Powers#

In this game, each player controls one of the great Powers over the course of an Epic spanning multiple seasons of conflict. Each will compete and cooperate to assemble assets, complete ambitions, and forestall their enemies.

From a bird’s eye view, the map shows the Cities and their territories, conquered and annexed by force of arms. A layer lower, Conspiracies spread influence in order to claim outposts in discontiguous territories. Lower still, Champions sneak through the cover of night, popping up wherever their ambitions take them. With luck and creativity, your group will transform this map into a hive of alliances, betrayals, heroism and treachery.

Players looking for a more complicated, detailed gameplay should play as a city, as they will need to balance economy, warfare, and diplomacy with quarrelsome neighbors. Champions are simpler and less risky, with only a single hex mattering at any given time. Conspiracies are somewhere in the middle.

Example powers from Lord of the Rings and Hobbit: Elrond and Denethor lead their respective Sovereign cities, Galadriel is probably closer to a Celestial, Saruman is an Overlord over his uruk-hai minions. The Rangers of the North are a Circle, as would be the Ents, the Witch-King leads a Cult of Nazgul, and the Dwarves trying to take back the lonely mountain are a Cause. Gandalf is the archetypical Wizard and Smaug is a clear Dragon. Aragorn is perhaps a Paragon, but you could also model him as a different face that arrives to lead the sovereign city of Gondor. Sauron himself has capabilities too broad for any of these categories.

Adversaries#

Any power run by the GM is called an Adversary. These act independently from the players but can interact with player powers in all the usual ways. The GM may add adversaries at the end of any season, to maintain tension in the campaign. They always have some sort of immunity that makes them challenging to deal with permanently.

Minor adversaries have fewer actions than player powers and major powers, and they don’t have any immunity effects, so they can be permanently taken out more easily.

Actions and Challenges:#

Phases Each Month: Planning > Resolution > Resistance > Battle
Phases Each Season: Tidings > [Month] > [Month] > Cleanup

Powers primarily influence the world through their Actions, of which they take a certain number each month. All actions are marked with the *️⃣symbol.

Each type of Power comes with a unique collection of basic actions, but you can propose your own at any time. Much of the game is in proposing complicated or creative actions, finding ways to leverage disparate assets to further your goals. Communication with other players is not an action, but substantial negotiations to convince or coordinate with NPCs is an action.

Players submit their actions during the Planning Step. Actions are resolved during the resolution step in submission order (all first actions, then all second actions, and so on). When there is an important tie in the order of activations, champions go before conspiracies which go before cities; further ties are decided by GM coin flip.If a player fails to submit all actions during the Planning step, excess actions each convert into rank 2 schemes.

Prespecified actions in these rules may have a listed Difficulty, otherwise they have difficulty 0. For newly proposed actions, the GM may declare the difficulty or secretly record it. When you attempt an action with a difficulty greater than 0, it is a Challenge, and you must build a dice pool. They may also have a Cost, which you pay at the start of the action.

Whenever a power submits an action with a chance of failure, they also submit a challenge roll. They select any number of assets to use (they must be arguably relevant to the action), then roll a number of d6 equal to the sum of the ranks of those assets. Every 5 and 6 is a success. For every 3 and 4, they may choose to take it as a success, but doing so incurs one consequence. If the successes match or exceed the difficulty, the power succeeds in the challenge.

You work with the GM to determine the form the consequences take. Consequences can disrupt or damage your assets, reveal information you’d prefer to keep hidden, cost additional actions or resources, apply statuses to your armies and towns, strengthen your enemies, lessen your rewards, etc. If you are unhappy with your action after rolling, often because success would come with too many consequences, you can mark it discarded in your submission for the month, though actions and resources spent are not usually refunded.

You choose how many 3s and 4s to convert when you roll — before any secret difficulty is revealed. Most actions carry an inherent difficulty from these rules; the ones that don’t are the negotiated sort, where the GM either declares the difficulty or records it secretly. The GM reveals hidden difficulties at resolution, after your consequences are locked. In practice the most common hidden difficulty is resistance ↩️: when you act, you don’t know how strong a resistance you may need to overpower, and when you resist, you don’t know how many successes you must cut down.

When deciding whether to resist, you can see the pool of assets that was arrayed against you — but not the dice rolled or how many consequences its owner accepted. If a private action targets you and you get to resist, you learn who is acting and what the action is once it is submitted — you alone, not the table. Assets the GM has kept hidden from you stay hidden until the GM reveals them, though the total size of the dice pool always counts them (see Hidden Information: you learn the pool's size, never whether any dice are assured or critical).

Common actions with special rules include Rituals (see Magic), Duels (see Below), and Negotiations (see Below). There are also actions you can take if you control an army (see Warfare) or claim a town (see Towns). These are not meant to be exclusive: If there’s something your power would want to do within the fiction, you can work with the GM to create rules for that action.

Powers can combine their assets and resources for a shared action, though each must spend an action to do so. They roll their asset pools separately and can coordinate on how many consequences to take (though each power has final control and responsibility for consequences within their pool).

Some actions allows another power to resist, marked with this symbol: ↩️. These are still a challenge even when the difficulty is 0 or unmarked. Each power gets one reaction per month ↩️, and must use them reasonably quickly after a month’s resolution (~24 hours, though you can request an extension if needed). When resisting, you cannot use assets or assistance from other powers. To resist, roll an asset pool as if it was its own challenge, and reduce the successes of the triggering action by your number of successes.

Any action that permits resistance doesn’t grant its rewards until after the resistance step, this prevents chained actions from being disrupted by the resistance rolls of others.

Actions have a location; the hex where a power gathers their assets together to take the action. For actions that move your game pieces, such as the muster action to move armies or any action to relocate an asset, the location can either be the origin or destination point. If moving items from multiple origins to a single destination, then the destination must be the location of the action. No action moves pieces from multiple points to multiple points. Some actions, particularly rituals, allow you to affect a faraway point; the action’s location in these cases must be the origin of the effect.

Example Actions:

*️⃣♥️Negotiation: Attempt to bring an NPC, such as an adversary, rogue army, or agent around to your way of thinking or into your influence. Negotiation doesn’t apply to Player Powers themselves, but it can be used to elicit actions from their peripheral assets and contacts; in those cases, the powers may ↩️. The Cost is dependent on the amount of effort or work you are requesting. The difficulty is usually the target’s rank, but is heavily modified by the extent to which their ideals and goals align with yours.

Example: The Rangers of the North entreat Elrond, who leads a Minor City, to lend them his scouting parties to help locate some of their apparently kidnapped members. Elrond doesn’t want to risk the lives of the scouts, but is aligned with the rangers and would relent in exchange for an artifact of theirs he wishes to study. At 4 successes, the Rangers could win him over completely without the artifact, but with only 2 they could arrange the deal by handing it over. They roll 6,6,5,3,1,1. They take 1 consequence, which the GM determines is “Enemies kidnapped one of the emissaries; another power now knows you have the artifact and the location of one of your outposts”

*️⃣Duel: Attempt to defeat a specific character, such as a Champion, Agent, Army commander, or otherwise, in one on one conflict. You must declare the target’s location at the time of the attack; if you declare incorrectly, the action is lost. The target may ↩️, describing how they defend themselves; they may try to fight back on a completely different front from the duel declaration. On a success, you can kill, imprison, rob, or otherwise greatly inconvenience the target. Non-Minor Champions have an immunity ability that makes them difficult to attack directly, while this immunity applies they cannot be killed by a duel. The leaders of Cities and Conspiracies have no such protections. Difficulty: 1.

Example: Gandalf duels the Balrog of Moria, a minor adversary. Gandalf rolls 5,4,3,3,2,1, plus has two assured successes from his demonhunting blade. He knows that the balrog is likely to resist, and will probably have 5 dice for the resistance. Doing the math, he chooses to take three consequences to have a good chance of success. The GM offers: “your Wizard will fall into a vast pit and you will lose two any actions next month (2 consequences) and the party you are leading will gain “Despondent 2”, believing you dead (1 consequence).” Gandalf accepts. During resistance, the Balrog indeed chooses to resist, and knows only that Gandalf had some successes. The Balrog rolls poorly and manages just three successes, for a total difficulty of 5, less than gandalf’s 6 successes. Gandalf already knows how to bypass the balrogs immunity to physical force, so is able to defeat and destroy the balrog in this duel.

*️⃣👁️Targeted Seeking: Search in a hex and the surrounding area for hidden creatures, stealthy armies, and unseen influence. Name one particular thing you are looking for, gaining a single assured success against it. Influence is detected on one success, hidden armies on two successes, and any creatures or hidden objects are uncovered on 3 successes. Cannot be resisted.

*️⃣👁️Broad Seeking: As targeted seeking, but it covers a hex and all surrounding hexes and the difficulty to detect each category is doubled.

Assets:#

Attributes:#

• Location: The hex where the asset is currently located or garrisoned
• Mobility: If the asset is located in a particular place, how far away it can be used
• Cost: The resources expended to use the asset
• Frequency: How often the asset can be used

Types of Assets:#

You can use any number of assets on each challenge, but you can’t apply multiple assets that share a class, such as two agents or two consumables.

Actions:#

You can always spend actions as a rank 1 Assured asset for challenges. This is always on top of the action cost of a challenge.

Skills:#

An inherent capacity that a power can Always Apply, but only up to one skill per action. Skills cannot be shared. The skills are listed below. They have an associated “tag” which is used to mark some actions. An action with a skill tag cannot use other skills, and each action can only use up to one skill. When reacting to a tagged action, you generally have to use the same skill, with the exception of subtlety and vigilance; subtlety is always resisted with vigilance and vice versa.
⚔️Warfare - Raising and Training Armies. Coordinating military forces outside of battle (but not transporting armies over distance).
⚒️Industry - Building Industries and Structures, Forging Equipment
⚖️Law - Understanding and manipulating levers of state. Collecting Taxes. Arguing over legal agreements.
🦶Transport - Moving Goods, People, and Armies. Establishing trade routes.
👤 Subtlety - Acts of Stealth, Misdirection, and Sabotage.
👁️ Vigilance - Detecting Intrusion and Intrigue, resisting Subtlety.
🔮Sorcery - Weaving enchantments, Crafting magical equipment, Completing Rituals
♥️Charisma - Negotiation and Persuasion
📖Delve - Research and knowledge of history. Also dungeon exploration.
🌱Nature - Understanding and manipulating plants, animals, and weather

Note that skills are associated with powers, not individual persons. A Celestial’s City applies its skills to challenges conducted by faraway agents, even though the celestial’s personal magic isn’t directly relevant.

Agents:#

An individual with rare capabilities. Each agent acts just once per season. Agents charge a fee each time they act for a power (unless they are Loyal). Agent relations with Powers range through Hostile - Neutral - Friendly - Loyal.

Most agents have a mobility of 3.

• Rooted agents live in a particular place, only acting within their mobility range of that location.
• Follower agents are free to move as instructed by their employer. A city can use a follower as if they were based out of any of their claimed towns, a conspiracy can use them as if they were located in any influenced hexes, and champions take their followers with them as they move.

Industries:#

A collection of skilled people in a town with the infrastructure for complex work (See Towns and Features). In addition to generating wealth and resources, some can be used as assets, but not more than once per season. Anyone with a claim to a town can use its industries by paying their fees, but industries loyal to a power will refuse to act against them and will waive the fee for that power.

Armies:#

Some armies have keywords such as “Engineers” or “Arcane” that allow them to assist in challenges outside of combat. Powers that control an army can use them this way once per season. Armies without such keywords are not organized to be helpful outside of combat. Once mustered to a new hex, an army can only be used in the new hex, not elsewhere. A Personal Army (a champion's own body) cannot take profession keywords and never assists in a challenge, duels included.

Secrets:#

A vital piece of information hidden from the world. Usually very powerful but very specific. They can be shared freely and across any distance, but once shared they can never be retracted. Many secrets benefit from the element of surprise and are Assured or Critical on their first use.

Magic Items:#

Can be traded but not shared. Items are generally pretty specific, but can be used repeatedly. Items are small enough that they can be transported any distance as part of an action, but if they have a wielder, the wielder must be able to reach the location of use. Magics items can be found, repaired, or crafted.

Consumables:#

Can be traded but not shared. Consumables can only be used once. They are small enough that they can be transported any distance.

• Potions: An alchemical concoction in a tempered glass bottle: usually very powerful but specific.
• Unique materials: Mithril, Silverthorn Thistle, Pixie Dust, etc. These materials are produced by some resource extractors and are generally helpful for crafting and enchantments
• Luxuries: Wine, silk, gems, etc. These items are produced by some dedicated industries. They are useful for bribes and persuasion.
• Experience: Hard-won lessons from a battle.
• Schemes: A formless plan not yet brought to fruition. A scheme can be applied to any challenge, even if it’s hard to imagine foreseeing it.

Spells:#

Can only be used by the caster, though shared actions can of course allow the caster to support another power. They can be used repeatedly, but the mana cost must be paid each time.

Assured and Critical Assets:#

An asset that is assured doesn’t roll, instead providing that many successes automatically. An asset that is critical grants three times as many successes.

