a depressed print, direction from a bent blade of grass, intent from a chosen path. Roll 1d10 + Tracker Points against the GM's DV to follow a trail. Every 3 points increases your Intellect characteristic by 1.

• Passive: For every 2 points you exceed the tracking DV, learn one additional detail — number of targets, creature type, condition, or time elapsed.
• At 3 points — Read the Trail: Predict the general direction and likely destination of a tracked target based on their trail — not just where they went but where they are going.
• At 6 points — All Terrain: Track through any surface — stone, water, snow, rooftops — with no terrain penalty to your test. The trail is always there if you know how to look.
• At 9 points — Sixth Sense: Once per session, the GM must warn you if your current path leads into a prepared ambush or trap within 300 Ft — not its nature, just that something is waiting. Your instincts read the silence wrong before your eyes do.

Passive: You no longer need to spend 1 AP on your turn to enter a Reactive Stance for Counter-Casting. You may attempt a Counter-Cast at any time as long as you have the required AP to match the incoming spell.

Passive: Negate outnumbering/flanking bonuses from up to 3 enemies.

⚔ The Berserker Specialized replaces the former Enraged primary skill — fury-driven bonus attacks are now accessed through this mastery.

Mechanic: When hit, test to completely mitigate wounds from an opponent of equal size or smaller.

Passive: +1 Wound Bonus when fighting 2+ enemies.

Passive: +1 WM (All sources), +1 Healing.

Mechanic: Grant ally 1 AP immediately + Charisma to next roll.

Passive: +3 Spell Wound Bonus.

Mechanic: Attempt opposed Agility/Melee roll to mitigate all wounds from an equal or smaller opponent.

Mechanic: Change spell target before wound roll.

Mechanic: TN 7 or less heals Normal + Devotion.

Mechanic: Declare after a hit but before wounds. Negates the attack entirely.

Passive: +1 Melee Wound Bonus.

Passive: +1 Ranged Wound Bonus. Bolts ignore 2 points of Armor Mitigation.

Passive: +2 Melee Wound Bonus.

Passive: +1 Melee Wound Bonus.

Mechanic: Convert offensive TN 7 spell to heal ally for half damage.

Passive: +2 Ranged Wound Bonus.

Passive: Advantage on non-combat Thievery tests.

Passive: +1 Melee Wound Bonus.

Passive: +1 Ranged Wound Bonus. Ignore melee/crowd penalties.

Passive: +2 Melee Wound Bonus (Stealth/Flanking only).

Mechanic: Shift into Predator, Guardian, or Skybound. Costs 1 Spirit/turn.

Passive: +3 Druid Healing.

Mechanic: Requires 25ft momentum. Wounds = 1d10 + (2 x Physique) + unused Shieldsman pts.

Passive: +1 to Willpower/Fear defense.

Mechanic: Dent shield (-1 WM) or damage weapon (-2 Wounds) until repaired.

Passive: +1 Melee Wound Bonus.

Passive: +2 Ranged Wound Bonus. Causes 1 Stunned on hit.

Mechanic: Wounds = Normal + 1d10 + Physique. Target takes 2 Stunned.

Passive: +3 Damage Mitigation against all sources.