The Wiki

These pages explain the machinery under the game: what the dice are doing, what a number on your sheet buys you, and why a fight went the way it did.

They are written for a player, not an engineer. You will not find the formulas here — you will find enough to make a better decision at the door of a dark room.

Start here

• The Engine What this is and what it is being built to become — a framework for campaigns rather than one finished dungeon, and the tools the game itself runs on.
• Dice & Resolution Ten-siders, counted not added. The one difficulty. Tens that roll again, and what it means when something fights back.

Your characters

• Making a Character Attributes, skills and the five races — what your numbers turn into, where your first spells come from, and why there are no classes.
• Attributes & Skills The roster: all nine and all eleven, one at a time, in the game’s own words.
• Editing a Character Rebuild anything — race included — right up until the first point is spent. And the equipment that comes off when you do.
• Spending Experience No levels, one pool, and a conversion rate set to keep a party worth playing for years. What a dot costs, what a lesson costs, and what spending closes off.
• Gear & Carrying Why worn and packed are the same burden, the nine places things go, what to do when something refuses, and the one rule that makes containers worth having.

In a fight

• How Combat Works The round, initiative rolled fresh every time, ranks and reach, what you can actually target, and why running is a gamble rather than an exit.
• Attack & Defense One blow against one defender: what the weapon rolls, why a posture beats a parry, the margin, and the two very different ways to survive being hit.
• Stamina & Effort What every action costs, what pushing harder buys, and the silent ladder that makes a tired character worse at everything.
• Magic Two costs that buy different things — stamina for the roll, mana for the size — the ceiling on any one cast, and why mana never comes back on its own.

In the dungeon

• The Crawl and the Journal Walking the place and keeping a record you can trust — the heading-up map, losing your bearings, your own notes, searching, and the lock you only get one try at.
• Light and the Dark Three lights that are not a ladder, what burns them down, the die you lose fighting blind, and how a party with nothing lit still maps the place.
• Camping The only rest there is: what it costs to stop, how long you dare stay, what a night gives back — and the half-health line it cannot cross.