When trying to ascertain the vampiric influence in a newly acquired city, you might decide between seeking the aid of the guild of medics or an itinerant warpriest. The medics are Assured professionals at detecting disease and corruption, but the warpriest’s zeal might allow them to have a Critical contribution.

Surprise: The assets described in this document broadly represent well known resources that your adversaries are prepared for. When you acquire or design a novel asset, it benefits from the element of surprise, and is either critical or assured (your choice within reason) on its first usage. When an army with a novel ability is first used in combat, if it is effective in the context of the battle, it issues a morale check on an enemy army.

If an asset would be both assured and critical its user applies a benefit of their choice, not both.

Resources:#

Some actions come with additional costs, paid for with resources. These are not assets in and of themselves, so cannot be directly applied to challenges.

Designs and Fragments:#

The designs for an object or a broken version of an object, often a magic item. Designs and Fragments come with a specified Challenge that turns them into the full object. Fragments can be reused, Designs cannot. They are not assets for their own challenges, but they can sometimes be assets for others.

Mana:#

In order to cast a spell, you must spend the associated amount and kind of mana of the 4 elements: Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. Mages speak of other species of mana, such as Dark and Light, but few yet know how to acquire them. Mana is tempestuous and spoils quickly; you must have a special perk to be able to channel or store mana, and any mana you do store dissipates at the end of each season.

Coin:#

Little pieces of gold, silver, and copper. They are dense and easily transported and so are tracked on your power sheet, rather than the map. A single “coin” is approximately a satchel of mixed pieces, enough money to support a comfortable lifestyle for a year. Coin is used to pay for mercenaries, but can also change hands to cover fees, bribes, and the costs of many other actions.

Insights:#

Random notes, rumors, pieces of lore, and unmarked dossiers from your spies. They are not specified when received, but wait until used. You can expend an insight to ask followup questions to any piece of information that the GM provides. Several insights can be spent to complete information gathering tasks in an ambition.

Respect:#

The expectation in the minds of lesser folk that you will protect them from harm and reward their support for your actions. Respect can be spent like coin, but can’t be traded. Powers that use respect:

• Gain respect equal to their number of successes on town Build actions
• Gain respect equal to their number of successes on army Train actions

Fear:#

The expectation in the minds of lesser folk that you will punish them for acting against you or refusing your requests. Fear can be spent like coin, but can’t be traded. Powers that use fear:

• Gain fear at the end of a battle equal to the number of units they slew plus the rank of the highest ranked unit they slew.
• Gain fear equal to an agent’s rank by killing them (or destroying their feature, in the case of industries). Executing an agent in your power is a free action.

Favor:#

The support of powerful beings that can’t directly intercede in worldly affairs. You can spend a favor for game-breaking instantaneous miracles, for an infusion of 3 Light or Dark mana, or to replace an army keyword with a premium keyword on levelup.

Ambitions#

Each player power and major adversary has a collection of ambitions, historic accomplishments that drive forward your citizens, comrades, or simply yourself. Major ambitions are very complicated, taking many seasons to complete, and represent victory conditions for each chapter of the campaign. Minor ambitions are smaller goals on the path to greatness.

Ambitions are concrete and achievable. “Defend my towns” will never be complete and so is an inappropriate ambition, but “Defend my city until the horde of elven nomads is defeated”. Ambitions (great and small) come with a checklist of tasks. Tasks with ❗are central, you must pass a certain number to achieve the ambition. If it becomes impossible to complete enough of the❗tasks, or if another power completes them without substantial assistance from you, then they are considered failed. You can also abandon an ambition at any time. Some tasks are mysterious, only revealed after you complete a previous task; those are additionally marked with ❓.

Each ambition has a fame score describing how difficult and out of the way it is. An ambition to defeat a host of rampaging emus already attacking your towns is worth less than an ambition to defend a neighbor from such a host, or than an ambition to rile up a peaceful (but evil) host of emus and then defeat them. Similarly, ambitions that come with a substantial material reward also reduce their score; if your neighbors offer to pay you heaps of gold to defeat the emus, then it’s less impressive to do so. Major ambitions have a fame score between 15 and 25, while minor ambitions have a score between 5 and 10. See the next section for how to spend fame.

At the end of each season, you may select a new minor or major ambition if you are missing them. When selecting ambitions, you may either propose some (in batches of 2-3 is usually most helpful, unless there’s a single clear choice) or request options from the GM (who will provide 2-3). When requesting options, select one of the options below. Adding an ambition can often create a reward to obtain; for instance you might have never heard of the “Blade of Aaron Noda” before proposing or accepting a minor ambition “Recover the Blade of Aaron Noda”. If you create a new problem for yourself when you select or propose an ambition, you immediately get resources in compensation.

Multiple powers can take the same ambition (major or minor), but they then split the fame reward based on their relative contributions. Sometimes a player will propose a neat ambition they thought of, but don’t want to take themselves; any number of other players can claim it, though if one player is really excited about it it’s polite to let them have it.

Adversaries don’t gain fame from their ambitions. Instead, their ambitions serve to make their goals more legible and concrete.

Example Ambition Types:

Deeds: Demonstrations of your strength and capability. Reward: Respect or Fear

Grudges: Someone has wronged you and needs to pay for it. Go to their home and do violence to them. Reward: You take their most valuable resource or asset that isn’t nailed down.

Grace: Heal the sick, repair the broken, protect the defenseless. Reward: Friendship or loyalty from the creature you helped.

Mysteries: Uncover the unknown or make a paradox sensible. Reward: a powerful secret

Quests: Recover or remake an item of historical significance. Reward: a magic item

Services: Follow the commandments of the higher or lower planes. Reward: Favor

Example Ambitions:

Quell Rebellion in The Western Villages - Deed: Achieved after two ❗. Reward: 9 Fame and 7 Fear.

• Interrogate Elizabeth Caltrop, the previous rebel leader sitting in your prison
• Meet with Simon Caltrop, the rebel leader
• Discover who is financially supporting the rebellion
• ❓❗Stop the financial support going to the rebels
• ❗Remove the Rogue Army of Dwarven Rebels outside the town of Maleran
• ❗Reduce the counts of Uprising in the village of Derop to 0.

Free My Mentor From Count Caliphrase - Grace: Achieved after one❗. Reward: 7 Fame and your mentor as a Loyal Asset.

• Discover where my mentor is being held
• Sneak past that town’s Watching Walls without being detected
• ❗Delve into the Octarine Oubliette to at least the first floor, where my mentor is held
• Obtain leverage over Caliphrase
• ❗Negotiate with Caliphrase to free my mentor.

Reward: A loyal rank 2 Mentor follower.

Recover the Blade of Aaron Noda - Quest: Achieved after one❗. Reward: 5 Fame and Aaron’s Blade

• Read about the blade in the library of Windhome
• Discuss the blade with the historian Maude Steelmolde
• ❗❓Travel to the Blade’s location
• ❗Delve into the dungeon where the blade is located, to at least the second floor.
• ❗Cast Aaron’s ritual of conjuration to summon the blade. Cost: WWWWAAAAA, Difficulty 6.

Fame and Development#

At the start of each season, during Tidings, powers may spend fame on new skills, new skill ranks and new perks.

• New Skill: 2 Fame, then increase the cost of this development by 2
• +1 Skill Rank: The number of ranks you’re reaching times 2
• New Perk or upgrade this perk: 5 Fame, then increase the cost of this development by 2

[These costs are designed so that it’s very difficult to accumulate large numbers of perks or skills, but less hard to develop secondary skills after ranking up your first skill]

Powers start with different numbers of initial perks and skills; New Skill and New Perk don’t care about these initial counts.

Playtest Rules#

All game mechanics are subject to change. If a perk, asset, army, or otherwise is determined to be overpowered, it may be nerfed. The power which controls it may decide to refund the cost to obtain it, or to exchange it for a similarly costed object. Those powers receive a 1 fame tip either way, for bringing the mechanic to light.

Players may also receive small amounts of fame for assisting the GM, supporting the game, or producing creative works of epic adjacent media.

Creating a Power#

Mechanical:#

1. Create a new power sheet in the google drive for the epic, sharing it with just the GM.
2. Choose a Power class and subclass (see Cities, Conspiracies, and Champions), then add its information to your sheet, making selections of starting resources, armies, and otherwise as you go. Note that even at this stage you can propose alternatives to the examples in this document.
3. Choose whether your power uses Respect or Fear (see Resources) to exert control, and start with 3 of the chosen resources.
4. Gain a perk (see Perks, or your subclass advancement perks)
5. Describe three contacts you are friendly with in different towns on the map. They are rooted agents of ranks 1, 2, and 3. (see Assets)

Role Play:#

1. Describe your Emissaries, the mechanisms or people your power uses to communicate with others. All Powers have emissaries that can reach anywhere in the campaign map and communicate at least simple messages with anyone. Emissaries are easy to replace; killing another power’s emissary for dramatic effect is rude but not mechanically impactful.
2. Based on your power class, describe your appearance
   1. City: What do towns look like when you rule them? What does the average citizen think of their leadership? What do your lesser bureaucrats and go-betweens look like and care about? What is visiting your capitol or throneroom like?
   2. Conspiracy: What does it look like on the ground when you gain influence in an area? What does your membership and leadership look like to outsiders, and what do they call themselves?
   3. Champion: What do you look like, and are you obviously magical? What do people know about you, if anything?
3. If you would like, you may declare a face (see Faces) for any of your armies, industries, or other peripheral organizations and characters. This is the character that others RP with when they interact with them; the GM controls them during these interactions, but will follow your flavor guidance.

Gameplay#

Game Pieces#

Powers: The various great forces in the world, including Cities, Conspiracies, and Champions

Hex: One space on the main world map. Hexes have a terrain type (below), up to one town, and up to 6 features.

Towns: A center of economic activity, populated by a mortal race. Each City power is centered on one town, though they likely control others as well. Towns have a Wealth attribute, which measures how much coin they generate when Taxed or Tended, and a Population attribute, which measures the number of souls that call it home.

Features: A special property of a hex, such as an Industry in a town, a dungeon or stronghold in the wilderness, the secret outpost of a conspiracy, etc.

Wilderness: Hexes without towns. These hexes tend to be less important, though they can still contain unique features.

Armies: A large group of soldiers with a shared origin and loyalties, a small cadre of magical monsters, or an individual titanic being. The basic component of the mass combat system.

Time#

The overarching story of a group playing Powers is called an Epic. An Epic is built of Books which each can take years in the game world and months IRL. Each Book will see the rise and fall of major adversaries, serving as a complete narrative arc. Generally groups will take a hiatus between Books to recharge and think about where they want to go next in the game, if they do decide to continue their story. Note that powers grow in strength and complexity over time, and this system is not designed to support powers that have grown for more than about three books without a reset of some kind. For instance, a city might develop into a sprawling empire, at which point its player switches to piloting an unrelated Dragon and two new players come in to run rivalrous princes who each inherited half of its territory.

Mechanically, Gameplay is divided into seasons and months, divided into the following phases:
Phases Each Month: Planning > Resolution > Resistance > Battle
Phases Each Season: Tidings > [Month] > [Month] > Cleanup

Planning: On their own time, players discuss plans amongst themselves and privately submit a set of actions to the GM. The submissions include the set of assets used in the actions, creating a dice pool that the player rolls, deciding how many consequences to accept in order to build a count of successes.

Resolution: The GM takes in the submitted actions and processes them, determining who succeeds and who fails, and announces publicly visible events.

Resistances: Some actions allow a power to resist by spending a reaction ↩️. Resistances must be declared shortly following the resolution announcement (~24 hours). To prevent things from bogging down in this step, you must resist alone. You cannot receive assistance or assets from other powers.

Battle: If any hex contains opposed armies, they fight. A pair of armies is opposed if at least one of their leaders decides that they are. See Warfare.

Seasons last two or three months. After the final month, there are two additional steps:

Cleanup: Statuses tick down. Mana dissipates. Mustered armies return to their garrisons.

Tidings: The GM prepares and releases a short announcement of events for the next season, which might include mechanical effects. New Adversaries appear. Powers perform various maintenance in this step, such as spreading influence and supporting armies, and may begin drafting actions for the next planning phase as soon as they are done.

Hidden Information:#

This is a game about plotting, alliances, and intrigue. Powers often complete secret acts to secret ends. At the same time, shared information grounds the narrative and makes it a more interesting experience. We balance hidden and public information in the following ways.

It is the GMs role to take in and dole out hidden information. No information should be hidden from the GM.

Actions: During Resolution, the dice pools, consequences, and results of Public actions are all declared publicly. The dice pools, consequences, and results of Private actions are not declared this way. Only those who can see a private action see its results - usually the owner, targets of a resolved ↩️ action, and declared collaborators. If a power can ↩️ to an action, they always learn the size of the dice pool rolled against them, but they don’t know if any of the dice are assured or critical, and they don’t know how many consequences were taken. For private actions that permit a ↩️, this is a private message.

Ambitions: The name and fame scores of ambitions are revealed publicly, but their details are not. The details can change the meaning of an ambition; for instance, the ambition “rescue the princess Adelaine” could come with the followup “and induct her into our vampiric order.”

Assets and Perks: Each power’s assets are hidden information, with the exception of industries (see Features below). Agents are unusual in that they can be a contact for multiple powers; they are still private from any other powers until something reveals them. Perks are public.

Armies: Armies are too loud and clumsy to permit much secrecy. Scores and keywords of visible armies are default public (some armies, such as those with Stealthy or those which are currently dispersed, are nonvisible).

Features: The built features of towns, such as their industries, are public information. Other landscape features can be public or private.

Resources: A power’s non-asset resources such as coin, respect, fear, and mana are private.

Shared Assets:#

Some assets, such as agents and Industries, can be shared between multiple powers, though they usually have once per season limit. When a power tries to use an asset that has already been used up, they are informed during the resolution step. Any dice rolled from the asset are removed, along with any consequences taken to activate them. This often means that getting undercut on a central asset can have devastating effects.

On the rare occasion that an asset’s decisions matter outside of an action, the GM gives choice over the decision to the power that has treated them best, assuming they still view any power favorably.

Players should feel free to coordinate on who can use a shared asset. Players should feel free to backstab other players by breaking these agreements.

Faces:#

This is a role-playing game in addition to everything else. Every game piece made of one or more mortals has a face, a character that can be RPd with; this character is called a face. Many faces will start and remain implicit: they don’t need to be specified until a player tries to interact with one. When a player or GM specifies a face, they provide the character with a small depiction, a few descriptive adjectives, and a few example lines of dialogue.

Players control and RP as the faces for the highest ranks of their power (for champions, this is simply the champion themself, whereas for cities it is the mayors of towns and the city rulers), their emissaries, and any loyal faces in their periphery. The Periphery are characters and organizations that you largely control but aren’t immune to manipulation and negotiation from other powers. These include Agents, Generals of Armies, Foremen of Industries, etc. A player can specify the faces of their periphery at any time, though they only get to make decisions for their loyal members; the GM RPs for non-loyal members of the periphery.

Towns and Features#

Towns#

The distant powers with claims to a town’s resources and decisions don’t need to micromanage how housing is built for workers, or how many wells to dig, but they control the development of major town features like mines or colleges, and certainly could propose unusual projects to improve or expand the town.

A town can be claimed by multiple powers at the same time. Each power can separately use the actions associated with the town. Different types of powers can use the following actions to lay claims on towns. Each town can be claimed by up to one power of each type. When a town makes decisions, they generally default to the “senior claimant” - the power which has maintained the claim for the longest time.

*️⃣⚖️Annex - See Cities
*️⃣⚖️Infiltrate - See Conspiracies
*️⃣⚖️Commandeer - See Champions

Several actions require a claim on at least one town to activate, though they can all use assets from outside the town (following usual range and mobility restrictions):

*️⃣⚖️ Tax - Gain coins equal to the wealth of the town. Apply Taxed and Uprising 1. Difficulty: The sum of negative statuses (such as Taxed, Depopulated, Uprising, etc.) that make it difficult to extract wealth from the town.
*️⃣ 🦶 or ♥️ Trade - Attempt to forge a trade agreement with another town. Each town gains wealth equal to the number of new resources they have access to. This action must be taken by a power that claims both towns or a group of powers that claim both towns between them. Unclaimed towns cannot trade—a town must be claimed (work with a conspiracy or champion to claim the towns you want to trade with). Difficulty: The excess mobility of the traded goods and services. The difficulty is increased by a further 2 if the towns are not claimed by the same power
*️⃣ 🦶 Lay Roads - Add roads to a hex to make travel through it easier. Difficulty: 3, increased to 6 for hexes with difficult terrain.
*️⃣ ♥️ Hold a Feast - Create a grand affair to attract the attention of scattered agents. The GM will provide rooted agents with total rank equal to the number of excess successes. Difficulty: The current total rank of rooted agents in the town. +1 and then doubled if agents in this town have died in this or the previous season.
*️⃣ 🌱 Feed - Increase the population of this town by 1. Difficulty: Current population, doubled for each time this action has been taken in this town this season.
*️⃣ ⚒️Build - Construct a new built feature in this town. It is loyal to you. You may include any number of upgrades, though they increase the complexity. Difficulty: The complexity of the new feature, plus the number of existing features.
*️⃣ ⚒️Upgrade - Adds new upgrades to a feature in place. This decreases the difficulty of the build by 1, saves the trouble of demolishing the old feature, and allows a feature to support the construction of its replacement. Difficulty: The complexity of the new feature, plus the number of other existing features.
*️⃣ ⚖️/⚔️ Demolish - Attempt to destroy a built feature in this town. Other powers with a claim on the town can ↩️. Difficulty: 1.
*️⃣⚔️Levy - Recruit people in a town to form a level 1 army. See Warfare.

Built Features:#

Industries#

An Industry is any built feature in a town that requires mortal effort to sustain. Many increase a town’s wealth or act as assets for challenges. Industries have a complexity measuring how difficult they are to build and run: industries cease to operate if the town population falls below their complexity. If the population falls below the number of industries, they also cease to operate, in an order based on the town’s senior claimant.

Extractors: Mobility 3. Provides a rank 1 asset in the form of provided materials. This asset is Assured for ⚒️ actions. When used, you must select a hex of the appropriate terrain in range and roll 1d4. On a 4 or greater, gain an instance of the unique resource from the targeted hex. Fee 1. Provides +1 Wealth and an additional resource for trade. Complexity: 1, Wood.

• Lumberyard. Collects Wood from Forests
• Mine: Collects Iron from Mountains
• Dredger: Collects Salt from Coast
• Quarry: Collects Stone from Mountains or Coast
• Weaver: Collects Paper from Forest or Coast

Upgrades: Extended (x2 Mobility), Specialized (+1 asset rank, +1 to resource rolls), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases complexity by 2.

Farms: Mobility 3. Can only be built if there are Plains within mobility range. Provides a rank 1 asset “plentiful food” that is assured for actions that raise town populations, such as Feed. Provides +1 Wealth and Grain for trade. Complexity: 1, Wood.
Upgrades: Extended (x2 Mobility), Specialized (+1 asset rank, +1 to resource rolls), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases complexity by 2.

Guilds: Mobility 6. Provides a rank 2 asset in the form of expertise and support staff, usually associated with a particular skill. Fee 2. Provides +1 Wealth. Complexity: 3, Stone.

• Mercenaries’ / Vultures’ ⚔️
• Smiths’ / Masons’ ⚒️
• Barristers’ / Accountants and Usurers’ ⚖️
• Merchants’ / Carters and Drovers’🦶
• Thieves’ / Assassins’👤
• Watchmen’s / Beggars’👁️
• Arcanist’s / Priests', Sacerdotes' and Occult Intermediaries' 🔮
• Chef’s / “Seamstress’”♥️
• Archaeologists’ / Ratcatchers’ 📖
• Alchemists’ / Barber-Surgeons’🌱

Upgrades: Extended (x2 Mobility), Commercial (Provides a Service for the purpose of trade routes and +2 Wealth), Specialized (+1 asset rank, choose a subspecialty for which this guild is Assured), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases complexity by 2.

Colleges: Mobility 6. Provides a rank 3 asset in the form of wizened professors and eager students, usually associated with a particular skill. When used, also gain an insight of rank 1d4. Fee 3. Provides +1 Wealth. Complexity: 6, Wood and Paper
Upgrades: Extended (x2 Mobility), Commercial (Provides +2 Wealth), Specialized (Choose a subspecialty for which this college is Assured), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases complexity by 2.

Port: Mobility 6. Used for any🦶 action initiated within range, granting the ability to pass through water as if it was normal terrain, and counts as a rank 1 asset for the action. Fee 2. Provides +2 Wealth. Complexity 3, Wood
Upgrades: Extended (x2 Mobility), Specialized (Becomes Critical), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases the complexity by 2 and the Wealth benefit by 1.

Caravansary: Mobility 4. Used for any🦶 action initiated within range and counts as a rank 1 asset for the action. Fee 2. Provides +2 Wealth. Complexity 2, Wood
Upgrades: Extended (x2 Mobility), Specialized (Becomes Critical), Vast (Becomes a rank 2 asset), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases the complexity by 2 and the Wealth benefit by 1.

Bank: Mobility 0. Rank 2 ⚖️ Asset. Fee 1. Coin can be stored in this feature. Anyone with a claim to the town can remove the coin. Provides wealth equal to a third of the stored coin, to a max of 3. Complexity 3, Stone.
Upgrades: Vaults (Powers can only extract coin if they have claimed the town for a full season), Specialized (Increases max wealth bonus to +6), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases the complexity by 2.

Prison: Mobility 0. Rank 1 Asset for intimidating civilians and securing prisoners. Removes 1 Uprising at the end of each month. When you tax in this town, you can generate Fear based on the population rather than coin based on the wealth. Captured Armies can be held here securely, and can be released by any power with a claim on this town.
Complexity 2, Wood and Stone.
Upgrades: Vaults (Powers can only extract prisoners if they have claimed the town for a full season), Specialized (Removes 2 uprising each month), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases the complexity by 2.

Training Grounds: Mobility 0. Provides a rank 2 ⚔️asset in the form of training staff and space for instruction. This asset is Assured for Train actions. Fee 2. Complexity: 2, Wood.
Upgrades: Extended (+6 Mobility), Specialized (+1 asset rank, allows armies to change their class), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it), Oldblood Recruiting (While training a Drake army past level 1 using this building, you may take one premium keyword instead of one of your level-up bonuses. Can only be built in a Drake city with population >5). Each upgrade increases complexity by 2.

Herd: Mobility 6. Provides a rank 2 asset in the form of extra mounts, generally applicable for 🦶 actions. Can also be used to train an army, without providing any dice: the army can forgo one levelup bonus to gain mounts of the provided type. Provides common horses unless a breeding pair of other mounts is provided on construction (these increase the complexity and effectiveness). Fee 3. Provides +1 Wealth. Complexity: 3

• Horses, +0 complexity, +2 Mobility (to affected armies)
• Giant Rams, +1 Complexity, +1 Mobility, Grants Mountaineer and +1 unit
• Griffins, +2 Complexity, +2 Mobility, Can move across hexes as if flying and can spend momentum in battle when commanded to gain Flying 2.
• Hippopotamuses, +3 Complexity, +1 Mobility, +1 Attack, Defense, and Presence, but -1 Morale.
• Drakes, +4 Complexity, +2 Mobility, Grants Firespitting, Can move across hexes as if flying and can spend momentum in battle when commanded to gain Flying 2.

Upgrades: Extended (x2 Range), Specialized (Acts as an asset and is Critical for train actions), Durable (Ignores the first effect each season that would disrupt or damage it). Each upgrade increases complexity by 2.

Defenses#

Wooden Walls: Armies outside the walls cannot declare a battle against armies inside the walls until they have spent at least one full month in the location. Provides the “Wooden Walls” Goal in battles, which has thresholds 2/2. Complexity 2, Wood. [Most towns start with Wooden Walls]

Stone Walls: Armies outside the walls cannot declare a battle against armies inside the walls until they have spent at least a full month in the location. Provides the “Stone Walls” Goal in battles, which has thresholds 2/4. Complexity 4, Stone.

Layered Walls: Armies outside the walls cannot declare a battle against armies inside the walls until they have spent at least a full month in the location. Provides the “Layered Walls” Goal in battles, which has thresholds 2/6. Complexity 7, Stone.

Strongholds#

Strongholds are imposing, secluded structures built in the wilderness. Not built for public access, they are incapable of the large scale work of industries, instead providing comfortable and safe accommodations for individuals and armies. At a base level, strongholds provide the protective benefits of stone walls, the ability to garrison a single army, and the ability to comfortably host a single agent. Agents are generally willing to move into a stronghold if it seems to be in their interest and not against the interests of a power they are loyal to. Complexity 6, Stone.

When you build a stronghold, describe a secret protection against intrusion such as magic doors that recognize intruders or a moat full of wise talking alligators with a 10 foot leap; powers must find a way to overcome this immunity in order to target anything inside this stronghold subtly. Unsubtle means, such as magic or invading a stronghold with an army naturally bypass this immunity. This complete protection from onlookers and spies means that anything inside the stronghold is safe from the manipulations and influence from other powers, even those with high influence in the hex. It also means that any actions taken here become Private.

A stronghold is a single feature that can be expanded with modules, one module per ⚒️Build action on the stronghold. A module's complexity is 3, plus 3 for each module the stronghold already has (3, then 6, then 9…). The stronghold's own complexity of 6 is separate and doesn't change.

Modules:

• Barracks: This stronghold can garrison (or imprison) two additional armies. Iron
• Apartments: This stronghold can comfortably house (or imprison) two additional agents. Stone
• Mana Gardens: This stronghold naturally collects mana from the surrounding territory. When you conduct a ritual here, reduce the cost by 1 mana of that element (including generic mana) for every Tidings since you last used this ability. Salt.
• Tower: This stronghold offers a high vantage point for magic. Double the range of rituals and spells cast from here. Provides a rank 1 asset for these rituals. Stone.
• Spell Laboratory: Each tidings, an agent with familiarity with magic that is installed in this stronghold may exhaust themselves to produce a scroll of a spell of your design with rank up to their own. A power can instead spend an *️⃣ to activate this during the season, designing a spell of rank up to the power’s 🔮skill. Paper
• Alchemical Laboratory: Each tidings, an agent with familiarity with nature or chemistry that is installed in this stronghold may exhaust themselves to produce two instances of a potion with rank up to their own. A power can instead spend an *️⃣ to activate this during the season, creating a potion of rank up to the power’s 🌱 skill. Salt.
• Labyrinth: Upgrades the Stone Walls to Layered Walls. Stone.

Strongholds don’t sustain themselves like towns do: A stronghold costs 2 coin +1 coin per module in maintenance each Tidings. If you can’t pay, the stronghold will become inoperable and has a chance to be captured by rogue forces.

Statuses:#

Negative#

Depopulated: The young and fit are missing, whether because they were levied or slain. The town will repopulate if given time, but for now it’s capabilities are diminished. Reduce the effective population by X.
Taxed: A power has extracted money from this town, making it more difficult to find. Increases the difficulty of challenges to extract coin from the town’s denizens.
Uprising: The population is angry and increasingly armed to protect their rights and property. Increases the difficulty of checks to tax and otherwise draw resources (including coin) from the town’s denizens.
Sickened: A plague is steadily killing the people of this town. Lose 1 population each cleanup.

Positive#

Booming: This town is the place to be, drawing in travelers from across the area to temporarily live and work there. Increases the effective population and wealth by X.
Growing: This town is healthy and the infant mortality rate is well below the usual. Gain 1 population each cleanup. Counteracts Sickened.

Nonbuilt Features:#

Dungeons#

Dungeons are inaccessible places protected by obscurity, traps, and occasionally monsters. Mechanically, they tend to consist of challenges with an escalating difficulty called levels. Completing a floor reveals the next one. Dungeons are complex, with multiple components of each floor that make delving into them difficult: assets to delve into a dungeon should reflect these components. The Delve skill 📖is always relevant for dungeons, and unlike other challenges, each power can use 📖 alongside up to one other skill.

Example Dungeon: The Delian Tomb

• Floor 1: Goblin Thieves, Blade Traps, Hidden Buttons. Difficulty 3. Reward: An Amulet of Arson and a Lightning Helix scroll
• Floor 2: Restless Undead, Maneating Plants, Mimics. Difficulty 5. Reward: An armies worth of heavy armor and weapons, which will require only minor refitting to use. A Giantsbane Axe.
• Floor 3: Magical Darkness, Mechanically Shifting Hallways, Mirrors onto demonic realms. Difficulty 7. Reward: Friendship with an army of Drauger Knights, a rank 5 army of Grand Undead Infantry that will be destroyed after their 7 rounds of battle.

Ruins#

Ruins are similar to dungeons in that they are large structures filled with danger, but instead of being organized into layers of increasing difficulty, they are instead disorganized piles with many entrances, easy escape routes, and relatively constant threat. Ruins have a total Threat score and a Difficulty. Powers can spend actions to clear a ruin, and each removes an amount of Threat equal to the excess successes. Generally, a ruin provides rewards and becomes a useful feature once all the threat has been cleared.

Ruins are more accessible to armies than dungeons. For ruins where the primary threat is hostile creatures, armies with appropriate skills to fight them are a valid asset.

Example Ruin: The Fallen Castle. A vast slab of labyrinthine masonry stocked with ancient alchemical experiments and a million ways to die from falling masonry; it seems to have fallen straight from the very sky. Threat: 13. Difficulty 2. Reward: 4 potions each of ranks 1, 2, and 3. Becomes a Stronghold with a Barracks and Alchemy Lab.

Outposts#

Well hidden structures actively used by a power or rogue force, outposts are much smaller than a town and not usually relevant for the production of resources. Outposts can be used to garrison armies, which are invisible on the map as long as they remain inside the outpost.

Magic#

Doing acts of grand magic requires connection to the elemental powers of the world and sidereal powers of the beyond, represented by Mana. Magic is divided into spells, which are intended to be used repeatedly and do not cost actions, and rituals, which cost a full action and are generally one-offs. Spells are instantaneous and rituals are permanent, unless otherwise stated. Spells and Rituals both use the same rules for mana costs, divided into elemental and generic costs, all of which must be paid to cast the spell or complete the ritual. For effects that refer to the element of a spell or ritual, the elements are simply the set of unique mana symbols in the cost.

Spells can be Fast or Slow. Fast Spells take a few seconds to a few minutes to cast; you can cast any number as part of an action submission, and you can cast them during the Spellcasting phase of Battle and as part of ↩️challenges. Slow spells take hours or even a full day; Slow Spells must be part of a *️⃣submission, up to a max of one per submission. Rituals are *️⃣s that must be submitted on their own, they can never be part of another *️⃣submission. Spells have a mechanical effect, but they can also be used creatively to act as an asset for a challenge. Generally, using a spell as an asset is in place of its mechanical effect. As a balancing measure, spells with a high quality mechanical effect cost multiple element symbols, making them relatively worse as assets. Slow spells are more efficient. The rank of a Fast spell is equal to the generic component of their cost, while the rank of a Slow spell is the generic component of its cost plus 1.

Rituals can be accessed from designs, fragments, perks, or ambitions. Many Rituals have a cost greater than the amount of mana a power can normally hold: they require either specialization or cooperation to complete. When you fail a ritual, the mana you would have spent is lost. The rank of a ritual is twice the generic component of its cost.

Casting: Each power can cast “through” a particular set of people or locations. Spells and Rituals have a range, indicating how far away they can affect something; you must have something to cast through within that range in order to use the spell. Casting through an asset does not count against the limited number of uses for an agent in each season. Magically skilled agents are not necessarily effective assets just because you cast a spell through them as part of an action, unless their personal magical talents or knowledge are separately relevant; hiring a professor of divination to cast Freeze River in a far away location does not give them an opportunity to assist, though a professor of Transmutation would be able to separately add their rank.

Example: Fireball’s Cost is a fast spell with cost 2FF, so casting it costs two instances of Fire mana plus any two other mana. Its rank is 2 and its element is just Fire, even when a Water and an Earth mana were spent on the generic components. A slow spell with the cost 2FF would have rank 3.

Learning Magic: When an effect lets you learn any spell or ritual, you may pull from the list below or propose designs to the GM for approval. Scrolls are a single use effect that immediately allow a power to learn a particular spell, but are destroyed in the process. The magic of each power is too unique for them to teach each other spells, though in some cases (with GM permission) you can reverse engineer the spells of others.

Example Spells#

Fast#

Fast, Ranged#

Slow#

Rituals#

Rituals are Actions with a mana cost similar to a spell. Unlike spells, powers can combine their efforts and mana pools to complete a ritual. Rituals have a rank and difficulty equal to twice their generic mana cost, when failed, mana spent on them is lost. Rituals all access the Weave, a tapestry of energy and mana that underlies the mortal world. When designing rituals, remember the 7 rules of the weave:

1. The weave is shaped by the elements used in the ritual. Air moves and frees, Fire burns and strengthens, Earth protects and binds, Water slows and heals. Illusions are born of Air and Fire, Minds are bent by Air and Water, Constructs are woven of Air and Earth, Enhancements are forged by Fire and Earth, Summoning requires Earth and Water.
2. The weave changes permanently only at a permanent cost. If a ritual will have an ongoing or recurring effect, then it will require the sacrifice of another permanent resource, like a magic item, rare material, or the lifeblood of a mortal. Coin, Respect, Fear, and Mana are never sufficient for such purposes.
3. The weave does not know the names of mortal creatures. To target a ritual to affect a creature, army, town, or similar, you need to supply sufficient genetic material associated with them. Blood is a common requirement here.
4. The weave can alter the minds of lesser mortals, but not other powers. Their machinations can be disrupted by ensorceled servants, but not by ensorceled leadership.
5. The weave travels in a straight line (not necessarily cardinal). An entropic ritual can heavily damage towns and armies, but it will do so to every town or army in its path to the destination.
6. The weave alone is mindless, it cannot make decisions or follow even rudimentary logic once a ritual is complete. Spells of divination provide sight on a location or contact with a power from beyond the mortal plane.
7. The weave wears poorly with reuse. Every time you cast a ritual successfully, its cost increases by 2 generic mana. Rituals which are very broad and generally useful tend to have a high generic mana cost from centuries of reuse. For rituals granted by your Power rules, this cost increase is power specific

Some rituals can be resisted; the resister only needs half the difficulty in successes to protect themselves from the effect. All rituals with permanent effects can be broken by a dispel challenge, where the challenge difficulty is equal to the original ritual difficulty.

Crafting Magic items follows the same rules and expectations as rituals, but uses a mostly separate set of assets. Magic Items are permanent benefits, so always cost some permanent resource.

Magic Items:#

Magic items may have a wielder effect, granting a benefit to the individual or army they are given to, and a Power effect, which benefits the power they are most loyal to. Cities and Conspiracies might leave items on their leaders to prevent lower ranking traitors from stealing the item away for new lieges, though doing so generally prevents the wielder effect from being relevant. The Wielder of an item can be selected when the item is obtained or created, and it can be changed as part of any Action involving the item or its wielder.

Each Wielder can benefit from a single item at a time, apart from Champions, which can use three differently named items. A Power can give multiple items of the same kind to different wielders, but can only gain the Power benefit from differently named items.

All magic items can be used as assets equal to their rank if any of their narrative effects seem relevant. Any special rules for how they act as assets is in the Wielder section.

Rank 1#

Rank 2#

Rank 3#

Rank 4#

Potions:#

Rank 1#

Warfare#

Battles#

Whenever opposed armies end a season in the same hex, either controlling power can declare a battle there. The GM declares the terrain and any special effects thereof. Each side proposes up to two battle goals and declares what armies are joining the fight, and lay them out in order. They may also secretly reveal to the GM any other assets that they would like to use to influence the battle. Any champions may also declare their involvement if they are also in that hex.

Armies that are in nearby hexes (within their mobility) can also arrive to reinforce a battle. They are put to the side and marked with Delayed X, where X is their distance from the battle; they are added when Delayed reaches 0.

Usually there are two sides to each battle, and each side can contain multiple powers. In rare cases, a battle might have three or more sides.

Support Limit#

Support Limit: Each power has a support limit, indicating how many total bodies they can maintain in their standing army. At the start of each season, during Tidings, you may disband any of your loyal armies. At the end of Tidings, for every unit you still control (every unit in each army that is controlled by you) beyond your support limit, pay one coin, loyalty, or fear. Loyal armies do not charge a fee for use, but do still count against support limit.

Cities have a support limit equal to the total population of their 4 largest claimed towns. Conspiracies have a support limit equal to the number of hexes where they have at least one influence. Champions have a base support limit of 0, increased by effects that let them make and control armies.

Phases#

1. Deployment: Powers can deploy additional armies.
2. Spellcasting: Each Power may cast up to one fast spell.
3. Commands: Each side takes turns issuing commands to each of their armies. Receiving a command “Exhausts” an army, preventing it from taking additional commands. When a side includes multiple powers, they must take turns issuing commands.
   1. The side with the Initiative goes first; the power with fewer deployed armies seizes the initiative at the start of the battle.
4. Goals: Once all armies are exhausted, resolve the goals. No one wins ties.
   1. Any side with escalation may spend 1 escalation to offer terms of surrender to another side. The recipient may accept or decline, and the escalation is spent either way. Mortal armies have a habit of accepting surrender against their commanders’ orders when they think they’re likely to die otherwise, represented by a morale check.
5. Cleanup: Some statuses on armies trigger, then they all tick down by 1. Any power may choose to retreat armies from the battlefield or rout individual units within their armies (usually to protect wounded units).

Basic Commands:#

🚩Slay: Attack with +1
🚩Hold: Apply Presence with +1
🚩Charge: Spend a momentum to Attack and Apply Presence.
🚩Rest: gain a momentum and restore armor

Perks, items, and certain assets give you access to special commands. Generally, these special commands can only be used once per battle.

Army Attributes#

• Units: A rough accounting of the size of the army. It is represented as a number of tokens on the battlemap, each of which can absorb a certain number of wounds (usually 2), before they die. Individual units can also be routed, meaning they are separated from their army by cowardice or disorganization. Routed and dead soldiers cannot act. Other than these statuses, units within an army are identical.
  • Units that are not routed or slain are called “active”. The number of active units in an army is called its “Size”. A smaller army is one with fewer units.
• Attack: The ability of the army to harm the enemy
• Presence: The ability of the army to achieve battlefield goals by taking and holding territory.
• Morale: The ability of the army to resist rout and confusion through organization and will.
• Defense: The threshold an attack needs to meet to damage this army
• Armor: Absorbs wounds. Natively, Armor applies only to untyped damage, not elemental damage (burn, freeze, shock, crush, flare, and void)
  • Armor is broken when the last point is removed.
• Momentum: A fluctuating resource used by armies to use special commands and activate special abilities. Momentum is capped at the number of active units.

Attack, Presence, and Morale are all listed with a die size and a static bonus. During any combat check, armies roll a number of these dice equal to their number of active units (units that are not routed or slain), counting the number that match or beat a certain threshold. Defense is a static number.

Basic Attack: Bring weapons to bear against another enemy army. Threshold: Target’s Defense. Difficulty 0. For each excess success, the defending army loses a point of armor or takes a wound on a unit. Attacks are generally melee unless otherwise stated, but certain abilities can change them to ranged or airborne, changing which targets are valid.

Example: The Knights of Count Caliphrase have 4 units and 3 armor, so they can take 7 wounds without permanent losses.

The Bloodied status tracks the greatest number of new wounds that a unit has reached in a given army. Thus, the first wound received brings them to Bloodied 1, and the first time a wounded unit would take another wound they go to bloodied 2. When an attack increases the target's Bloodied status, they inflict routs equal to half the target’s size (always round down), which the target resists with a morale check equal to the attacker’s rank, with one fewer rout per success.

By default, the defender chooses how to allocate wounds and routs among the units in their army. Typically, defenders will want to put new wounds on the least wounded unit, to avoid increasing Bloodied or losing units. Similarly, defenders will usually want to rout their most wounded unit first. When an army loses its last unit to either wounds or rout, it is destroyed.

Example: The levy of Derop has 5 units, 1 armor, 3 Defense, and a morale of d4+1. After they are attacked by the Fangs of Grim Harbors, a rank 4 army of gnolls, which roll 6,3,4,2. This tears through the armor and inflicts 1 wound. The levy is bloodied, so they face a rank 4 morale challenge. They roll 1,2,1,2,3, and only the 3 increases to match 4 with the 1 point static bonus, so 1 is immediately routed.

In addition to their Attributes, armies have the following:

• Rank: The extent of an army’s experience and capabilities
• Equipment Tier: Provides armor
• Ancestry: The origin of the unit
• Class: The main types of weapons used, providing a mechanism for spending momentum
• Mounts: If this army has acquired mounts, they provide mobility and sometimes stat boosts or other effects.
• Experience: An asset towards leveling up, specific to this army
• Mobility: The count of hexes this army is prepared to travel without difficulty
• Fee: The cost in coin to field this army. The fee is paid after the army moves or fights a battle. If you choose to not pay the fee, the army may choose to desert and join another power. Armies loyal to their controller waive the fee, and a Personal Army (a champion's own body) never charges one.
• Element: The elemental association of this army. Armies resist one wound whenever they take damage of a type matching their element.

Goals#

In addition to wounding the enemy, armies also try to achieve certain goals on the battlefield by applying presence. This represents the ability to hold space and deny mobility to the enemy. When applying presence, an army rolls a presence check against a chosen goal’s threshold. At the end of each round, whichever side has more presence successes on a goal gains its benefits, then the goals are reset and presence dissipates. When an army retreats, routs, or is destroyed during a round its presence dissipates.

Every battle includes the two base goals “Seize the Initiative” and “Advance”, plus other goals proposed by the combatants or generated by terrain features.

Seize the Initiative: Reward - Seize the initiative, allowing you to command first each round. Threshold 3/3.
Advance: Reward - Gain +1 Escalation. Your escalation is a permanent bonus to attack rolls. Threshold 2/2

Some goals are asymmetric, with different thresholds for different sides. For instance:

Walls: Rules - While this goal remains, attackers may not score Advance Goals.

• Attacker: Threshold 2, reward: Remove this goal
• Defender: Threshold 2, no reward

Assassinate Count Caliphrase:

• Attacker: Threshold 4, reward: Kill Count Caliphrase
• Defender: Threshold 2, reward: remove this goal for next round

Battle end:#

A battle ends when only one side has active armies remaining or at the end of 7 rounds. A battle will often end with someone accepting terms of surrender in the Goals step. After the battle, count the armies that permanently lost at least one unit. Every army that survived the battle gains a one-use Experience asset of that rank.

At the end of each season any routed units return and each army heals a number of wounds equal to half their size.

Army Actions (Noncombat):#

*️⃣🦶Muster: Move armies you control from their garrisons to any other hex. The movement cost is doubled for rough terrain and negated by roads (even when the road on the map is visually pointed in the wrong direction), and compared to each army’s mobility. For armies moved beyond their mobility, the Difficulty is increased by the difference.
You can declare a Muster as a regarrison: the armies take a town, stronghold, or outpost in the target hex (or a power that can garrison them there) as their new garrison. Increase the Difficulty by 2 for each army moving to a new garrison.
*️⃣⚔️Train: Increase an army’s rank by one and apply the levelup process to increase its attributes. Increase its Fee by 1. Difficulty: The new rank + a quarter the army size rounded down
*️⃣⚒️Forge Armaments: Upgrade the equipment tier of an army, improving their armor. Difficulty: The target tier + a quarter the army size rounded down. Unique metals are a critical asset and industrial quantities of Iron are an assured asset.
*️⃣ ♥️Gather Cowards: Gather routed units from an army that was fully dispersed by rout last season. If you previously controlled the unit, gain a +3 asset. Difficulty: the number of successes is the number of units recovered, up to a maximum of the number that fled.

Making Armies#

Most newly minted armies start as a rank 1 Levy from a town, though the world is populated by other forces, already leveled further, that can be recruited to your cause.

*️⃣⚔️Levy - Create a new army in a claimed town that is not Depopulated. It is rank 1 with 3 defense and d4 in presence, attack, and morale. They have civilian equipment and no class. Their rank, fee, and mobility are 1. Then they gain a set of Ancestry bonuses, then choose a single levelup bonus of your choice. Choose a size up to the town’s population, the town gains “Depopulated” equal to a quarter of the chosen size, rounded down. Difficulty: the size plus the town’s “Uprising” status.

When a levy is disbanded (a free action while in their origin town), remove a number of stacks of “Depopulated” equal to a quarter of the number of returning units, rounded down. When disbanding a mostly intact levy, keep its army card in your records: when levied again, it regains that card with all upgrades and experience (but only if the new size is the same or smaller than the recorded size).

Many rogue armies start on the map, usually between ranks 2 and 4, and Cities start with a few armies for national defense.

Some armies are “premium” and are stronger than their rank would imply: Their attribute dice start at d6 and they have one free premium keyword. These armies have a ⭐ in their description. Some armies are “titanic”, representing an individual creature of immense power. Titanic Armies use the “titanic” classes, which are stronger.

Equipment mortal armies start with tier 0 equipment: improvised tools, thick civilian clothes, etc. To prepare them for war, you will need to use the Forge Armaments Action. The tiers are 0 (Civilian), 1 (Light), 2 (Medium), 3 (Heavy), and 4 (Grand). An army’s armor is increased by the rank of their armaments. Wondrous armies (ents, dragons, elementals, etc.) do not have equipment, but generally have improved armor from another source.

Leveling up:
When a unit levels up, their controller rolls three dice on the following table. If they leveled up from training, roll additional dice equal to the excess successes. Then select three bonuses from the rolled options (repetitions allowed). If you are unhappy with the result you can discard the Train action, refunding any Experience spent but no other costs.

• Presence: die size +2
• Attack: die size +2
• Morale: die size +2
• Defense: +1
• Mobility: +1
• Keyword: General, Terrain, or Profession

Building From Scratch: When you build an army from scratch, start with the levy template and level it up repeatedly. For a Controlled build, you choose the bonuses. For a Random build you roll many d6 and just take the first three unique bonuses for each level.

Basic Classes#

• Levy: When this unit levels up, it chooses a new class.
• Archers: Attacks this army makes from commands are Ranged. When attacking, this army may spend a momentum and apply -1 to the attack to target two enemy armies with a single roll.
• Brawlers: +1 Presence. After applying presence to a goal, spend a momentum to inflict Weakened 2 to an enemy that applied presence there. While weakened, the target cannot attack other armies if they could attack this one and they cannot apply presence to other goals if they could apply presence to this one.
• Dervishes: Once per round, when attacked, this army may spend a momentum. If they do, their remaining momentum is added to their defense for the remainder of the round.
• Axes: +1 Attack. When attacking, this army may spend a momentum. If they do, each point of damage destroys two points of armor.
• Hammers: +1 Attack. When attacking, this army may spend a momentum. If they do, the attack deals Crush damage.
• Infantry: +1 Defense. After receiving a command, this army may spend a momentum to gain Taunt 3.
• Pikes: +1 Presence. After being targeted by a melee or airborne attack, this army can spend a momentum to attack back.
• Rogues: +1 Attack. When attacked, this army may spend a momentum to change the attack target to another valid army on your side. When activated, gain Strengthened 1.
• Shieldbearers: +1 Morale. When commanded, this army can spend momentum to restore up to twice that much armor.
• Tortoise: +1 Morale. When receiving a ranged or airborne attack, this army can spend a momentum to gain +3 defense against the attack.
• Supports: +1 Morale. This unit may pass momentum on to other units.

Titan Classes#

• Angel: Gain Flying 1 at the start of even rounds. This army may spend all stacks of flying and a momentum when an ally is attacked to intercept, changing the attack target to this army.
• Dragon: Gain Flying 1 at the start of odd rounds. This army may spend a momentum after being attacked to Gain Flying 2. Has 3 base Armor but cannot use equipment.
• Demon: When this army is deployed, opposed mortal armies make a morale check with threshold 2; routing a unit for each missing success. Whenever any unit is slain, you may spend a momentum to gain Flying, Strengthened, and Mobile 2.
• Devil: When this army is deployed, opposed mortal armies make a morale check with threshold 2; routing a unit for each missing success. Whenever any unit is slain, you may spend a momentum to inflict Frozen 2 on its army and gain Flying 2.
• Giant: Each unit can survive two wounds, dying on the third. When applying presence, this army may spend a momentum to target an additional goal.
• Monster: Each unit can survive two wounds, dying on the third. When attacking, this army may spend a momentum and apply -1 to the attack to target two enemy armies with a single roll. Has 3 base Armor but cannot use equipment.
• War Balloon: Starts combat with Flying 1 and can spend a momentum when commanded to gain Flying 3. Attacks are always ranged.

Army Keywords:#

Every army is assumed to contain an array of soldiers specialized in different kinds of weaponry and tactics. Keywords are used to note specialties an army has and the resulting mechanical effects.

General#

• Agile: This army can spend Momentum to dodge incoming attacks, absorbing wounds like armor.
• Bloodlust: When attacking, this army chooses how wounds are distributed.
• Needler: When attacking, this army may halve the threshold for success (usually the target’s defense) and the number of successes. Round down both times.
• Fearful: When this army bloodies a target, the target’s morale check has difficulty equal to their size, rather than half of the size.
• Immunized: This army resists a total of 3 wounds whenever they take damage of a type matching their element.
• Siege: After applying presence to a wall or other defensive feature, damage it and reduce its threshold by 1 for your side for the remainder of the battle.
• Skirmisher: This army starts each battle with 2 momentum.
• Slayer: When attacking, this army may decide to double the threshold for success (usually the target’s defense) to deal two wounds per success. Each pair of wounds is applied to the same unit. Conflicts with Needler.
• Valiant: Negative statuses tick down by 2 each cleanup instead of 1.
• Vanguard: Has +1 defense against attacks for each previous attack this round.
• Wallkeepers: While defending with an untaken wall, this army gains a bonus to their morale equal to the wall’s rank (1 for wooden, 2 for stone, 3 for layered)
• Wild Element (terrestrial): This army's element at any moment is whichever terrestrial element (A, F, E, or W) is best for its controller and worst for its enemies. The primary effect is that they resist one wound of each terrestrial elemental damage type. Conflicts with Immunized.

Terrain#

• Guerilla: +1 attack and defense while in Forests. Forests are never difficult terrain.
• Mountaineer: +1 attack and defense while in Mountains. Mountains are never difficult terrain.
• Naval: This army has +1 attack and defense while in Coasts. Can move through water like roads.
• Nomad: This army has +1 attack and defense while in Plains. Deserts are never difficult terrain.
• Stealthy: This army is not visible on the world map. It starts battles with Strengthened 1.

Profession#

• Greybeards: Provides expertise in warfare, primarily assisting in ⚔️challenges. Describe a signature command; they are too wizened to use it themselves, but it can be used once per battle on a friendly army.
• Engineers: Assists in building roads and walls (but not other features). Has +2 presence against goals related to walls or siege equipment.
• Racketeers: Experienced in appraising the value of materials and in squeezing money out of peasants, primarily assisting in ⚖️challenges.
• Stablemasters: Provides beasts of burden and capable managers thereof, primarily assisting in 🦶challenges, including those to move this army.
• Scoundrels: Provides an endless supply of pickpockets, pranksters, and battlefield vultures, primarily assisting in 👤challenges. Gains +1 Fee but provides 1 coin every time they slay a unit in battle.
• Scouts: Maintains a key eye on their surroundings, primarily helping in 👁️challenges. +1 Mobility, but -1 Presence.
• Arcanists: Provides magical assistance, primarily in🔮challenges. Armor functions against elemental damage types.
• Cooks: Organizes fine meals and feasts, primarily assisting in ♥️challenges. Other armies on your side start with a momentum (Doesn’t stack with other cooks)

Premium#

• Stampeding: Can deal Crush damage with Charge attacks.
• Firespitting: Can deal Burn damage on odd rounds
• Frigid: Can deal Frost damage on even rounds
• Stormblooded: Can deal Shock damage, but when doing so only rolls as many damage dice as they have wounded units.
• Nightmare: Whenever an attack this army makes would inflict a wound, instead rout a unit in the targeted army.
• Alien Mind: Doesn’t make morale checks when bloodied. Immune to illusions and mental enchantments positive and negative.
• Juggernaut: +2 dice on presence checks. Counts as +2 size.
• Incorruptible: While you are visible in a hex, influence cannot be added to that hex by any means. You grant vision of the influence layer.
• Flapping: Gain Flying 1 at the start of odd rounds.

Negative#

Some keywords are negative, and should not be taken at levelups unless you have some sort of devious plan afoot:

• Mercenary: This army has +2 Fee and mobility (included in sheet)
• Repulsive: When this army joins a battle on the same side as mortal units, those units must pass a rank 2 morale challenge.
• Ageless: Heals half as many wounds at the end of each season
• Servile: -1 Morale, but any fees for this army are halved when paid with Fear

Ancestries:#

• Ashborn: F, Loses all momentum when a Water spell is cast. Gains momentum when a Fire spell is cast. Firespitting, -1 Defense.
• Deep Dwarves: E, Gains momentum when their armor is broken. Engineers, +1 Defense, -1 Mobility
• Mountain Dwarves: F, Gains momentum when an ally’s armor is broken. Mountaineer, +1 Defense, -1 Mobility.
• Diverse: Wild Element, Gains momentum when breaking an enemy's armor.
• Triumph Elves: A, Gains momentum at the end of the spellcasting step if an ally cast a spell with rank matching the round number. Agile, Ageless
• Recluse Elves: W, Starts battles with 3 momentum, reduced by 1 per present friendly army. Guerilla, Ageless.
• Horselords: F, When this army enters a battle, they gain momentum equal to the round number. +1 Mobility, +1 Fee.
• Halflings: E, Gains momentum when attacked by a larger army. Valiant, -1 Attack.
• Harpies: W, Gains momentum when they end a round without receiving a wound or routing. Flapping, +1 Attack, -1 Morale, +2 difficulty on challenges to provide them armor.
• Orcs: E, Gains momentum during deployment if they are wounded; it must be a wound received in a real battle, but orc armies may choose to leave a wound present as a scar instead of healing it.
• Drakes: F, Gains momentum at the end of each round their side wins a goal. Wallkeepers, +1 Presence, +1 Fee.
• Gnolls: A, Skirmisher, +2 Mobility, -1 Defense, -1 Armor, -1 Presence.
• Antinium: E, Gains momentum each round a Centenium is on the battlefield on their side. Alien Mind, Repulsive.
• Skeletons: D, Cannot gain momentum. +1 Attack, +1 Defense, +1 Morale.
• Zombies: D, Gains momentum whenever their Bloodied level increases. Each unit can survive two wounds, dying on the third. -1 Attack, +1 Defense.
• Wraiths: D, Gains momentum the first time each round they are attacked by a mortal army. Fearful, +1 Mobility, -1 Defense.
• Ghouls: D, Gains momentum when they bloody another army. Repulsive, Fearful, +2 Attack.

Skeletons, Zombies, Wraiths, and Ghouls are undead, not mortal.

Elemental Ancestries:#

Creatures that were never mortal gain an ancestry based on their element:
Air: Gains momentum the first time each round this army applies presence
Fire: Gains momentum the first time each round this army attacks
Earth: Gains momentum the first time each round this army is attacked
Water: Gains momentum the first time each round a goal is lost by their side
Light: Gains momentum at the end of the first four rounds of combat when fighting in sunlight, or at the end of just the first round otherwise.
Dark: Gains momentum the first time each round an enemy unit routs.

Statuses:#

• Burning: You cannot gain or restore armor. Take 1 wound from Burn each cleanup.
• Frightened: Roll a rank X morale challenge during each cleanup (before ticking down)
• Vulnerable: -2 Defense
• Weakened: -X dice on attack checks
• Pinned: -X dice on presence checks
• Scattered: -X dice on morale checks
• Strengthened: +X dice on attack checks. Counteracts Weakened.
• Mobile: +X dice on presence checks. Counteracts Pinned.
• Emboldened: +X dice on morale checks. Counteracts Scattered.
• Frozen: -X dice on checks
• Hastened: +X dice on checks. Counteracts Frozen.
• Taunt: Enemy armies must make their melee attacks against you if able.
• Flying: You cannot be targeted by melee attacks. Your melee attacks are instead Airborne.

Example Armies#

Mortal Armies:#

Levy Template
Rank 1 - Civilian ____ Levy - ____ Units
3 Defense - d4 Attack - d4 Morale - d4 Presence
Armor 0 - Fee 1 - Mobility 1
Element (res: ___ 1) - Momentum

> Mountain Dwarves, + Morale >

Derop Levy
Rank 1 - Light Mountain Dwarven Levy - 5 Units
4 Defense - d4 Attack - d6 Morale - d4 Presence
Armor 1 - Fee 1 - Mobility 0
F (res: Burn1) - Gains momentum when an ally's armor is broken.
Mountaineers.

> Levy specialized into hammers, + Attack, + Defense >

Hammers of Derop
Rank 2 - Light Mountain Dwarven Hammers - 5 Units
5 Defense - d6+1 Attack - d6 Morale - d4 Presence
Armor 1 - Fee 2 - Mobility 0
F (res: Burn1) - Gains momentum when an ally's armor is broken.
Mountaineers.
Hammers: When attacking, this army may spend a momentum. If they do, the attack deals Crush damage.

>Lost a unit in battle, + Defense, +Valiant, Acquired Heavy Armor>

Derop Stoneshatterers
Rank 3 - Heavy Mountain Dwarven Hammers - 4 Units
5 Defense - d6+1 Attack - d6 Morale - d6 Presence
Armor 3 - Fee 3 - Mobility 0
F (res: Burn1) - Gains momentum when an ally's armor is broken.
Mountaineers.
Hammers: When attacking, this army may spend a momentum. If they do, the attack deals Crush damage.
Valiant: Negative statuses tick down by 2 each cleanup instead of 1.

Wondrous Armies:#

Perks#

General:#

Confident Duelist: When Dueling, you ignore your 1st and 5th consequences.

Confident Negotiator: When Negotiating, you ignore your 1st and 5th consequences.

Confident Crafter: When Crafting, you ignore your 1st and 5th consequences.

Confident Ritualist: When casting rituals you ignore your 1st and 5th consequences.

Desperate Reaction: You can use up to one additional ↩️ each month by spending an *️⃣from the next month.

Flexible Skills: Choose two skills and describe how you use the former to complete tasks of the latter. Choose 2 actions tagged with the latter skill and change them (for yourself) to the former.

• Repeatable, but you must choose an entirely separate pair of skills

Managerial Practices: *️⃣ Refresh an agent.

Prepared Reaction: You can use up to one additional ↩️ each month by spending a scheme. The scheme does not apply as an asset to the resistance roll.

Personal Touch: Your actions are rank 2 assets for challenges, instead of rank 1.

Municipal:#

Civil Servants: *️⃣ Refresh a feature of a town you claim

Heavy Construction: You can use multiple industries on build actions but still cannot repeat materials.

Slumlord: When taxing, you may gain coin equal to the population rather than the wealth. Adds “Uprising” instead of “Taxed”.

Five Year Plan: When you take a town action, you can take the same action in another town. Build separate dice pools. Only your Skill can be replicated between the pools.

Seeder: You gain access to Seed minor ambitions, each associated with a town you have claimed. Completing the ambition will allow you to plant a Seed of a mystic tree in a town and watch it quickly grow. At the start of each season, towns you control with seeds gain Growing 1 or generate one mana of their terrain type (you choose). The first two seeds are free, requiring no ambitions to be completed. In battles involving your seeded towns, add the “Destroy the Tree” battle goal.

Magic:#

Elemental Efficiency: Choose a terrestrial element (Air, Fire, Earth or Water). When you cast a spell of that element, gain 1 mana of that element. Repeatable, but you must select a different element each time.

Elemental Specialization: Choose a terrestrial element (Air, Fire, Earth or Water). You can store an extra two mana of that element, and gain 1 mana of that element at the start of each season. Repeatable, but you must select a different element each time.

Drain Curios: You can always use a magic item to contribute to a ritual, though doing so causes the item to lose its magical properties for the remainder of the season.

Renowned Ritualist: Your excess successes on rituals become Respect or Fear.

Vessel Heart: Your mana does not dissipate at the end of a season. Mana spent on failed rituals is refunded.

Mystic Reactions: You can use up to one additional ↩️ each month by spending an A mana in addition to any other costs.

Steady Sorcery: Your slow spells gain +1 effective rank for each unique slow spell you’ve previously cast this month. Learn 3 Slow Spells.

Improvised Instants: When casting Fast spells, you can pay for any 1 mana symbol with 2 mana of another element. This does not change the spell’s element. Learn 3 Fast Spells.

Military:#

Forced March: When you muster, you can move armies which are not in their garrisons.

Capable Generals: Learn two new once-per-battle commands. They are more powerful than the base commands.

Quickdraw: Your side always acts first in combat, removing the “Seize the Initiative” Goal. Negated if any enemy has Quickdraw.

Influence:#

Only Conspiracies can take these perks.

Mass Channel: When you channel influence, you can remove 2 influence from any number of locations.

Mercurial: During Tidings, before resetting the influence in your outposts, swap your influence between any two hexes twice.

More Outposts: Select a wilderness hex where you have at least three influence. Create an outpost there.

More Influence: You gain access to an additional influence generation mechanism.

Municipal Mana: When you channel influence in a town, you can spend 2 influence to generate 2 mana, and that mana can match either the terrain or the town’s ancestry
🆚
Urban Outposts: Your outposts can be built in towns. Immediately move an outpost into a town where you have at least three influence. It cannot be a capitol.

Respect:#

Only Powers that use Respect can take these perks.

Mercy Campaign: Whenever an enemy army retreats, surrenders, or is forced to rout, gain Respect equal to the number of routed units.

Health Drive: *️⃣ Attempt to heal the sick in a town you claim using 🌱. For each success, gain 2 respect. If your successes exceed the town population, it gains 1 population. Difficulty 1. Usable once per town per season.

Savior: When you rescue an agent/army from something, gain respect equal to their rank. Reduce the amount gained by half if you were partially responsible for their endangerment, and double it if the danger was particularly lethal or certain.

Fear:#

Only Powers that use Fear can take these perks.

Inquisition: *️⃣ As an action, detect and then attempt to remove influence (other than your own) from a hex. You don't need to have already detected it to use this action. Affected conspiracies may ↩️ to reduce the number of successes applied to themselves. For each excess success, remove an influence. Gain Fear equal to the amount of influence removed. Difficulty: 0.

Little Cruelties: At the start of each month, gain 1 Fear.

Blighted Neighborhood: Choose a town you claim. During each Cleanup Step, reduce its population and wealth by 1 and gain 5 Fear. During your action declarations for the first month of each season, if you claim no town chosen this way, choose another claimed town.

Cities#

Basic Actions:#

*️⃣⚖️Annex - Select a town where you control an army, and attempt to claim it. The army must have been present in the town at the start of the month. Champions and conspiracies with a claim on the town may ↩️ to resist. Difficulty: The number of towns you already claim.

*️⃣ 🔮Channel - Select a claimed town. Gain one mana matching its element for every season since the last time this action was taken there.

Sovereign:#

Moderately Skilled: Start with 5 ranks in other skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. ⚖️and ⚒️ are recommended.

Royal Head: Describe the leader of this city. What are their merits and how were they selected? What have they already given up for the good of this nascent nation?

Proficient Heirs: Describe 3 loyal follower agents in different skills or areas of expertise, that represent the different heirs to the throne. They are rank 2 and have 3 mobility.

Isolationist Past: You do not start with friendly contacts (See Creating a Power)

Ancestral Defense: Privately describe one ancient enchantment that protects your capitol. It is quite hard to overcome your city in battle (or its citizens in a duel) while this defense remains.

Ancestral Tithe: Select or Design an ancestry shared by your leadership and the people of the city. If your city is more egalitarian, you may trade the word “ancestry” with “creed”, following the same mechanics. Choose Special Treatment, Uplift, or Unity.

• Special Treatment: Each Tidings, give claimed towns of other ancestries Uprising 1 and up to that many towns of your original ancestry Growing 1.
• Uplift: The Difficulty of your build actions in towns of other ancestries is reduced by 1, and the difficulty is increased by one in towns of your original ancestry.
• Unity: When your capitol gains stacks of any status, all of your towns gain that many stacks of that status.

Specialized Magic: You can store up to 4 mana of the element of your original ancestry. You can cast through your Heirs.

Starting Claims:

• Your capitol starts with a population of 7 and a base wealth of 2. Choose or design its ancestry. It has Stone Walls. You immediately build 4 times, creating built features of complexity 5, 4, 3, and 2.
• You claim two nearby small towns with a population and wealth of 2. One shares your capitol’s ancestry and the other has a different ancestry of the GM’s choice. They start with only wooden walls.

Ancient Crafts: Industries in your capitol all get the Specialized upgrade for free (they still can’t take it twice). For features which you have in your capitol, you gain a rank 1 asset towards building the same built feature in other towns (you do not need to match the set of upgrades).

Starting Armies: Build each of these armies from origins as a levy of your capitol’s ancestry. Use a controlled build process.

• A rank 4 size 4 army with heavy equipment. This is your royal guard and is Loyal to you.
• A rank 2 size 7 army with medium equipment.

Starting Resources - Choose 2:

• A rank 6 experience on your rank 2 army other than your royal guard.
• 3 counts of a rank 2 luxury
• 6 coin

Lordly Commandments: You take four public actions each month.

*️⃣ ♥️Coming Of Age: Create a new heir as per your Proficient Heirs ability, to a maximum of 3. Difficulty: 4, reduced by 1 for every season since you last used this action (or since the start of the epic).

*️⃣ ♥️ Grand Knighting: Declare a new army as your royal guard, making them loyal to you. Consequences tend to include disgruntlement on the part of any existing royal guard, who at minimum cease to be loyal. Difficulty: the rank of your current royal guard, if they exist.

Perks#

Big Family: You can have up to 5 Heirs.

Magical Heirs: Choose a terrestrial elemental temperament for each of your heirs. Each Tidings, choose three heirs and generate mana matching their temperaments.

Magical Monarch: You can store up to two of each element other than your original ancestry (which remains at 4) during a given season.

Celestial:#

Power Creation:
Moderately Skilled: Start with 5 ranks in other skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. 🔮and ⚒️ are recommended.

Divine Protection: Privately describe one grand capability you use to defend your capitol and how it could be overcome. It is only usable while you are in your capitol. It is quite hard to overcome your city in battle (or its denizens in a duel) while this defense remains.

Awesome Power: You are a premium ⭐titanic rank 4 army with 6 units and any terrestrial element, such as a descended angel, mighty ent, wizened dragon, bound elemental, or an ancient giant. You are Loyal only to yourself. This stat block is enough to fend off most rogue armies or wandering monsters, but the full force of an opposed power can usually defeat you once they overcome your Divine Protection. Your power does not stretch far however; when fighting outside your capitol, you take wounds at the start of each battle equal to your range distance from your capitol. You take no permanent injury, however, from stretching up to your mobility away for non-combat purposes (such as negotiations and rituals), and you can teleport back to your capitol as a ↩️ if needed.

Sorcery: Start with 2 Fast and 2 Slow Spells.

Excellent Personal Magic: You can store up to three of each mana during a given season. You can cast through yourself.

Mystic Tithe: Each Tidings, for each town you claim, gain a mana matching the element of its terrain.

Starting Claims:

• Your capitol starts with a population of 6 and a base wealth of 2. Choose or design its ancestry. It has Stone Walls. You immediately build 4 times, creating built features of complexity 4, 3, 2, and 1.
• You claim one nearby small town with a population and wealth of 2. The GM decides their ancestries. They start with only wooden walls.
• In addition to yourself, you start with a rank 2 size 4 army with medium equipment. Build it from an origin as a levy with the ancestry of your capitol, using a random build process.

City on a Hill: Industries in your capitol all get the Extended upgrade for free (they still can’t take it twice). Spells you cast from your capitol have doubled range.

Starting Resources - Choose 2:

• Fragments of a magic item of your design.
• 2 counts of a rank 3 unique material
• 7 coin

Divine Requests: You take four public actions each month.

*️⃣ 🌱 Reform: Regain one unit in your personal army, to a maximum of 6; it has one wound. Then remove wounds equal to the number of successes.

Perks#

Satellite Shrines: Your people raise statues of you in each of their town centers. You can see through the eyes of these statues, and cast through them. Raise two immediately and one more each Tidings in towns you claim. They are an *️⃣to remove, and when they are removed in a town where you maintain a claim, you can ↩️.

Magical Protector: You can store four of each mana, and generate one mana of your element at the start of each season.
🆚
Divine Protector: Your element is Light or Dark. Generate two mana of this element at the start of each season.

Overlord:#

Highly Skilled: Start with 7 ranks in other skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. ⚖️and ⚒️ are recommended.

Shrewd Protection: Privately describe one complex stratagem used to defend your capitol and how it could be overcome. It is quite hard to overcome your city in battle (or its denizens in a duel) while this defense remains.

Pitiless Tithe: Each Tidings, remove 1 Uprising from each town you claim. For each uprising removed, gain 1 respect or 1 fear.

Indentured Mages: You can store up to two of each mana during a given season. These mages are garrisoned in each of your towns with mobility 1, and you can cast through them. When you cast through these mages, they become ambitious and headstrong, adding Uprising to the town equal to the spell's generic cost.

Starting Claims:

• Your capitol starts with a population of 6 and a base wealth of 2. Choose or design its ancestry. It has Stone Walls. You immediately build 4 times, creating built features of complexity 4, 3, 2, and 1.
• You claim two nearby small towns with a population and wealth of 3. Choose or design their ancestries. They start with only wooden walls.

Detailed Inspections: Industries in your capitol all get the Durable upgrade for free (they still can’t take it twice). Spells you cast from your capitol have doubled range.

Starting Resources - Choose 3:

• Fragments of a magic item of your design.
• 2 counts of a rank 3 unique material
• 3 counts of a rank 2 luxury
• 3 rank 2 schemes
• 7 coin

Starting Armies: Build each of these armies from origins as a levy of random, different, ancestries. They gain the Mercenary keyword. Use a random build process.

• A rank 4 army with 4 units and heavy equipment.
• A rank 2 army with 8 units and medium equipment.

Wheels within Wheels: You take two public and two private actions each month.

*️⃣ ♥️ Recruit Mercenaries: There’s always someone around that will fight for a cartload of coin. Create a rank 2 army in your capitol with size up to half your capitols population. They have a random ancestry, light equipment, and the mercenary keyword. Cost: 2 Coin per unit. Difficulty: The size plus the number of mercenary armies you control.

Perks#

Privateers: Your largest mercenary army does not count towards your support limit.

Conspiracies#

Influence:#

Influence is a special resource used by conspiracies to measure their subtle control over territory. Influence could represent a network of hidden operatives, support from local peasantry, domination of local wildlife, or allegiances with minor local spirits. It is measured as whole numbers in each hex of the map. Other conspiracies can see your influence in hexes where they have influence (and vice versa), but other non-conspiracy powers don’t automatically know how much influence you have in each hex.

Influence Threshold: Many of your actions require that you have at least a certain amount of influence in a location.

Spending Influence: When you spend influence, you may remove any amount of influence from the hex where the action is occurring and up to one from each surrounding hex.

Spreading Influence: During tidings, you may shift influence any number of times. It must always shift down a gradient of at least two influence (from a 2 to a 0, making two 1s for instance), to prevent influence from walking itself all the way across the map.

Outposts: A hidden place where your conspiracy meets and plots. Outposts must be built in wilderness, though sometimes a town can later be founded on top of them. At the start of each season, during tidings, increase your influence in each outpost to a minimum of 3.

There are 5 generation mechanisms that create influence outside your outposts. Conspiracies pick a certain number of them.

Coercion - Once per season, when you provide an item or consumable to another power, gain influence equal to the asset’s rank in the delivery hex. This only works if the power accepts the asset, but they do not need to know you have this feature.

Emissaries - Once per season, when another power uses an agent or industry loyal to you, gain influence equal to their rank in the hex they provided assistance.

Intimidation - Once per season, when you win a battle in a hex, gain influence there equal to the greatest level of the opposed armies.

Sacrifice - Once per season, after you use an agent in a challenge, you may permanently sacrifice them to gain influence equal to their rank in the hex they were used.

Witchcraft - Once per season, when you cast a spell, gain influence equal to the spell’s rank in the targeted hex.

Basic Actions:#

*️⃣⚖️Infiltrate - Attempt to claim a town in which you have the most influence. Announce to other conspiracies with influence in the town and any powers with claims on it. Other powers with a claim to the town may ↩️ to resist. On success, other conspiracies lose any claims to this town. You lose the claim if you lose all influence in the town and all adjacent hexes. Difficulty: The number of towns you already claim, plus the sum of other influences in the town.
*️⃣ Channel Influence - Spend 1 Influence at up to 3 locations, generating a mana of the terrain element from each.

All Conspiracies are adept at manipulating the periphery of other powers:

*️⃣♥️Into the Fold: Attempt to bring an agent that is friendly with you completely into your employ. On a success, they become loyal only to you. With three excess successes, independents become followers. If they were loyal to another power, that power may ↩️. Cost: Influence equal to the agent’s rank. Difficulty: the agent’s rank.

*️⃣♥️Workers, Unite! Attempt to bring an industry in a claimed town completely into your employ. On a success, they become loyal only to you. If they were loyal to another power, that power may ↩️. If you lose your claims to the town, the industry becomes loyal to no one. Cost: Influence equal to half the industry's complexity. Difficulty: half the industry's complexity

*️⃣♥️Heretical Soldiers: Attempt to bring an army that is friendly with you completely into your employ. They cannot be loyal to another power. On a success, you gain control of them and all other powers lose control of them; you may move them up to their mobility plus excess successes to regarrison them. If they were controlled by another power, that power may ↩️. Cost: Influence equal to the army’s rank. Difficulty: the army size times 2.

[Note that agent loyalty is much less valuable and central than army loyalty, so the first two of these actions affect loyalty, while the third affects control, and specifically cannot target armies that are loyal to other powers.]

Circle:#

Moderately Skilled: Start with 5 ranks in other skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. 🌱 and 🔮 are recommended.

Sorcery: Start with 2 Fast and 2 Slow Spells.

Arcane Roots: Describe a magical defense that protects your outposts. Unless specifically defeated, your outposts cannot be removed.

Mystic Membership: Describe the normative member of your conspiracy. They may be magical beings, like undead or fey, or they may be mortals with minor magical powers.

Masters of the Circle: You start with 3 loyal follower agents, rank 2 in different skills or areas of expertise, that represent the highest echelons of your circle. Each is associated with a terrestrial element and generates one mana of that element at the beginning of each season. They have mobility 1.

Reclusive: You do not start with friendly contacts (See Creating a Power)

Circle Magic: You can store up to two of each mana during a given season. You can cast through any of your three masters.

Wild Influence: Choose two Influence Generation Mechanisms. You start with two outposts in wilderness hexes and one influence in hexes surrounding them to a radius of 1.

Strange Allies: Describe 2 rogue armies that are adjacent to different outposts, one rank 2 and one rank 3, such as the protectors of independent towns, reclusive fantastical creatures, or wild elementals. You have friendly relations with them, to the extent that you can take control of them for one season without spending an action. You can also negotiate with them on other seasons as an action to convince them that working with you is in their interests, granting you control over them for an amount of time based on the degree of success.

Runes: A special asset only circles can access or use (though runes can be destroyed for free by other powers when detected). A rune can be expended once as part of any ritual or challenge targeting that hex or a creature in it. Each hex can have at most one of your runes.

Starting Resources - Choose 3:

• One mana of each terrestrial element
• 5 coin
• One count of a rank 3 unique resource
• Rank 3 Runes in the locations of your Strange Allies
• Rank 3 Runes in your outposts.

Covert Procedures: You take four private actions each month.

*️⃣🌱 Reshape the Land: Use your mastery of nature to coax a hex into a new form, shifting everything from its foodweb to its terrain. Change the hex’s terrain type; you may make it difficult or nondifficult terrain. If another power can cast spells from the targeted hex, they may ↩️. When used in a town, disrupt all its industries for the season. Cost: 3 Influence. Difficulty: 4 in towns, 2 in wilderness.

*️⃣👤 Hidden Runes: Choose a hex where you have at least one influence and place a Rune asset there with rank up to that amount of influence. Cost: mana of the rune’s rank matching the terrain’s element. Difficulty: The rune’s rank.

*️⃣🔮 Uplift Master: Create a new master as per your Masters of the Circle ability, to a maximum of 3. Cost: AW. Difficulty: 4. You can reduce the difficulty by converting a willing follower or independent agent. The reduction is their rank.

Perks#

Immortal Masters: Once per season when one of your masters would be slain, you may instead have them teleport to an outpost.

Many Masters: You can have up to 4 Masters of the Circle at a time

Disrupting Runes: In a battle or ↩️ where an opposed power casts a spell, you can expend a rune of equal or greater rank to counter the spell and all effects. The rune must exist in the same location the spell was cast. When another power casts a spell from a hex where you have a rune, and a spell has a rank equal to or less than that of the rune, you may expend the rune to counter that spell. When another power attempts a ritual that you can ↩️ in a hex where you have a rune, you can expend the rune as a critical asset in the challenge.

Wodewalkers: *️⃣🦶 Choose an outpost. Gain 1 influence in that hex and each contiguous wilderness hex of the same type, up to the number of successes.

Cult:#

Highly Skilled: Start with 7 ranks in skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. 🔮and ♥️ are recommended.

Blessed Redoubts: Describe a divine defense that protects your outposts, the first boon granted to your conspiracy by your patron. Unless specifically defeated, your outposts cannot be removed.

Vast Patron: Describe the patron of this cult. What does the cult leadership know about the patron, and what do they not know? The leaders of the cult can communicate with the patron at roughly the speed of a slow spell.

Devoted Membership: Describe the normative member of your conspiracy. What do they know, and what do they not know, about their patron.

Cult Magic: You can store up to two of each mana during a given season. You can cast through even lower ranking cultists, but only in hexes where you have at least two influence.

Moderate Influence: Choose two Influence Generation Mechanisms. You start with two outposts on the map and one influence in hexes surrounding them to a radius of 1.

Patron’s Fingers: Design a rank 2 army which will serve as a repeated template using a controlled build process. Choose Deathless, Fantastic, or Boonbearer:

• Deathless: The army is composed of undead, constructs, or other mindless beings. It cannot be trained or otherwise level up, but units which would be slain instead drop into torpor, and return to life when the wounds are removed. Fee 1.
• Fantastic: The army is composed of magical creatures rather than mortals. It cannot use equipment and has no class, but has 2 base armor and gains a premium keyword of your choice. Fee 2.
• Boonbearer: The army is composed of your devoted membership, granted strange powers by your patrons. They gain a premium keyword of your choice. Fee 3.

Starting Armies:

• A 6 unit Patron’s Finger Army in an outpost of your choice
• A 6 unit army of rank 1 “Cultist irregulars” in your other outpost.

Starting Resources - Choose 2:

• 1 Favor
• 2 counts of a rank 3 unique material
• 7 coin

Covert Procedures: You take four private actions each month.

Secret Shrines: A common cult ambition is to place shrines to their patron in hidden places across the map. Placing these shrines is a👤*️⃣.

*️⃣🔮 Sacrificial Summoning: Your patron converts an army you control into a Patron’s Finger Army of the same size. Cost: FW Difficulty: The sacrificed army’s size minus its rank.

Advanced Perks#

Flexible Summoning: When you create a Patron’s Finger Army, you may redesign it, though you must keep the selection of Deathless, Fantastic, or Boonbearer. Ignore the second consequence on challenges to produce these armies.

Risen Ranks: *️⃣🌱Rise, Fingers: If you won a battle last season where mortal units were slain, you can try to use their newly freed souls to create a new Patron’s Finger Army. This must occur in the hex where the battle occurred. Create a new Patron’s Finger Army with size equal to the number of excess successes, to a maximum of the number of units slain. Cost: FW. Difficulty: 1

Gate Guardians: As a ↩️when an enemy army musters onto the hex of one of your outposts, attempt to quickly raise a Patron’s Finger army to protect it. The difficulty is equal to the army's fee, and the number of excess successes is the size of the army. These Gate Guardians disappear at the end of the battle step, and do not need to be paid their fee.

Protector Race: Towns that are not of your original ancestry produce double support limit, but armies that are not of your original ancestry cost two support per unit.

Cause:#

Broadly Skilled: Start with 1 rank in 5 skills and 2 ranks in another.

Hydra’s Hearts: Describe a motivation that fills your cause with hope. Unless specifically defeated, when one of your outposts is removed, you can create another at least 6 hexes away where you have at least 1 influence and is not in a town. You can also delay the decision and found the outpost as a Difficulty 0 action later.

Statement of Purpose: What brings people together to break the law and oppose powerful forces of the world? What keeps them bound to this shared purpose, rather than fracturing?

Convicted Membership: Describe the core demographic of this cause. What kind of person does it attract?

Greater Influence: Choose two Influence Generation Mechanisms. You start with three outposts in wilderness hexes and one influence in hexes surrounding them to a radius of 2.

Novice Mages: You can store up to one of each mana during a given season. You can cast through your outposts.

Veteran Rebels: Start with a rank 3 army with 8 units in one of your outposts, built as if from a levy of any ancestry, using a controlled build process. They gain Stealthy in addition to their other keywords.

Starting Resources - Choose 2:

• Fragments of a magic item of your own design
• 2 counts of a rank 2 luxury
• 3 coin

Torches and Pitchforks: You take two private and two public actions each month.

*️⃣ ⚖️Riot Shaping: Convert any amount of Uprising in a town into your Influence. Difficulty: 1, but increased by anything you’ve done to harm the denizens of this town.

*️⃣ 👤Saboteurs: Roll an Xd10 attack on any number of armies in a hex, where X is your influence in its hex after paying costs. Cost: 2 Influence. Difficulty: 2, increased by a further 2 until the end of the season.

*️⃣ ⚔️ Loyalist Levy: Levy an army in a town and immediately rank it up once. The size must be less than or equal to your influence in the town. Cost: Coin equal the army size. Difficulty: 3

Perks#

Righteous Magic: You can store up to two mana of each element during a given season. You can cast from hexes where you have at least two influence.

Molotovs: Your Saboteurs attacks may inflict Burn damage, but this increases the difficulty by 1.

Champions#

Basic Actions:#

*️⃣⚖️Commandeer - Claim a town you stand in until you leave it. Announced publicly, and renounces all claims on other towns. Anyone with a claim on the town may ↩️ to oppose you.

Wizard:#

Highly Skilled: Start with 7 ranks in skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. 📖 and 🔮 are recommended.

Sorcery: Start with 2 Fast and 2 Slow Spells.

Arcane Defense: Privately describe one magical defense on your person and how it could be overcome. It is quite hard to kill you while this defense remains.

Starting Resources - Choose 2:

• Fragments of two magic items of your own design
• 2 counts of a rank 3 unique material
• 7 coin

Shaded Fire: You take five private actions each month. Your final action goes last.

Multifocused: You can have two minor ambitions at a time (You still start with just one).

Excellent Personal Magic: You can store up to three of each mana during a given season. You can cast through your person.

Dealer of Wisdom: At the start of each season, during Tidings, gain 2 insights.

Strange Allies: Describe 2 rogue armies that are on opposite sides of the map, one rank 2 and one rank 3, such as the protectors of independent towns, reclusive fantastical creatures, or wild elementals. You have friendly relations with them, to the extent that you can take control of them for one season without spending an action. You can also negotiate with them on other seasons as an action to convince them that working with you is in their interests, granting you control over them for an amount of time based on the degree of success. Note that you have a support limit of 0, so controlling them across seasons can become very expensive.

Far Traveler: You have a personal mobility of 6.

*️⃣Wander: Move across the map. You may spend a point of movement up to once per hex to gain a mana of that hex’s type. Difficulty: the amount that the movement exceeds your mobility.

Advanced Perks#

Perfected Spell: Perfect one spell you know. The first time you cast a perfected spell each month, reduce its cost by 2. The second time you cast it, reduce its cost by 1.

• Upgrade: Perfect two additional spells.

Channeled Shield: You can generate AFEW mana at any time, but doing so breaks your Arcane Defense for the season.

Master of Artifice: You can personally wield two more magic items.

Dreamwalk: You can meditate to appear in the dreams of a creature you have previously made eye contact with or connected to magically, including creatures in other planes or well protected from physical interference. While meditating your body is still but you are aware of its surroundings and can respond to danger.

Elemental Flexibility: When you cast a spell, substitute up to one required mana for mana of another type.

Dragon:#

Raider: Start with 2 ranks in ⚔️
Moderately Skilled: Start with 5 ranks in other skills, with up to two ranks in each skill.

Awesome Power: You are a premium ⭐titanic rank 4 army with 4 units and a terrestrial element, such as an adult dragon, a mutated giant basilisk, an avenging angel, or an ancient giant. You are Loyal only to yourself. This stat block is enough to fight toe to toe with most rogue armies or the defenses of small towns, but the full force of an opposed power can usually stop you. For now.

Dread Growth: At the start of each season, during Tidings, gain 1 unit in your army, keeping track of the maximum reached. If you are less than the maximum, gain 2 instead.

Startling Immunity: Describe one magical defense on your person and how it could be overcome. It is quite hard to kill you directly while this defense remains, and when you would be slain in battle you instead retreat, with all but one mortal wound, to a hex of the GM’s choice.

Resources - None. All you have is the strength of your body and your avarice for the wealth of others.

Unsubtle Acts: You take four public actions each month.

Personal Magic: You can store up to two of each mana during a given season. You can cast through your person.

*️⃣Trample Terrain: Move publicly across the map. You may spend a hex of movement and damage a feature (such as dungeons, walls, or industries) when you leave a hex to gain one mana of that hex’s element. The difficulty is the amount that the movement exceeds your mobility, plus the total level of opposed armies in those hexes.
*️⃣⚔️Slaughter: Reduce the population of a claimed town you are in by 1, then gain Fear or Respect equal to the new population. Apply 2 “Uprising”. Difficulty: The stacks of Uprising and Depopulated + the total units of opposed armies in this town.
*️⃣⚖️Sack: Reduce the wealth of a claimed town you are in by 1, then gain Coin equal to the new Wealth. Apply 2 “Uprising”. Difficulty: The level of Uprising + the total units of opposed armies in this town.

Advanced Perks#

Knowledge Gobbler: When you win a battle where an enemy cast a spell, learn it. Gain the following action.
*️⃣ 🔮Inquisitive Eater: Gain an insight of rank equal to the new population of a claimed town you are in. Apply 2 Uprising and 2 Depopulated. Difficulty: The level of Uprising + the total units of opposed armies in this town.

Ironskin: Mortally wounded units in your personal army still count for combat checks (but when the last is slain, you still must escape or perish).
🆚
Ironmind: Routed units in your personal army still count for combat checks (but if all of you routs, you still must rout)

Warbacked: You can carry another willing army with you, treating yourself as their garrison. Increase your support limit by 5.

Monstrous: Gain a premium army keyword.

Subtle Titan: Your army gains Stealthy and half of your monthly actions become private

• Upgrade: Increase the Stealthy bonus to Strengthened 2 and all of your monthly actions become private

Magical Beast: You can store three of each mana, and generate one mana of your element at the start of each season.
🆚
Divine Beast: Your element is Light or Dark. Generate two mana of this element at the start of each season.

Paragon:#

Moderately Skilled: Start with 5 ranks in other skills, with up to two ranks in each skill. 📖 and ⚔️ are recommended.

Protective Blessing: Describe one magical defense on your person and how it could be overcome. It is quite hard to kill you while this defense remains.

Mentorship: One elderly rank 2 Rooted agent garrisoned in a hex of your choice with a mobility of 0. Describe how they helped you develop your moral footing

Holy Magic: You can store up to two mana of each element during a given season. You can cast through your person. Choose 1 of the following actions:
*️⃣Meditate: Gain 1 mana matching each terrain you’ve passed through this month
*️⃣Preach: Gain 1 mana of each elemental association of armies you lead

Wandering Warrior - Choose 1

• Fight Like 10 Men: At the start of battle, choose a friendly army. Grant it an extra unit (yourself). That unit is always the last to be wounded or routed, and routs instead if it would be slain. For each rank less than 4 that the army has, grant it +2 die size to Attack, Presence or Morale.
• Battlefield Sabotage: During the spellcasting step once each battle, choose an enemy army. Exhaust it and inflict 2 wounds.
• Reinvigorating Speech: When you command an army, they may recover a routed unit.

Starting Resources - Choose 2:

• Fragments of a magic item of your own design
• 2 counts of a rank 2 luxury
• 3 coin

Mobile garrison: You can become the garrison point for armies you control. This is called “Leading” them. You have a support limit of 5. You take 4 actions per month: they are public if you are leading any armies, and private otherwise.

Far Traveler: You have a personal mobility of 5.

*️⃣🦶March: Move yourself and armies garrisoned on you. The movement cost is doubled for rough terrain and halved by roads, and compared to each army’s mobility. For armies and yourself moved beyond their mobility, the difficulty is increased by the difference.

Advanced Perks#

Crusader: Gain +5 Support Limit and the following action.
*️⃣♥️Onward, for Further Glory: In the month after battling alongside an army, you gain control of them by convincing them to join you, though the Power that controls them could ↩️ to oppose the attempt.

• Upgrade: You have a +2 on rolls to gain control of an army from “Onward, for Further Glory!” and the second army you lead does not reduce your march speed.

Borrowed Magic: You can store an additional mana of each element during a given season. You can cast through any army you lead, though doing so reduces the effective rank by 1.

Greater Holy Magic: You can store an additional mana of each element during a given season. You can use either of your Holy Magic actions.

Distant Loyalties: Your claims remain when you leave a town and you can claim up to two towns at a time.

Warmaster: Choose another wandering warrior option. Gain +5 Support Limit.

Assured Trainer: When training an army your ⚔️skill is assured. Gain +5 Support Limit.